Evrim Baran

Course

C I 603: Advanced Learning Environments Design 

Resources

• Learning Environments Design Reading Series

Case Study

Evrim Baran, PhD is an associate professor of educational technology in the School of Education and Human Computer Interaction at Iowa State University. Her scholarship converges the disciplines of educational technology, human computer interaction, and learning sciences to answer complex problems in today’s learning environments. Her research aims to establish effective strategies for the design of mobile, online, and flexible learning environments in teacher education, engineering education, and STEM learning contexts. Her recent work on online learning and teaching focuses on the implementation of open pedagogy as an approach to empower learners in the co-creation of the course content and help them contribute to the body of knowledge they learn.

Implementing Open Pedagogy in Higher Education

The open education movement continues to grow and expand around the world with an increasing number of OER materials and open courses. There is a need to move beyond content-centered and technology-focused approaches to open educational practices. Open pedagogy emerged as a manifestation of open educational practices in the design, delivery, and evaluation of OER as an integral part of the learning and teaching processes. Engaging in open pedagogy to create OER strengthens student understanding of information ownership, copyrights, licenses, and responsibilities. 

Renewable Assignments

Renewable assignments are one example of open pedagogy practice in a classroom. A renewable assignment, in contrast to an assignment that is discarded after the course ends, uses OER to create value for a larger community by engaging the learner in the creation and sharing of OER materials. Dr. Baran integrates renewable assignments into her online, blended and face-to-face courses to engage learners in the creation and sharing of OER materials.

Learning Environments Design Reading Series

Learning Environments Design Reading Series is a collection of seminal readings with commentary on different topics of learning environments design. Students taking the CI/HCI-603: Advanced Learning Environments Design graduate course at Iowa State University contribute to the development of this open online source. This initiative is a product of the “open pedagogy” approach that Dr. Baran follow in designing the renewable assignments and projects in her courses.

This renewable assignment was inspired by the Open Education Reader (https://openedreader.org/), a collection of readings on open education developed by Dr. David Wiley and his graduate students.

Systematic Analysis of Research and Literature

Learning Environments Design Reading Series includes a collection of seminal readings with commentary on different areas of learning environment design. Students synthesize and present notes on selected articles and share examples and discussion questions that might help future readers who are interested in exploring the topics. Students analyze pioneer works for each topic in that field and

synthesize them with the following information: reference and link to the article, background, summary of key points, design principles, example work/article/case to illustrate the principle in design/practice, discussion questions, and additional resources.

Scaffolding Student Learning

After students prepare initial drafts, the instructor scaffolds a peer-review/editing activity that requires each student to review one of their peers’ chapters using a peer-review form. The peer review form structures the peer-review by having students provide comments related to the overall chapter structure, writing, and suggestions for improvement. Students prepare final drafts by incorporating changes suggested by their peers and instructor.

Creating a living resource and community with current and future students

Future students who take the same course study chapters created in this first edition by answering the discussion questions under each chapter and contribute to the collective work by adding new sections and chapters. Figure 1 presents the book cover.