It is a joy for me to work in the field of Learning Design, to work with faculty as they rethink their approach to what happens in the classroom and reconnect with their passion for teaching. At every level of learning design—program design, course design, assignment design—the key is bringing people together around central questions. But these questions need to be real questions as opposed to the kinds of questions for which there is already some canned "instructional design" answer.

 

Structurally, there is not that much difference between program design, course design, and assignment design. They are all interconnected. When faculty are allowed to grapple with learning at all levels, the design process becomes an intriguing intellectual challenge rather than some drudgery mandated from on high. Time and again I hear faculty say that this challenge re-energizes them to start pulling things apart and redesigning learning in a ways that they had never before considered.