The help which is offered to teachers and designers in the Think Tank workshop involves the use of four decision-making aids. The aids, or referents as I would prefer to call them (because of how they function), are shown in Fig. 3.
Figure 3 Four referents that help you think up a design
The two-way arrows in the diagram tell you that the process of thinking up the design for a piece of instruction with the help of these four referents is a dynamic one. The four referents and an emerging idea for a design interact constantly amongst themselves in the mind of the designer until a solution to the problem — an appropriate design — is found. Although numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4, this in no way implies a sequence for use of the referents. The mind of the designer darts back and forth within the content of each referent, between referents and in and out of the ‘current’ idea for a design. The process of thinking up a design is a heuristic one; it is in no way prescriptive.
What are these four referents, with their vaguely esoteric names?