School of Education, Murdoch University, Australia
Professor Jan Herrington
Title
Authentic learning designs: Creating engaging real-world learning tasks |
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Website: http://web.me.com/janherrington/Expo |
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Abstract
The value of learning by doing has been known for centuries, but exposition of content is still quite prevalent in higher education, both in face-to-face and in online learning contexts. The recent worldwide focus on learning designs has given educators an opportunity to look carefully at our educational practices and to think about more innovative ways to provide authentic learning experiences for our students. Authentic learning designs not only allow students to engage in realistic tasks using real-world resources and tools, but also importantly, they provide opportunities for students to learn by doing, and also by thinking like professionals. This presentation will include ideas and strategies for taking a unit of study and reconceptualising it as an authentic, ‘cognitively-real’ experience for students, designed around complex and engaging tasks. Challenges and obstacles to the approach will also be discussed. The continuous enhancement of learning environments is important, and evaluation and research to inform such cycles of improvement can readily be accomplished using a design-based research approach. This approach will be described together with examples and ideas across different discipline areas.
Biography
Dr Jan Herrington is Professor of Education at Murdoch University in Perth. The last 20 years of her professional life have been devoted to the promotion and support of the effective use of educational technologies in learning in schools and universities. Jan's current research focuses on mobile learning, design-based research, authentic learning, and the use of authentic tasks as a central focus for e-learning courses. She has published several books including a recently co-edited book entitled Authentic Learning in Higher Education and a co-authored book (with Thomas C Reeves and Ron Oliver) A Guide to Authentic e-Learning in 2010. She was a Fulbright Scholar in 2002 at the University of Georgia, USA, and has won many awards for her research including the Association for Educational Communication and Technology award for new researchers.
