The 7Cs of Learning Design provides a framework for conceptualizing, capturing, communicating, collaborating, considering, combining, and consolidating elements in the course design process. The framework involves envisioning learning goals and principles, finding and creating resources, designing communication and collaboration activities, mapping outcomes to assessments, combining activities into course overviews and timelines, implementing the design, evaluating effectiveness, and refining and sharing the design.

1. An update on the
7Cs of Learning Design
Gráinne Conole
University of Leicester
11/1/2013

2. The 7Cs of Learning Design
Vision
Conceptualise
Activities
Capture Communicate Collaborate Consider
Synthesis
Combine
Implementation
Consolidate

3. Conceptualise
• Vision for the course,
including: Conceptualise
– Why, who and what you want to
design Course Features
– The key principles and Personas
pedagogical approaches
– The nature of the learners

4. Capture
• Finding and creating
interactive materials Capture
– Undertaking a resource audit of
existing OER Resource Audit
Learner Generate
– Planning for creation of Content
additional multimedia such as
interactive materials, podcasts
and videos
– Mechanism for enabling
learners to create their own
content

5. Communicate
• Designing activities that foster
communication, such as: Communicate
– Looking at the affordances of
the use of different tools to Affordances
promote communication E-moderating
– Designing for effective online
moderating

6. Collaborate
• Designing activities that foster
collaboration, such as: Collaborate
– Looking at the affordances of
the use of different tools to Affordances
promote collaboration CSCL Ped.
Patterns
– Using CSCL (collaborative)
Pedagogical Patterns such as
JIGSAW, Pyramid, etc.

7. Consider
• Designing activities that foster
reflection Collaborate
• Mapping Learning Outcomes
Los/Assessment
(LOs) to assessment Assessment
• Designing assessment Ped. Patterns
activities, including
– Diagnostic, formative,
summative assessment and
peer assessment

8. Combine
• Combining the learning activities
into the following:
– Course View which provides a Combine
holistic overview of the nature of
the course Course View
– Activity profile showing the
amount of time learners are Activity Profile
spending on different types of
activities Storyboard
– Storyboard: a temporal sequence Learning Pathway
of activities mapped to resources
and tools
– Learning pathway: a temporal
sequence of the learning designs

9. Consolidate
• Putting the completed design
into practice
Combine
– Implementation: in the classroom,
through a VLE or using a Implementation
specialised Learning Design tool
evaluation
– Evaluation of the effectiveness of
the design Refinement
– Refinement based on the Sharing
evaluation findings
– Sharing with peers through social
media and specialised sites like
Cloudworks