Learning & Activity Types

Learning Types

While the act of learning is quite mysterious, the various ways in which we learn have been studied quite extensively. Laurillard (2002) developed a set of '[[learning types]]' as part of her Conversational Framework that outlined ways of designing learning with technology:

1. Acquisition
2. Investigation
3. Practice
4. Production
5. Collaboration
6. Discussion

These types of learning have been adopted by a range of frameworks and processes in the learning design field including the ABC Learning Design Toolkit and RMIT. A few variations and refinements have appeared over the years and at the University of Adelaide we have also played around with the definitions and types of learning. The reason for tweaking the originals to be more expansive in terms of their definitions, include different ways of learning or to avoid confusion as to how to categorise the kinds of activities students would complete.

The types of learning discussed and used within the Online Programs Team are:

• Assimilative - Learning through presented information
• Investigative - Learning by seeking information
• Formative - Learning by trying
• Discursive - Learning by engaging with other perspectives
• Productive - Learning by creating artefacts
• Evaluative - Learning through feedback
• Social - Learning with others

A well rounded course would incorporate all these different types of learning. This would allow students multiple opportunities to build their schema in different ways, to have their learning scaffolded and reinforced and to engage in a multimedia and multisensory experience of learning.

Activity Types

Laurillard's original intent for her learning types was to provide a vocabulary to discuss different approaches to learning and help facilitate a discussion as part of the curriculum development process. As we have worked through the design and development of our own programs we have felt that they require a level literacy around educational practices, theory and pedagogy that many academic staff don't have. They also focus on the learning the student will do but don't really define the experience of learning - where learners will spent their time and what exactly will need to be developed in order to do that learning.

From a designers perspective they don't tell us or the course authors we work with what we need to develop with them. To augment the learning types we developed a list of activity types to sit along side them.

These activities use common basic information that help to communicate to the course author:

• what the students will be spending their time doing
• what they will spend their time creating during the development of the course.

The types of activity that the Online Programs Team have developed are:

• Content - Creating information for the student
• External Resources - Curating information for the student
• Practice - Providing opportunities to try things out
• Discussion - Creating opportunities to share and engage with different perspectives
• Assessment - Producing evidence of learning
• Review - Creating opportunities to test themselves and learn from feedback
• Interactive - Create opportunities to learn from others

Matching Activity & Learning

The aim of having both activity types and learning types is not to create competing terminology, but rather terminology that is fit for purpose. The reality is that the activities and types go hand in hand:

• Acquisition = Content
• Investigative = External Resources
• Formative = Practice
• Discursive = Discussion
• Productive = Assessment
• Evaluative = Review
• Social = Interactive

Discussion with a course author the need for more acquisition learning doesn't cut through to them that you want them to write up content to explain a concept. Aligning the activity and learning also allows us to create a shorthand in terms of developing the kinds of active learning approach we want to see, where student spend more time being active and doing things rather than just passively consuming information. For example read the textbook as an External Resource shouldn't just mean that students read, but that they should be Investigating with that resource - seeking specific answers or finding out information or knowledge from the source.

This marrying of Activity Types and Learning Types allows us as learning designers to discuss more complex goals and experiences with our academics and gives us a language that they too can use to explain their practice and motivations.

Developing a common language of design is a key to having great conversations and working on challenging tasks with your course author.