Conditions of ICT-Based Design for Learning Communities
Joost Lowyck, Johanna Pöysä and Jeroen Van Merriënboer
This article explores how instructional design (ID) can contribute to building powerful learning environments. It briefly discusses the history of ID, which evolved from intuitive approaches, through behavioral, cognitive and socio-constructivist models, towards highly flexible and adaptive models. It is argued that interaction is the key feature in modern student-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered, and community-centered learning environments. From a cognitive perspective, ID for these powerful learning environments should focus on (1) higher-order skills, (2) learner support and scaffolding, and (3) feedback and formative assessment. But non-cognitive, social and motivational perspectives are becoming at least equally important to ID. Especially for low ability learners and students-at-risk, powerful strategies for enhancing the motivation to learn and for becoming members of true learning communities are conditions of learning sine qua non.