Reflections on the conversation...

Diana Laurillard, April 21, 2012

Thanks to everyone who participated for these discussions. The conversation has taken the issues from the starting point I offered to address also the broader context of what it would mean for teaching to be practiced as a design science. Here is a precis of some of the points you made that I'll certainly build on in future:
1. The big problem is the lack of time provided for inservice in methods and practises related to computer based learning.
2. There needs to be a resource that informs us of the available resources and technologies we can use.
3. We need a 'rubbish mark' to help the 'crap detection' process as we search through the technology resources available for those that actually contribute to the learning process.
4. Pedagogical innovation should be open to everyone not just a select group of 'professional' educators.
5. We need a fundamental shift to see 'teacher-student' as a continuum or interchangeable role rather than a discrete category or otherness.
6. As for any design professional, the teacher plays many other roles as well - social worker and manager are among those.
7. Teaching as a design profession is not really about technology. It's about having a design mindset, a process or framework for designing an optimal learning environment and optimal learning products.
The idea of 'teaching being a design science' is too esoteric for many teachers. Teachers are seen, by the government, as deliverers of what the state decides they should deliver. So there is much to be said for promoting the idea of teaching as a design science. It would breathe new life and thought into what the profession entails. It would be looking at the profession through a different lens and would suggest personal teaching, just as we are currently encouraged to promote personal learning in students.

Thanks so much for your part in the conversation. Please follow up by email if you'd like to take it further. This is just the beginning, I hope!
Diana
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