A visual learning design representation to facilitate dissemination and reuse of innovative pedagogical strategies in university teaching

This chapter describes a visual learning design representation devised in an Australian funded project that focused on identifying and describing innovative educational practices employing the use of information and communication technologies (ICT). Referred to as the learning designs project (www.learningdesigns.uow.edu.au), the aim was to produce generic learning design resources and tools to help academics in higher education implement innovative ICT-based learning designs in their own teaching contexts. The chapter describes the learning designs project, details how and why the graphical learning design representation was created and provides an example to illustrate the visual formalism. How the authors have built on this work since the completion of the project is also discussed. The purpose of this chapter is to explain how this visual representation works so as to inform teachers and educational researchers of its potential to serve as a common language to describe learning designs.