Festival of Learning 2018

If we want to motivate and engage students to learn in ways that will be longer-lasting and more meaningful to them, we need to design rich learning experiences that facilitate this through flexible and adaptable activities and assignments. Learning management systems (aka walled gardens) provide teachers and learners a safe and controlled space for threaded discussions, storing grades, uploading assignments, posting content, communicating notices, and deploying some constructed assessment components like quizzes.

However, learning management environments are limited in their abilities to engage students in deep learning and meaningful educational activities. To do so, requires instructors to move beyond the walled garden into a less organized and less controlled digital world.

In this session, we will outline supportive teaching strategies and learning activities (facilitated by the digital environment) that promote higher levels of engagement for learning – and are accessible and relatively easy to implement using open practices and resources.

This learning happens outside the walled garden and requires careful consideration and attention to care for the students and the learning they will embark upon. But where to start? There are so many options, tools, apps, platforms and parameters to consider when designing a more open and flexible learning experience.

Using a collection of evidence-based principles of learning, we’ll outline how designing rich online learning experiences may be easier than you think.

Participants will be exposed to 7 key learning principles and appropriate tools to use within and outside of learning systems. We'll share some of our favourite examples of aligned assignments and activities.

We'll engage youin a discussion of other examples that might fit within the principles, gather ideas and share back with everyone. Come prepared to share your best examples of online learning outside the walled garden - learning out in the open!