I have several presentations coming up related to my learning environment design framework, and I think it’s time to spiff it up a bit. When you work with a framework for a long time, your experiences, the questions your colleagues ask, and new arenas of application give you plenty of food for thought about what the model accounts for and what it doesn’t. I’ve been changing the language I use to describe the process of designing a learning environment, and it’s time to update the component list as well.
To those of you who feel like you just stepped into the middle of a conversation, a learning environment (to my mind) is a collection of resources and activities for learning. The resources may be inanimate or human; the activities may be formal or informal. A well designed learning environment is curated with a specific need in mind. It may be curated by an individual (as in a personal learning environment), by a group (such as a community of practice), or by a designer who is supporting a specific complex need that can’t be met by training or other formal programs alone.
I’ve been promoting learning environment design as a way of thinking about what we used to call blended learning, and as a way of capitalizing on informal learning resources by curating the best materials (in your judgment) and making them easily accessible by your learners.
You can get a lot of information about my evolving thinking on the subject by clicking over to the Learning Environment Design tab on my blog site.
Through this post, I thought I would share some of the revisions I am in the process of making. I would love your feedback and input!
These revisions are related to the list of learning components – I have been trying to capture – in a quick one page view – all of the varied resources and processes that people use to learn (or at least the highlights). In strategy consulting (and my own personal learning environment design), I use this list to guide my assessment of the scope of the environment that currently exists as well as to shape the range of learning resources I might recommend. It’s been a pretty handy document in my work, and others have let me know it works for them as well.
That doesn’t mean it couldn’t use a little retooling. Here are the items I am trying to address:
> There are several important concepts in learning and development that aren’t explicitly called out in the list of components. The possibility of having performance support as a learning resource and the increasing use of social media to support learning are both buried in other language on the list.
> The categories need to be more straightforward and relatable. I mean, why not just call “relationships and networks” people?
> The component lists are a little long, and use different words to refer to the same general idea. That’s partially because we do use different words to refer to the same general idea, but I think that can be cleaned up a bit.
So here’s what I’ve come up with so far:
Click here for the PDF: LED Components
Here’s the old one: Component Graphic 07-2010
What do you think? If you have suggestions or questions, let me know.
And if you are the Training 2013 conference in Florida next month, stop in to see what I say about it! Monday, February 18, 2 pm – Session #312 – Learning Environments by Design: Your role as curator.
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[...] morning, Stephen Downes’s OLDaily introduced me to a recent post by Catherine Lombardozzi, Time for an evolution. In the post, Catherine discusses her approach to learning environments and their design. She [...]
[...] Time for an evolution [...]
[...] Catherine Lombardozzi writes, in Time for an Evolution: [...]
Like the idea of a Learning Environment suggesting a larger stage to present on than the simple classroom isolated from the world. In online courses we seem stuck it broadcast model with minimal to no feedback which makes it difficult to enter into a relationship with learning–in online courses I sometimes feel like I’m looking through the classroom window from the outside and displaced by time from what I’m observing.
This sense of being a whole participant feels like it should be located in the “People” column? As a student a person may not have the developed support system they would have in a more comprehensive environment. How would this be created?
While we’ve been talking about “blended learning” for years, I don’t think we routinely take formal learning outside of the box, so I agree with you there. When I talk about learning environment design, I tend to position it as an approach for meeting learning needs that are complex enough that it’s hard to imagine you could package up a formal training program or course that would meet all those needs. We have to think bigger.
Even in my academic work, I am beginning to consider how to engage learning beyond the course or outside of the course environment so that it lives on and continues being advanced beyond the 10-15 week set of activities. I imagine that should be considered as much at the curriculum (degree) level as at the course level – schools that require internships, for example, are reaching out beyond the classroom to ensure more well-rounded and deeper learning.
As someone who’s very new at this, I like the concept of a learning environment framework a lot. I think it’s outstanding. Was wondering about whether Performance Support should be listed under Development Practices, rather than Resources. To me, it seemed passive as a resource and not as relationship-oriented as the word “support” conveys.
An interesting point, Kathleen… I suppose it depends on what you mean by performance support. A lot of performance support is delivered electronically – resources readily available at the point of need. But we also talk about coaches and “sidekicks” as performance support, and those would clearly be in the people column. The truth of the matter is that despite the pretty lines, the lines between these categories are quite fuzzy. Course designs often contain blended components that wind up in the other columns, people “lurk” in formal courses to use them more as learning resources rather than to accomplish the state goals of the program. Many of the items could be justified in multiple columns, I think.
I think evolution implies the need to break from the top down order the Victorian model has provided for our communal thought, our institutional “wisdom”. It suggests man’s intelligence superior to all of the rest.
The evolved model recognizes and includes both intelligence that H. sapiens has accumulated and that from which ours developed. It is Earth based and utilizes every community’s natural settings where educational specialists will connect the real world with state teaching objectives. The product of this effort guides our young toward a balanced appreciation of the whole self, in the process of learning to trust both learned and innate aspects of our intelligence.
This concept requires all educators willing to show respect for “both feet” as an example to others. Our whole intellect always understands academic/theoretical and contextual/practical values. The Victorian model divides them into the this or that choices with little middle ground. Ironically, that is where our Democratic, socially aware values lie.
Now is the time for the kind of change all of us would like to believe in regardless of which side we’re on. I see it as our adult responsibility as educators to provide the example from which we all teach/learn ourselves.
[...] podcast, the support is focused on the environment the individual is in at that time of need. “A well designed learning environment is curated with a specific need in mind. It may be curated by a….” Whether we are creating content that is delivered asynchronous or synchronous, blended or [...]