Learning Management

Learning Management is the capacity to design pedagogic strategies that achieve learning outcomes for students.The learning management concept was developed by Richard Smith of Central Queensland University (Australia) and is derived from architectural design (an artful arrangement of resources for definite ends) and is best rendered as design with intent. Learning management then means an emphasis on ‘the design and implementation of pedagogical strategies that achieve learning outcomes. That is, in the balance between and emphasis on curriculum development and pedagogy, the emphasis is definitely on pedagogical strategies. Underpinning the learning management premise is a new set of knowledge and skills, collectively referred to as a futures orientation and which attempt to prepare the mindsets and skill sets of teaching graduates for conditions of social change that pervade local and global societies in the 2000s.

Learning Management is centrally about new teacher capabilities. Capabilities which reflect the profile of the Knowledge Economy of the 2000’s. The capabilities associated with learning management are categorised as:Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Design, Execution capacity, Diagnostics.

The practitioner of learning management is referred to as a learning manager.

Adjunct to the theory and practice of learning management is the Learning Management Design Process (LMDP). The LMDP is a curriculum planning process comprising 8 'learning design based' questions. The process was developed by Professor David Lynch of Central Queensland University in 1998 and is used primarily as a tool to train teachers to teach [3] . These 'eight questions' when answered in sequence focus the teacher to what is important when planning to teach students. The LMDP organises its 8 questions through three sequencial phases: Outcomes, Strategy and Evidence. Each phase represents the bodies of information that its associated questions seeks to purse. THe LMDP represents a rethink of the various curriculum development models that have predominated the planning of teaching and curriculum in the developed world over past decades. The teacher develops their 'teaching plan' by engaging with each phase and its questions and recording ‘findings’ (or answers) in plan form .

Learning Management is the focus of the Australasia College of Learning Management (AACLM) which has the charter of; Acting as the custodian of the concept (and the associated theory and practice) and the certifier of its effective application. It achievs tese goals by: Providing forums and events which focus and support the advancement of Learning Management and its application in schools and other places of learning, Providing a publicly available repository of learning management based resources, and Providing credentials for people who practice Learning Management .

Studies into Learning Management occurr at Central Queensland Univeristy and Charles Darwin Univeristy .

References

Lynch, D & Smith, R 2006, 'The learning management design process', in R Smith & D Lynch (eds), The rise of the learning manager: changing teacher education, Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest, NSW, pp. 53-67. ISBN 0733978428

Knight, BA & Lynch, D 2010, Applied learning management: new approaches for the new millennium, Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest, NSW. ISBN 9781442527508

Smith, R, & Lynch, D 2006, The rise of the learning manager, Pearson Education Australia, Freschs Forest, NSW. ISBN 9780733978425

Lynch, D, Smith, R & O'Neill, P 2010, 'Learning management and the idea of a new learning industry', in D Lynch & BA Knight (eds), The theory and practice of learning management: a text for the student of learning management, Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest, NSW, pp. 78-95. ISBN 9781442527492

Lynch, D, & Smith, R 2011, Designing the classroom curriculum in the knowledge age, AACLM Press, Brisbane, Qld.