Overview

Development and Evaluation allows you to build on your knowledge of how people learn and use your understanding of learning design frameworks to bring your own learning designs to life! As you conceptualize assessment as a communication tool, you’ll consider the role of diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments. Look at different assessment formats and how learners can use them to show what they know. Using ideas from cognitive science and multimedia theories, explore how to create engaging and effective content for learners. Most importantly, you’ll think about evaluation approaches to understand the efficacy of your designs for learning, including formative, summative, and confirmative. This course includes an immersive activity to give you a taste of what it is like to independently meet with and consult for project stakeholders. At the conclusion of the course and the series, you’ll turn your attention again to cultivating your identity as a learning experience designer and consider how you can showcase your skills through a learning experience design professional portfolio.

Syllabus

Media Design for Learning

In Week 1 of the course, you’ll explore ideas around designing media that can support learning. You will start by discussing a theoretical perspective on multimedia learning: the dual-channel assumption. This will be the basis for a number of multimedia design principles that you can use and explore to help you effectively develop multimedia content for learning experiences. You will also consider content creation from another perspective: accessibility. You will look at resources on accessibility that can help you think about how to ensure that the content you create is accessible along multiple dimensions to support a wide range of learners.

Assessment of Learning

In Week 2 of the course, you’ll focus on different aspects of assessment and the role it plays in learning experience design. You will look at the definition assessment to contrast it with the definition of evaluation to help you see the purpose of assessment in your designs. You will then look at different types of assessment, what roles each of those play, and approaches to designing assessments. Finally, you will look at rubrics and approaches for designing rubrics as assessment tools. All of this will help you see how assessment can help you refine and describe the ultimate learning impacts of your designs.

Evaluation of Designs for Learning

In Week 3 of the course, you’ll now transition to exploring evaluation and the role that it plays in learning experience design. Building on the previous lesson’s distinction with assessment, here you will look at evaluation in more detail along with the rationale for evaluation when you are designing for learning. You will look at different types of evaluation and what you gain from each approach. You will then look at some evaluation frameworks that can help you see why and how to measure the quality of your designs.

Enter into Professional Practice

In Week 4 of the course, you’ll focus on entering the professional practice of learning experience design. You will review different career paths that connect with different aspects of learning experience design, and take a look at where the field might be headed to help you think about what direction you might want to pursue to move towards your own professional aspirations. You will also work on developing your own professional portfolio, where you can see how portfolios are used to convey your work and skill sets, and to help you start thinking about communicating your growing skills as a learning experience designer.