Musings for My Research

I think I will be looking into the process of designing learning tasks, materials, organizations and space (design) as proposed by Goodyear and test the reaction of lecturers whom I may work with (process) and the learning outcomes of students (evaluation). I may also use action research to change the design as the course progresses and feedbacks are provided by lecturers and students until the desired learning outcome is achieved. Under the umbrella of this context, I will explore the various factors and elements of designing tasks, and materials (teaching presence, information architecture, writing instructions, visual layout and communication etc.), organizations to create learning communities for collaborative projects and manipulation of learning space conducive for collaborative learning. This is the design part.

As for the process part, I will look at how lecturers response to Goodyear's framework and what it takes to convince a reluctant lecturer to accept the new approach. I would also like to know about the stumbling blocks for the lecturer's refusal and what may possibly be the solution. However, finding the solution may not be the focus of this current research unless I conduct an action research which seek to remove the stumbling blocks as the desired goal and achievement. This may not be feasible given the time constraint. My focus should be all the design part and also on what students actually do to achieve the learning outcomes specified by the lecturer and the process of redesigning to achieve the outcomes.