Designing for Learning: The Pursuit of Well-Structured Content - Unit 2

Boettcher, J. V., (2002). Designing for learning: The pursuit of well-structured content. Campus Technology, http://campustechnology.com/articles/39320

In Boettcher’s article, she discusses the need of educators to design content in a format that works best for the learner. She uses the metaphor of landscape to illustrate how learning is broken up into stages. At first, your mind is like the tundra, capable of sustaining life, but relatively barren. The next stages is where the tundra and more fertile land meet. Here students can build on concepts already hidden in their minds.

Boettcher’s metaphor work well to highlight how educators need to be more cognizant of how their students learn and strive to develop formats more conducive learning . In the growing arena of digital design and layout, educators have a large variety of tools to provide well designed lessons that are both visually appealing and productive to learning.

While I did not find this article to be extremely practical for my teaching, it did offer me a new understanding of digital design and the need for educational materials to be visually dynamic.