1. "Start with assessment" is the approach taken by Wiggins and McTighe in their excellent "Understanding by Design."
2. "Desirable difficulty" aligns with Vygotsky's "Zone of Proximal Development." If learning is too easy, there's no real learning (easy means the learner already knows the content) and it gets boring. If learning is too hard, the learner gets overwhelmed, stops paying attention, and then gets behind such that catching up is essentially impossible.
3. On the topic of attention, I'm by no means an academic expert, but I've spent a fair bit of time and effort thinking about and learning about attention. I've outlined some techniques for helping to manage one's own attention here:
A couple of notes from a career 'Learning Designer'. Take them at face value, I have been working in higher ed for over 3 decades and have very rose tinted glasses on.
Point 1. I think this starting point is not the best starting point: Start with the assessment. You should always start from the broad goal of the learning, then define learning outcomes.
Secondly, The expert blind spot comment assume the expert has not applied good design principles. If they themselves employ good design (such as backwards design) then there is no issue in having the expert at the helm. An expert is a facilitator of learning and they know where you should be headed and what the goals and outcomes you should reach are. Learning from peers at times, and in particular with no one at the helm, is learning from those that don't understand the nuances of the discipline, subject etc.
I agree on the middle point. I call it the 'Path of least resistance' and use it quite a lot to help motivate teachers to develop good courses.
Several things:
1. "Start with assessment" is the approach taken by Wiggins and McTighe in their excellent "Understanding by Design."
2. "Desirable difficulty" aligns with Vygotsky's "Zone of Proximal Development." If learning is too easy, there's no real learning (easy means the learner already knows the content) and it gets boring. If learning is too hard, the learner gets overwhelmed, stops paying attention, and then gets behind such that catching up is essentially impossible.
3. On the topic of attention, I'm by no means an academic expert, but I've spent a fair bit of time and effort thinking about and learning about attention. I've outlined some techniques for helping to manage one's own attention here:
https://dieffenblog.wordpress.com/2021/02/03/may-i-have-my-attention-please/
Wise words!
A couple of notes from a career 'Learning Designer'. Take them at face value, I have been working in higher ed for over 3 decades and have very rose tinted glasses on.
Point 1. I think this starting point is not the best starting point: Start with the assessment. You should always start from the broad goal of the learning, then define learning outcomes.
Secondly, The expert blind spot comment assume the expert has not applied good design principles. If they themselves employ good design (such as backwards design) then there is no issue in having the expert at the helm. An expert is a facilitator of learning and they know where you should be headed and what the goals and outcomes you should reach are. Learning from peers at times, and in particular with no one at the helm, is learning from those that don't understand the nuances of the discipline, subject etc.
I agree on the middle point. I call it the 'Path of least resistance' and use it quite a lot to help motivate teachers to develop good courses.
Great blog!
Excellent article 👏🏼