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also worth noting the contributions of Siemens (2004) who postulated a learning
theory for the digital age—connectivism. “Learning has changed over the last sev-
eral decades. The theories of behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism provide
an effect view of learning in many environments. They fall short, however, when
learning moves into informal, networked, technology-enabled arena” (Siemens,
2007, p. 1).
A recent approach to educational development is that of universal design ;as
suggested by Rose and Meyer (2002), in that “barriers to learning are not, in fact,
inherent in the capacities of learners, but instead arise in learners' interactions with
inflexible educational materials and methods” (p. iv). Thus, it is important that when
educators are designing their instructional activities, they include a combination
of bottom-up (learner-prompted) and top-down (teacher-prompted) strategies. The
hope then is that the adoption of universal design may lead to lead to designs that
incorporate greater flexibility, multiple modalities, and an understanding of how
different learners access learning. And Hedberg's (2006) comments, intended to
consider online learning but appropriate in this context, argued for disruptive ped-
agogies which “involve the use of teaching strategies that exploit the currently
underused capacities of technology options in such a way as to enable student
engagement, motivation and higher order thinking skills” (p. 171).
Design of Environments for Teaching
Before design takes place, it is essential that teachers engage in reflection. Research
into teacher development conceives teacher knowledge as highly contextualized
and interpretive (Freeman & Johnson, 1998), drawing on the social contexts within
which teaching takes place. This perspective draws on understandings of situated
cognition in which the social context within which learning takes place is an integral
part of the interpretation and application of that learning. Teacher learning involves
engagement with questions about practice, about learners, and about their beliefs as
teachers. Reflection is “a recognition, examination and rumination over the impli-
cations of one's beliefs, experiences, attitudes, knowledge, and values as well as the
opportunities and constraints provided by the social conditions in which a teacher
works” (Zeichner & Liston, 1996, p. 20).
And yet, what we are asking educators to do may not be intuitive or easy. In
most situations (Wang, Nieveen, & Akker, 2007) educators are left on their own to
determine the best ways to integrate technology into their curriculum. McWilliam
(2008) goes on to describe her own four stages for teachers to unlearn the most
typical instructional design strategies, and instead move to becoming not a sage on
the stage or a guide on the side, but rather a “meddler in the middle” (p. 265). She
intones teachers to spend less time giving instructions and more time being in the
thick of the action, less time minimizing risks and more time being an experimenter
and risk-taker, less time being a classroom auditor and more time being a designer,
editor, and assembler; and finally, less time spent being a counselor and more time
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