What is Learning Design and Technology?

 

This image represents the learning and instructional design team as a group of lifelong learners who must constantly learn new technology and skills as they work together in a rapidly changing digital world.
Image Source: Civil Service College Singapore

My personal definition of learning design is the creation of learning experiences that are tailored to the learner, the environment, and the content of an objective or set of objectives. Learning design can be used by a teacher to create lessons and learning activities in a classroom setting, a community college or university to design effective online learning experiences, or by any company or organization that has goals to onboard and upskill its employees or create training for staff and customers. 

I often think of learning design from a digital perspective with examples ranging from the creation of instructor-led online courses, to self-directed, asynchronous training for new employees. Technology plays a crucial role in creating effective learning experiences in these settings. The learning design team must be comfortable using many different online and digital tools to create interactive, objective-driven, and iterative learning that is tailored to the audience of that particular course. 

The key phrase in defining an approach to teaching and training with technology is: Lifelong Learner. Technology is constantly evolving and new tools and resources must be embraced to create the most up-to-date and relevant training and teaching experiences. 

To me, this means that I will be learning new apps, design-tools, and online learning tools almost constantly. I recently integrated the use of the online collaborative discussion board tools padlet and flippity, into my teacher-led online course in Canvas. Students are able to post and share text, images, videos, and links that relate to the content being learned. They can collaborate to create content and share learning with each other, as well as create and participate in teacher and student created gamification of their learning and study tools. 

While many educational institutions use Canvas for their Learning Management System, corporations and other organizations use a variety of LMSs and digital tools. In addition to the ability to adapt to new and developing learning management tools, learning design also requires skills in multimedia creation with digital design tools such as video editing, image and infographic design, and webpage and design. While I have experience in using Photoshop, Google Apps, Microsoft Suite, Powerpoint, Canvas, DaVinci, Canva, and many other applications, there are nearly unlimited tools available and each organization will likely require knowledge in different ones, making a passion for lifelong learning a necessity for any learning designer. 

I recently read several articles that give insight into what learning design and technology is. In the article “In search of the secret handshakes of ID,” by Ellen Wagner, it states that learning designers must “develop a moderate level of technological proficiency, and will need to be able to demonstrate those proficiencies using a variety of soft-ware.” Wagner also lists the essential skills of learning and instructional designers as having effective writing skills for anything from blogs and emails to project and research proposals, effective presentation and teaching skills that engage, persuade, and call to action, and finally, they must have an appreciation for the appearance and design as well as the content of the learning (Wagner, 2011, #37). 

A final component of learning and instructional design I would like to discuss is the ability to design and teach for all learners. This requires an excellent understanding of the audience as well as a desire and ability to create universal and accessible learning environments. In order to understand your learning audience, the designer must be willing to develop the skills of researching, collecting and interpreting data and using that data to inform instruction. 

Gronseth et al, discuss how instruction can fail to meet the needs of the diverse learners it is intended for in their section, “Designing for Diverse Learners,” from the book Design for Learning: Principles, Processes, and Praxis. It states, “empathic understanding is not binary, that is, it is not simply present or absent; rather, it is a skill that can be developed and deepened over time through experience and effort” (Gronseth et al., 2021). I believe this is one of the most important ways that learning and instructional designers must apply their life long learning skills as they strive to constantly develop empathy and understanding of their audience and can therefore create and regularly improve their instruction to meet the diverse needs of their learners.

In summary, learning designers must not only have the teaching and technical skills needed to create effective learning, they must also be passionate about lifelong learning as they continue to meet the demands of a rapidly changing digital world. Most importantly, they must also use their lifelong learning skills to allow them to iterate the universal design process to meet the needs of all learners. In short, not only is the instruction constantly improving, but also the designers themselves. 

 References 

Gronseth, S. L., Michela, E., & Oluchi Uguwu, L. (2021). Designing for Diverse Learners (R. E. West & J. K. McDonald, Eds.). In Design for Learning: Principles, Processes, and Praxis. Brigham Young University IP&T Department. Design for Learning: Principles, Processes, and Praxis 

Wagner, E. (2011, April). In search of the secret handshakes of ID. The Journal of Applied Instructional Design, 1(1), 33-37.