Week 4 - Learning Design Authoring and Design Integration

This week, we learnt something very interesting called Learning Design. Basically, whereit helps you come up with a lesson plan to teach something. In a nutshell, you divide it into 3 columns so as to make it easier for you to classify the resources available and can be tapped upon to carry out the delivery of education to your students to the fullest.

However, what was really confusing for me were the 2 views of the curriculum. There is the Ptolemic view and the Copernican view. I shall attempt to explain the two based on what I have understood.

The Ptolemic view is such that the teacher gives ideas to the students and the students come up with tasks and activities on their own to facilitate better learning.

The Copernican view is the other way round where the teacher give activities and tasks to the students which in turn facilitate ideas in the students of what they should learn.

Sounds interesting if you ask me. Assuming that my explanation is correct, each has its pros and cons. The Ptolemic view should be the dominant view today and especially for older students like above secondary school. This view aims at independent learning from the students and teachers basically are just there to start a spark and get the students going on their own. The pro is then that the spark does not go off well and students are turned off or do not receive enough support from teachers.

For the Copernican view, it should be the stance taken in the past and for younger students like secondary school and below. This is because we have to control what the students do because they do not have a mind of their own. It is also because, in the past, people were not as well-informed as they are now. In the future, this might be applicable to primary school students only due to the advent of the Internet.

The Copernican view is also probably more applicable to E-Learning as the teacher come up with tasks and activities for the student. The con about using this view is therefore that students might tend to be lazier as everything as laid out for them on a platter and spoon-fed to them.

The correct view should then be a combination of both or a balanced one such that the pros of both views are used to great effect. Tasks and activities should be provided for the students but not all the time, sometimes we need to leave some room for them to show off their creativity.

I hope my understanding of the 2 views are correct.