Keynote presentation of the ICEM 2013 / 8th International LAMS & Learning Design conference at NTU, Singapore, Octoboer 2013 - part 1

1. The Larnaca Declaration on
Learning Design –
Implications for the Future
James Dalziel
Professor of Learning Technology &
Director, Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE)
Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
james@melcoe.mq.edu.au
www.melcoe.mq.edu.au
Keynote presentation for ICEM 2013 & 8 th International LAMS & Learning Design Conference, October
3rd, 2013

2. Overview
• **Part 1: Background
• **Part 1: The Larnaca Declaration on Learning Design
– Framework / Representation
– Conceptual Map
– Practice
• Part 2: Challenges for the Future

3. Background: ALTC/OLT Fellowship
• “Success Factors for adopting Learning Design”
– From July 2011 to Dec 2012
• Expert group meetings and discussions
– Pedagogic Planner meetings in Europe 2007-2010
– Fellowship meetings: Oxford Oct 2011 & Sydney Dec 2011
– Larnaca meeting in Sep 2012 & Nov Sydney followup – basis
for Larnaca Declaration write up
– Recent followup meeting in Bintan – working towards edited
book for 2014; Larnaca as opening chapter
Support for this project has been provided by the Australian Government Office for Learning and
Teaching. The views in this project do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian
Government Office for Learning and Teaching.

4. The problem that led to Larnaca Declaration
• Years of meetings with experts to discuss core ideas of
Learning Design – interesting but no sense of
breakthrough
• December 2011 meeting discussion of “agreed
common ground”, yet not documented - want to avoid
restating same foundational ideas each time we meet
• Discussion in Larnaca led to some key new ideas for
foundations for the field of Learning Design
• Released as “Larnaca Declaration” (Dec 2012)
• Recent edits to improve document arising from Bintan
meeting (Sep 2013) to be released later in 2013

5. Timeline of developments in the field of Learning Design

6. “Pedagogically neutral” ?
• Learning Design is not like other pedagogical theories,
as it does not propose a theory of how students learn,
and therefore how teachers should teach
– This is what makes Learning Design distinctive
• Rather, it seeks to develop a “pedagogical meta-model”
for describing examples of teaching and learning based
on many different pedagogical theories
– “Arrangement” of teachers and learners in a sequence of
activities
• Learning Design as “pedagogically neutral”
– (or… aspires to be….)

7. Date of manuscript unknown. Held in Florence, Italy.
Photo by Asiir 17:00, 13 February 2007, Wikipedia.org
First page of the manuscript of Bach's lute suite in
G Minor. Wikipedia.org

8. Learning Design Representation
• Learning Design is yet to develop an agreed
representation/notation like music, but we have early
“pointers” to what it might be
• See Larnaca for more details – 3 examples here
– LAMS (Role Play example)
– AUTC Flow diagram (Predict Observe Explain example)
– Pattern example (Jigsaw example)
• NB: Terminology
– Learning Design = the field of study
– a learning design = a specific instance
– teaching strategy = a design based on a pedagogical approach

9. LAMS representation (example of Role Play Sequence)

10. AUTC representation (example of Predict Observe Explain)

11. Pattern representation (example of jigsaw)

12. Learning Design Core Concepts
Three parts:
1.Representation – formal description of the flow of
teaching and learning activities
…but also…
2.Sharing – sharing of learning designs to be viewed, reused, adapted, shared back
3.Guidance – accompanying information about the
background and rationale for the learning design

13. Learning Design Conceptual Map
• In Larnaca we realised that we needed a much wider
“map” of the educational landscape beyond just the
“notation” idea
• We re-used the “metamodel” idea to try to build a broad
map that could be used to analyse many different
approaches to education
– Help to draw attention to what aspects are prominent (and less
so) across the broader landscape for a given theory, and where
the same component of the map is interpreted differently

14. Challenge
Creating learning experiences aligned to particular pedagogical approaches and learning objectives
Teaching Cycle
Educational Philosophy
Level of Granularity
All pedagogical approaches
All disciplines
Program
Theories & Methodologies
Module
A range based on assumptions
about the Learning Environment
Session
Learning Environment:
Characteristics & Values
Learning Activities
External Agencies Institution
Educator Learner
Core Concepts of Learning Design
Guidance
Representation
Sharing
Implementation
Tools
Resources
Learner Responses
Feedback
Assessment
Learner Analytics
Evaluation

15. New Foundations for Learning Design
• Why develop a “neutral” framework/notation for
educational activities?
• Why develop a “neutral” map for the broader landscape
of education?
• To help educators identify, share and adapt
effective teaching and learning activities
– What matters for music is using the notation system to convey
beautiful music, not the notation system itself
• …and there are different styles of beautiful music (Baroque,
Classical. Modern)
– So any Learning Design framework/notation, and the wider
conceptual map, is to foster greater sharing of effective
teaching and learning activities – “Learning Design Practice”

16. New Foundations for Learning Design
• Many educators already use the phrase “Learning
Design” to mean something like
“how I design activities to help my students to learn”
• Effective doesn’t mean only collaborative or
constructivist learning approaches – sometimes “drill
and practice” is the most effective method
• The key issue is how educators use the most effective
methods to suit their context and subject matter
– More sharing of effective teaching ideas gives educators a
wider range of options to foster effective learning

17. Learning Design
Learning Design
Learning
Design
Conceptual
Map
(LD-CM)
Learning
Design
Framework
(LD-F)
Learning
Design
Practice
(LD-P)
The Larnaca Declaration on Learning Design:
New Definitions for the future of the field