A constructionist learning environment for teachers to model learning designs

This article makes the case for a learning-design support environment to help and scaffold teachers’ engagement with, and development of, technology-enhanced learning, based on user requirements and pedagogical theory (Bloom, Biggs, Kalaš, Papert, DiSessa, Masterman et al). Craft’s contribution focused on the design of the user interface of the software system in question, drawing upon fieldwork with informant practitioners in a series of iterative design workshops and user studies. The research is innovative within the field because the system described supports teachers’ design activities. The article, published in a leading peer-reviewed UK journal on technology-enhanced learning, explains the design approach of the ESRC/EPSRC-funded technology-enhanced learning project Learning Design Support Environment (2008–11), for which the authors were co-investigators. The project investigated ways in which digital technologies can be used to support teachers in designing effective technology-enhanced learning. The full outcomes of the research are documented on the project website . The research outlined in the article was conducted over a three-year period, under the auspices of the Learning Design Support Environment project. It was produced with a large cohort of informant practitioners in HE institutions across the UK and involved the development of software, practitioner interviews, focus groups, design workshops and usability evaluations. The project employed a design-research methodology, with successive iterative phases of feed-through and feedback between key phases of design, development and evaluation. The research has been cited by Dobozy (2013) and Boyle and Ravenscroft (2012), and used to inform the development of a related publication by Masterman and Craft ‘Designing and evaluating representations to model pedagogy research in learning technology’ in Research in Learning Technology (2013)