• Analyse the needs of clients and organisations to design well-reasoned learning processes.
• Understand and describe fundamental insights about cognitive, motivational and social aspects of learning.
• Describe current and emerging technologies that hold the potential of shaping a digital future of learning.
• Identify ways of leveraging the opportunities of new technologies to improve learning processes in corporate and non-corporate settings.
• Apply key principles from the learning sciences to suggest instructional designs.
• Analyse advantages and limitations of different designed learning processes in terms of fit between client needs, learning design principles and choice of technologies.

The course is structed around a set of questions addressing learning in the digital age:

How do we leverage the possibilities of current and emerging technologies to build state-of-the art learning experiences? How do we help employees, managers and students to be able to do things they previously could not? How do we move from understanding the needs of clients and organisations to well-designed learning experiences? What are the cognitive, motivational and social processes that make learning engaging and effective?

Private as well as public organisations call for individuals who are knowledgeable about learning processes and who are able to create high-impact learning processes. Private companies have long recognised the importance of continuous professional development and they are fast adopters of new technologies in their staff- and organisational development processes. A similar development is happening within major professions such as medicine, military, law, science and business; with these professions spearheading new norms for how learning is done. At the same time, combining insights from the learning sciences with functionalities of new technologies presents an important avenue for improving the quality of public and higher education. Rapid changes in competence requirements, demands for lifelong learning and new technological opportunities create a pressing need for individuals that have compentencies within instructional design and learning engineering. 

This course focuses on introducing students to the work of designing high-quality learning processes. The course prepares students for helping clients and organisations by combining three key abilities: 

1. identifying the needs of clients to develop effective learning objectives;
2. applying key principles from the learning sciences about facilitation of learning; and
3. awareness of the opportunities presented by current and emerging technologies.

Continuously working to combine these three key abilities, the course progresses through a number of cases where students gain hands-on experience in developing suggestions for learning designs. Cases will be posed by private clients and corporations, edtech companies and educational institutions, and the students will thereby practice their abilities on real-world challenges. 

• Aleven, V., McLaughlin, E. A., Glenn, R. A., & Koedinger, K. R. (2016). Instruction Based on Adaptive Learning Technologies. In R. E. Mayer & P. A. Alexander (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Learning and Instruction (pp. 522–560). New York, NY, US: Routledge.

• Barron, B. (2006). Interest and self-sustained learning as catalysts of development: A learning ecology perspective. Human Development, 49(4), 193-224. https:/​/​doi.org/​10.1159/​000094368

• Collins, A. (2006). Cognitive apprenticeship. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (pp. 47–60). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Saxberg, B. (2015, April 20). Why We Need Learning Engineers. The Cronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from  http:/​/​www.chronicle.com/​article/​Why-We-Need-Learning-Engineers/​229391