Foundations of Online Learning Environments

What is it?

An online learning environment is a technology-mediated space in which learning activities, collaborative teaching and learning practices, content knowledge and assessment tasks are combined. Due to the fact that online learning environments are technology-mediated spaces, it is important that standards for the development of these environments are used to guide their design. It is also important that the design of assessments, learning activities and learning objectives are aligned in such a way so as to maximise opportunities for learning in the environment. This practice of alignment is commonly referred to as ‘constructive alignment’ and is commonly associated with the work of John Biggs (1996).

What is constructive alignment?

“Two lines of thinking are becoming increasingly important in higher educational practice. The first derives from constructivist learning theory, and the second from the instructional design literature…“Constructive alignment” represents a marriage of the two thrusts, constructivism being used as a framework to guide decision-making at all stages in instructional design: in deriving curriculum objectives in terms of performances that represent a suitably high cognitive level, in deciding teaching/learning activities judged to elicit those performances, and to assess and summatively report student performance. The “performances of understanding” nominated in the objectives are thus used to systematically align the teaching methods and the assessment.” (Biggs, 1996)

diagram showing CLO's influencing ILOs, which influence ATs, which influence LAs, which influence Content. ILOs also influence LAs and content.

Image attribution: https://www.teaching-learning.utas.edu.au/unit-design/constructive-alignment

The other major component of the design of an online learning environment are the technical attributes of the space. These often refer to the interface including navigational coherence and ease of use through to the levels of accessibility and location of content, learning activities and assessment tasks. Standards often consist of the following elements that need to be in place:

Overview of the unit/module and introduction

Learning objectives and learning outcomes

The alignment of:

Assessment tasks
Learning activities
Content

Technology requirements are clearly stated

Student support options are clearly articulated

Accessibility of all elements have been addressed

References

Biggs, J. (1996). Enhancing teaching through constructive alignment. Higher Education , 32 (3), 347–364. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00138871

Constructive alignment
Standards for online learning environments

Strategy: Foundations of Online Learning Environments

What is it?

References

Associated Learning Theories