Designing learning activities

Enabling learners to achieve their learning outcomes through engagement with meaningful learning activities.

Once the course aims and learning outcomes have been established, you should plan and design the learning activities and assessments that will enable students to achieve them. The order in which you do this is not usually important, provided they align with the course aims and learning outcomes. 

Aligning the elements of the course 

As we have seen, learning outcomes must include action verbs that can be measured. From a learning design perspective, this implies:  

1. The selection of activities should be driven by the learning outcomes. 

2. Assessments should target the level of proficiency as stated in the outcomes. 

For example, if a learning outcome includes a verb such as argue, which is at the ‘evaluation’ level in Bloom’s Taxonomy, learners should engage in activities that will enable them to reach and demonstrate that level of competency. 

Designing learning activities with the ABC method 

When designing learning activities, it is useful to reflect on the learning process. At UCL we utilise the ABC Learning Design method, based on the Conversational Framework (Laurillard, 2002), and the six learning types: 

• Acquisition 
• Discussion 
• Investigation 
• Collaboration 
• Practice, and 
• Production. 

The learning types have proven to be an effective course design tool because they involve creating flexible learning paths and course narratives centred around how people actually learn. Once a sequence of activities has been established, the tools or technologies that best facilitate the activities and the learners’ path towards proficiency can then be assessed.  

When designing your short course, it is helpful to frame your thinking using these types. 

Acquisition 

This type tends to focus on content and what learners do when they read, listen, and watch. In this way learners acquire new concepts, models, vocabulary, models, and methodologies. Acquisition should be reflective as learners align new ideas to their existing knowledge. 

Acquisitional learning activities include making articles and books available, delivering presentations and lectures, and having learners listen to or watch videos, podcasts, and animations. 

Discussion 

Discussion activities require a learner to articulate their ideas and questions as well as challenging and responding to those from their tutor and peers. 

Discursive learning activities include in-person seminars or structured online tasks within asynchronous discussion fora, and synchronous classroom tools such as debates and role plays. 

Investigation 

Investigative activities encourage learners to take an active and exploratory approach to learning, searching for and evaluating a range of new information and ideas. 

Either online or offline, students are guided to analyse, compare, and critique the texts, data, documents and resources within the concepts and ideas being taught. 

Collaboration 

Collaboration asks learners to work together in small groups to achieve a common project goal. It is about taking part in the process of knowledge building itself, and may build on acquisition, discussion, or investigation activities. 

Collaborative learning activities might include paired or small group projects taking place online or on campus, with plenty of reflection and discussion to produce a joint output. 

Practice 

Practice activities enable knowledge to be applied in context, giving learners the opportunity to try out something they have learned and receive feedback on, whether via self-reflection, from peers, their tutor, or from tools and activity outcomes. 

Practice tasks can include lab work, field trips, placements, and practice-based projects. Online, learners may engage with videos of methods, simulations, and sample datasets. Online quizzes can be used to test application and understanding. 

Production 

Production focuses on how a teacher motivates learners to consolidate what they have learned by articulating their current conceptual understanding and reflecting upon how they used it in practice. Production is usually associated with formative and summative assessment. 

Activities for this type can include essays, designs, performances, and videos, made available both in-person and online. 

If you are working with a Learning Designer, you will be fully supported in your understanding of and engagement with these learning types. In the next section we will think more about the two final types, practice and production, and their relation to assessment in the short course context. 

Example of a short course learning activity 

Here is an example learning activity from a course about Transfer Medicine:

This activity involves two learning types: acquisition and discussion. Learners engage in the acquisitional learning type when watching the video and discussion type when writing comments and responding to those of others afterwards. Crucially, however, both sections contain clear guidance that encourages targeted reflection during the acquisition stage and structured engagement during the discussion stage. 

Further information 

Full information about ABC learning design, including videos and self-directed resources, can be found on its website.