"Good" educational design
From The Learning Engineer's Knowledgebase
When we build learning experiences and products, we want to make sure that the things we make work well and go according to plan. We also want to make sure that we achieve our primary goal in any learning design, which is to ensure that people actually learn from the experience. These are the main criteria for what makes a "good" educational design.
Definition
We can define what makes a design good by simply whether it meets its intended goals. More specifically, we can also define good educational design as to whether it helps participants achieve and show evidence of learning objectives. Additionally, good design can be defined as whether people used the technologies, designed interactions, or other design features as intended by the designer.
Additional Information
When someone asks whether an educational experience was good, we should consider what good means from multiple perspectives.
From a learner's perspective, good can mean "good for the learner," or that they felt like they got value out of the experience, felt like they learned something useful or relevant, or had high levels of satisfaction.
From the perspective of a teacher, good can mean that the students who used the educational design actually learned from it, rather than it being a waste of time or an expensive exercise.
From the perspective of a designer, good can mean both that (1) the technologies, interfaces, and designed interactions were all used as they intended and (2) that people actually learned from using it.
From the perspective of an organization's decision-maker, administrator, or other person in charge (e.g., school or business), good can mean that the thing produced value for the learner, as well as the organization. Good can also mean that the design performed better at achieving goals than alternative approaches, giving the organization a good return on its investment in implementing the good educational design.
Tips and Tricks
- When considering what is good in a learning experience or educational product, think about the perspective you are taking to define "good" (e.g., the student, the teacher, the designer, or the organization)
- Anything that we define as good in design is usually tied to the learning objectives that are determined at the beginning of the design process. If your experience or product that you are designing meets your learning objectives, your design was good!
- Good design is also tied to whether the experience or product was used in the first place. You may want to consider whether people are participating with the design, including looking at how people participate with each specific design feature that you include.
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