Didactic Designs and User Driven Innovation

Imported from my Posterous

The focus should be on ‘didactic design’ (DD) when it comes to the integration of new technology in education. DD addresses all the considerations about content, resources, roles, learning goals, assessment, activities etc. that defines a teaching setting. DD is the concrete planning of what should take place during the teaching. Part of the DD should also be mitigations when things work out differently than planned.

Lots of teachers are doing their DD as a normal part of their preparation for teaching and the experienced teachers do it without even thinking about it. They know what works in their class rooms. What worked last time may probably work again. In that way teaching methods are perpetuated over time with only few and small changes.

I think, however, that a reconsideration of the ways in which DDs are done is called for. The DD phase is an obvious time for reflection upon teaching – and I’m sure that many teachers use it as such. Still I think the DD phase could be used for more experimentation and, hence, developing new teaching methods. The inspiration for both reflection and the striving for (even) better teaching could be ‘participatory design’ or other design practices working with the users as players in the process.

User driven innovation is about developing new ways of doing things from the existing context. To invite users to participate in the design is creating an open ‘space’ – a third space for breaking the habitual ways of doing things. I would like to see DD that integrate the users – students, colleagues, business – in creating ‘new teaching’. For teachers is a productive way out of the comfort zone.

I would also like to see integration of digital technology in this process. An open DD process will allow for all kinds of suggestions for solving challenges with teaching. And why not taking advantage with the different competences that different people have?

Why is such an approach important? It’s important that we develop our way of teaching because our teaching practices are developed in a period of time that only in reminiscent are identical to our time. The way we solve problems are different using a lot of tools not even imaginable earlier on. The competences have shifted from rooted in industrial ways of thinking to knowledge and design work. The notion of knowledge has changed from being something fixed to something more fluidly and context bound.

Although integration of new technology shouldn’t be a goal in its own right the neglecting of new technologies is a problem. Digital educational technology is the name of the game and the advantages using technology in problem solving should be considered in all kinds of teaching and learning activities in schools and the workplace. Therefore, we need DD that are able to integrate technology for the teaching and learning activities. That is to say that the technology integrated must do real work and make meaning for the students.

The ways our schools are functioning are debatable. But what is not debatable is the need for developing our teaching. The fixed time and place which is the back bone of our schools seems overdue – and the repeat what you’ve been taught seems likewise overdue.

User driven – user centered, user involving etc. – innovation methods are ways we can go in order to play an active part in the development of teaching. Reflections on the didactic designs we use in teaching is a good place for facing the need for development. Didactic Designs should be aiming at creating learning communities instead of holding on to a delivery model where knowledge is believed to be something transferable from one to others.