Standing on the shoulders of others

Creating sharable learning designs

Abstract

As online and blended learning becomes the norm in higher education practice, academic developers and learning designers are increasingly required to work as part of curriculum development teams to facilitate the design of engaging and interactive online courses and activities. A range of highly-effective models of workshops and programs focused on curriculum design have been developed and widely reported, each with the primary aim of developing a ‘learning design’. But what form does this learning design take? How is it prepared, shared and edited amongst the curriculum team members? And how is it then translated into a functioning online site or activity for students to access? This paper focuses on the output of curriculum design workshops, and presents a highly simplified and accessible solution for time-poor curriculum teams.