462 / 547
Intentionality and effectiveness: the significance of
design
•
‘Design’ incorporates key meanings such as clear purpose, planning, bringing
multiple elements together into a coherent whole, employing different means
towards a specific end, creativity…
•
all of which are central to facilitating desired educational outcomes
•
‘Design for learning’ has special features, for example:
•
‘… design is probably most powerful when conceived as the intelligent centre of the whole
teaching-
learning lifecycle.’
(Goodyear 2015: 32)
•
The design process can overcome the danger that ‘being submerged in the taken
-for-granted
assumptions of both a disciplinary tradition and a teaching tradition can make solutions look
deceptively self-
evident.’
(op.cit.31)
•
‘A common design tactic is to reframe the problem as presented, to see whether a more
radical approach .. might actually be better.’
(op.cit.38)
•
‘Design usually entails resolving tensions between competing objectives.’
(op.cit.35)
•
A commitment to coherent design should underpin HE development
•
design expertise should be recognised as a key element of educational ‘expertise’
(after
Kreber 2002),
and thus as a key attribute of academics in their role as professional
educators
13