Impact by Design
EDU T522
Subject & Catalog Number
Course Information
Description
In Impact by Design, students will learn and apply generalizable tools and habits to live learning design challenges with real clients. For learning designs and innovations to be effective, they should be based on and inspired by rigorous evidence about how and why people learn and behave. This process of translating evidence from the learning sciences into practices that can drive learning impact in real world contexts is the focus of Impact by Design. Students will: do accelerated, AI-supported literature reviews to gain an understanding of the existing relevant research; identify and reach out to relevant domain experts to inform problem-definition and potential solutions; interview members of the impact ecosystem (or their proxies) to understand contextual needs and constraints; ideate and articulate testable, evidence-supported theories of action that can generate observable change; and develop minimal prototypes to evaluate their theories of action and guide iterative revisions. Students will consolidate and present their designs to clients at the end of the semester. This hands-on course prepares students to engage effectively in impact-centered, research-informed learning design across settings and domains.
Class Notes
LDIT ONLY. This course is only open to LDIT students and satisfies the Program Core Experience (PCE) requirement. T550 (Professor Karen Brennan) and T543 (Professor Tina Grotzer) also satisfy this requirement. Students may take any one of these three courses to satisfy the PCE requirement, and are welcome to take additional courses from these three as electives.
Not Available for Cross Registration
• gain an understanding of the dynamic relationship among evidence, theory, and innovation in the design and development of effective educational programs or services; • use a Challenge Map to clarify needs and obstacles related to a learning design challenge;• appropriately leverage Generative AI tools to accelerate the discovery and evaluation of relevant research to inform learning design;• communicate with experts in the field to support the interpretation and application of research;• map the members, values, and variables of an Impact Ecosystem;• interview members of an Impact Ecosystem to vet and clarify assumptions;• apply How might we... prompting for evidence-inspired ideation;• articulate an evidence-based theory of action and design principles to guide the development of scalable innovation; • define the constructs that underlie impact; • create evidence-generating tasks (micro minimal viable products) that cause and demonstrate construct change; • test and revise theories and micro-products; • acquire insights from the projects of classmates;• articulate evidence-based rationales for why an innovation should work, how stakeholders can observe it is working, and will know it did work;• become comfortable with the iterative nature of learning and creating through failure.
