Integrative Learning Design Framework

An Integrative Learning Design Framework

for Online Higher Education Classes

Peter A. Bruce

University of Utah

Lee M. Heller

Nova Southeastern University

The Instructional Learning Design Framework (ILDF) - Excerpt

To address the needs of online learners and the institutions that provide it, Nada Dabbagh and Brenda Bannan-Ritland (2005) have provided a model for designing, developing, and implementing online instruction that integrates “social learning principles, distance education research, and the availability of emerging online technologies” (Beaudoin, 2006, p. 249). The Integrative Learning Design Framework (ILDF) for online learning utilizes a constructivist pedagogical model, instructional strategies that develop critical learner competencies, and learning technologies that effectively design, manage, and deliver instruction in an online learning environment.

The ILDF of Dabbagh and Bannan-Ritland organizes the development of online learning into a system of three phases: exploration, enactment, and evaluation. At the center of these activities is the online learning developer (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005, p. 115). The ILDF process begins with the developer’s exploration of instructional context and pedagogical models moves to the enactment of instructional strategies through learning technologies, and follows-up with an evaluation that informs the developer about the pedagogical model and instructional strategies used (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005, pp. 116-117). All of this takes place in a social and cultural context of institutional structure that provides access to specific learning technologies, infrastructure, and funding constraints (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005, p. 118). Dabbagh and Bannan-Ritland (2006) present their instructional design model as a “constructivist adaptation of the familiar ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation) models used in systematic instructional design” (Pina, 2006, p. 105). Constructivism is a part of the most recent cognitive branch of learning research, following the behaviorist and information-processing models (Kauchak & Eggen, 2003).

Constructivism holds that learning occurs when learners construct meaning. Social constructivism adds social, cultural, and historical contexts to the construction of meaning (Mace, 2005). Faulted as a comprehensive theory for failing to provide predictive capacity, constructivism is nonetheless widely accepted as a valued pedagogical model, especially in online distance education. The effective integration of constructivist pedagogical models into online learning is continuing to be supported in the research (Debevec, Shih, & Kashyap, 2006; Ball, 2000, May/June).

Recent studies provide a good deal of data for research-based online instructional strategies (Debevec, Shih, & Kashyap, 2006; MacGregor & Lou, 2004-2005, Winter). Dabbagh and Bannan-Ritland (2005, p. 203) define instructional strategies as “what instructors or instructional systems do to facilitate student learning.” The guiding principle for developers is the achievement of student learning outcomes. Dabbagh and Bannan-Ritland (2005, p. 201) detail instructional strategies that “align with the characteristics of constructivist-based pedagogical models and the enactment of these strategies by using features of online delivery.”

Instructional strategies in the ILDF are based on the five instructional design principles of Driscoll (2000). These are, 1) embedded learning in complex, real-world contexts, 2) social negotiation in learning, 3) support of multiple perspectives and representations, 4) promote self-reliance in learning, and 5) encourage awareness of knowledge construction in learning (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005, p. 204). Each of the pedagogical models used in the ILDF align with these instructional design principles.