5.1 Introduction
It’s time to close the circle, and say something about the last two activities in the course design activities cycle: the installation of the course or lesson in the learner’s programme, and the end evaluation of the design. This latter event is the moment of truth. Its result will tell you how successful you have […]
5.2 Installation
Once a course or lesson has been tested and revised, it is ready for installation (activity 5, Fig. 1) in the system to which it belongs.
4.4 Case study no. 5: Riding out the storm
In this case study we return to the Botany students and their encounter with the use of the scientific method of enquiry into the phenomenon of apical dominance in plants. The results, you will remember, were not all that we hoped for in this think-band-do-for-yourself type of experiment. The encounter in most groups scored too […]
3.1 Introduction
‘What is the difference between the mental gymnastics of thinking up a design and the mental gymnastics of working out a design?’
3.2 What does setting up the S-R events involve?
An S-R event is an educational happening. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. It occupies a relatively short or relatively long time-slot in the course or lesson to which it belongs. It has its own identity. If necessary you can, for example, temporarily take it out of the course or lesson, clean […]
3.3 What choice is there for sequencing the S-R events?
‘Chain’, ‘necklace’, ‘spiral’, ‘network’, ‘hybrid’ — these are the titles we use in the Think Tank workshop for the different methods of sequencing S-R events that a thought-up design can demand. A thought-up design has a ‘route map’ in it; it will tell you the order in which it wants the worked-out design to let […]
3.4 What does ‘controlling the quality of an S-R event’ involve?
This activity in the working out of a design is something which is going on intuitively and automatically when you have had some experience in working out designs. This is because, as you come to work out a thought-up design, the criteria for a good design which helped you think it up have taken on […]
3.5 Case study no. 3: Pictures in your mind
From our own experience in learning situations we know how special and important it can be to imagine something. Why then don’t we (as designers and teachers) give more attention to the use of the student’s imagination in a teaching-learning situation? Imagination can be a very powerful tool for learning. Below is a description of […]
3.6 Case study no. 4: Giving students the chance to think for themselves
As a designer of courses and lessons you will always be in demand if you have success in creating response environments for learning in which students are given the responsibility and the chance to think for themselves.
1.5 Is there a special language of design?
The answer to this, for design decision-making at the micro level, is ‘yes’.