Inproceedings,
Students' interpretations of learning tasks: Implications for educational design
Proceedings of the ASCILITE 2007 conference, Singapore, (2007)
Abstract
This paper is concerned with the issues that arise when one sees teaching as a process of
design, and students as co-constructors of their learning environments. The dominant
models of design, we argue, tend to either configure the learner as a compliant consumer of
educational designs and a well-behaved user of educational technologies, or they tend to
romanticise learners as media savvy experts on managing their own learning. In our view,
‘teaching-as-design’ needs to be supported with intellectual resources that avoid these
extremes. To get a better sense of how design should be informed by a knowledge of
student perspectives, we present the outcomes of some recent research into the ways in
which students on ‘blended learning’ courses interpret the requirements of learning through
discussion and learning through inquiry.
