Learning Sciences

Professor Anthony Kelly from Southampton Education School at the University of Southampton answers the following questions: Is design based research a method on its own? Is design based research only for formative research or can it also be summative? How is design-based research different from mixed-methods? He says that design-based research is not a method like "qualitative", "quantitative" or "mixed". Rather, it is a research "genre" or "paradigm" which can use different methods when necessary. In fact, at most of the time, researchers collect quantitative and qualitative data in DBR.

What is Learning By Design? How does learning by design work? Why does it work?

I like the activities given in "LBD in Action" section. They give the idea of developing a design project.

I like this wab site. It is comprehensive web site that we can find concept knowledge and procedural knowledge about learning by design.

The real world problem: Burning of waste tyres pollutes the environment Solution: Encouraging people to recyle tyres tu use them for production of furniture. It is a real example of project based on design thinking for change that children drive in their communities.

It is very meaningful to see how children engage in problems and be creative to solve them. Educators should not limit students' minds into some patterns. They can create their own learning environments if they are encouraged and guided.

Thank you for sharing an application of design thinking with us Elanur Hoca.

This animated video explains Mihaly CSIKSZENTMIHALYI's Flow Theory. So, how much of your time do you feel in the apathy part of the graph?

I haven't read this book before, but as I understand from the book review, it worth to be read. I suggest you to watch this review for understanding the relationship between challenge and skill better.

A good summary of the flow ;)

2300 years ago, Aristotle concluded that, more than anything else, men and women seek happiness..." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990) In the last 30 years, as a form of entertainment, video games have evolved from confined arcade activities into a mature media.Video games have deeply infiltrated our daily life and our society. As if toys expanded every child's imagination, modern videogames take advantage of a player's active involvement to open more possibilities than any other existing mediums. [Wright 2006] More and more people grow up playing video games, treating them not only as an art form but also as serious media.

Good application of flow theory to games

I found a video of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explaining flow theory.

The article demonstrates that a moderate level of extrinsic motivation is better than a high or low level, while the intrinsic motivation should be as high as possible in order to learn better.

It's every teacher's dream to have students who engage deeply with their lessons, want to learn for learning's sake, and perform at the top of their potential. In other words, teachers want their kids to find "flow," that feeling of complete immersion in an activity, where we're so engaged that our worries, sense of time, and self-consciousness seem to disappear.

I liked this article because it adds more flow elements like making kids laugh, positive realationships, and relevancy of the task and choice

In the video, learning experiences are claimed to be the similar to roller coaster ride. Learners have control over their own learning process. In the very first place, they begin with participating in the learning experience to reach the ultimate goals. Before accomplishing the ultimate ones, they have short term goals as well. Then, their power to learn is directly related to their own motivation to learn. They need initial motivation to go further. But, how much motivation they need to accomplish reaching the ultimate goals is the question to be asked at this point. While learning process, learners use their motivation and at some point, they lose some of their motivation. So, they need to increase the amount of effort put into their learning. As they put more effort into learning, they are more likely to reach the ultimate goals. As they exert enough effort to reach them, they experience satisfaction and they feel that high achieving something by their own motivation and effort. Then, the results can be satisfactory and increase their motivation to learn again. After they accomplish one of the sub-goals, they can use their experiences and awareness to prepare themselves to reach the next one. For the next one, they need more motivation and effort to learn, and they repeat the learning motivation cycle as described in the video with roller coaster ride.

I loved this video. I remembered my first year of master as I was watching the first loop of roller coaster. I felt that last semester was the most challenging period of my life. I had too much to do. Even I felt like I would fail sometime, I never gave up and at the end of the semester I was very proud of me. Now I say if I overcame last semester's challenge, I can overcome everything. That first loop is really important to carry you to the future goals. Thanks a lot for sharing the video :))

This video is a good example of the importance of having learning goals to be motivated as you also emphasized in the forum. I also liked the phrase "Your future self depends on your present self"

A webpage explaining a general overview of theories related to learning and motivation. You can scroll down to see the animation explaining the balance between skills and challenges. 

I liked this article because the figüre illustrating Maslow's hierarchy of needs was illustrative. The article differentiates btw mastery and performance goals. It emphasizes self efficacy and Weiner's Attribution theory and finally has a different figure for flow.

What happens when somebody is encouraged by positive reinforcement and discouraged by negative one?

So behaviorism theory still works?

A figure on design thinking

A brief explanation of design thinking.

This is a good sumary of learning by design. Moreover, first video that emphasizes role of public presentation sessions inlearning by design process.

Good explanation of steps on design processes. In Vahide's video, talking to stakeholders were mentioned as "Learn from people". Here they say about the same step as "Generate emphaty map" :).These two videos successfully consolidate each other. Thanks.

Barry Fishman from Michigan University talking about design based research

*What is Design-based Research (DBR)? *How does DBR differ from other approaches? *How did DBR get started? *What are the benefits of DBR? *What are some critical perspective?

Especially I recommend the part in which differences between DBR and laboratory experimental research, design, action research, and formative evaluation are told. DBR research is told to be different from laboratory experiments in that research takes place in which there are lots interactions and dependent variables. In laboratory research however, dependent variables are set and other variables are hold constant. However, when they are not hold constant, they may effect the dependent variable. DBR differs from action research in that research is started with researchers whereas in action research, teachers start the work. In addition, in formative evaluation and action research, there is no theory refinement like in DBR.

Suppose you are part of a thriving business and need to branch out and find that next big thing. Or say you want to change a behavior, like getting people...a lot of people...to use less energy in their homes. How would you go about it? Design thinking is a powerful tool to tackle the unknown. It's a means of going on an expedition, without a map, without even knowing the destination, but with the confidence that you'll end up somewhere great. Let's make it tangible with an example that captures the five key elements of design thinking. Daylight was given the challenge of getting kids in America to move more to help fight childhood obesity. The project started with an idea--provide kids with a digital music player that has a motion sensor, then give them rewards based on their activity. But the big question was, would kids really use it? What could make the experience so compelling that they would use it long enough to see the health benefits.

Very nice video on design thinking. We can clearly see how they continuously modify the end product after collecting data of its users. First they talk to target group to have an idea about how an activity meter can be. Based on their ideas, they try to find patterns which will later evolve to design principles. Based on those principles, they develop a real product-an activity meter. Then they use it iteratively with children and make modifications in order to make it better and better. It is a clear video of how to do a design study.

He is criticizing the current schooling system and suggesting a learning environment which is already testing by him under "Hole in the wall" project. Let's check his design... Onstage at TED2013, Sugata Mitra makes his bold TED Prize wish: Help me design the School in the Cloud, a learning lab in India, where children can explore and learn from each other -- using resources and mentoring from the cloud.

This video is an episode from the bakyard science program on yumurcak TV. In this program, children design tools based on their problems by this way, they try to understand some science subjects.

This video make some advices for teachers about how to implement Learning by design in their school.

In this video kids build their designs and exhibit them, hence their parents could see what their children do, how they learn etc.

In that video, there is a project called Kids Build. Children built cities based on given maps of Boston. They construct the city environment by different materials. Although, it seems really fun, I did not understand what teachers target to teach students? Is it for only creativity? Since children are not so grown up, concrete thinking was targeted I think. Still, what was the "content" is still blur for me. edit: Opps, duplicate :).

Here's a previously-shared example of learning by design by "Kids Build!" project. I think just getting the hands of the kids dirty is an outcome by itself. Although they do not possess abstract thinking skills at such a young age, I still think these are the ages when an interest sparks in the child, which could then turn into a passion.