Innovate Online – Boettcher and 10 Core Principles for Designing Effective Learning Environments

I’ll start with the list:

1. Every Structured Learning Experience Has Four Elements with the Learner at the Center
2. Every Learning Experience Includes the Environment in which the Learner Interacts
3. We Shape Our Tools and Our Tools Shape Us
4. Faculty are the Directors of the Learning Experience
5. Learners Bring Their Own Personalized Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes to the Learning Experience
6. Every Learner Has a Zone of Proximal Development That Defines the Space That a Learner is Ready to Develop into Useful Knowledge
7. Concepts are Not Words; Concepts are Organized and Intricate Knowledge Clusters
8. All Learners Do Not Need to Learn All Course Content; All Learners Do Need to Learn the Core Concepts
9. Different Instruction is Required for Different Learning Outcomes
10. Everything Else Being Equal, More Time-on-Task Equals More Learning

This article reminds us of quite a few things that sometimes get left behind when it comes to the design of courses in much of secondary and post secondary education. Especially when the structure of the overall learning environment is not considered so that individual instructors can create their own delivery plans without regard for what has come before or after them. As much as anything else, this is what leads to a lack of transfer and an increase in the frustration level of students.

Overall, the kicker point of the entire paper (for me) is 8. Technology, learner history and the general environment has changed so much (at times even during the term of the class) that there is no way that we can expect that every learner will want to get the same information out of the course or even access it in the same way. Every learner wants to get essentially a “tool” from the class that they can use to further manipulate their understanding of the world. Even if the course that is being taught is a “throw away” that isn’t anything that the student is going to need, what they will need to be able to “throw away” the course is the concepts needed to pass. They need to know “generally” what is needed on the exam and nothing more. Even for the students who want the course in question, there is the challenge of pre-requisites. The next course in the line should not rely on the transfer of some obscure facts, but rather the concepts of the previous courses – the ways of thinking should be more valuable than the results. This also underscores the manner by which students will put these concepts together – it’s not always through the “sage on the stage” nor is it through the door stopper that is being used as a textbook.