Capability Development

The outcome of the LitW approach is continuous capability development to meet the conditions impacting the learner. 

Baseline capabilities:

Develop whole systems and dynamic models for learning and teaching that specifically aim to expand and improve the educational experiences of people of all ages.

  1. In particular, resolving the issues that hinder the effective access and delivery of teaching and learning and related support to people living in rural and remote communities of Australia, and/or live in metropolitan areas and have withdrawn from formalised education.
  2. Identify how best to design and deliver high quality, culturally sensitive, and effective learning solutions.
  3. Provide a delivery platform for empowering self-directed learning and learner-centred learning pathways whilst embracing lifelong learning principles, all with direct application to cultivating employment, personal, and community development opportunities.
  4. Ground all projects in extensive, evidence based research and practice with an emphasis on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) supported learning systems.
  5. Develop national approaches and policies related to the complex issues of providing online and distance education to geographically and culturally diverse students.
  6. Develop mentors / leaders to sustain and expand the programme.
  7. Mapping individual learner’s learning worlds that encompass:
  • Points of contact for learning and teaching (eg. events, artefacts, stories)
  • Understanding the conditions the learner will face, and the capabilities they need to build to take responsible action
  • A clear respect and understanding for the institutions, organisations and people within their learning world and the cooperation demanded with the interdependent relations they hold.

Develop the learner as a teacher in their own right to share information, knowledge, and experience with their peers in a responsible and committed fashion.

Viewing learning and teaching as more than a means for individual achievement, but also as a catalyst for community progress and development.

In terms of cultivating learning strategies and higher order (deep learning) cognitive thinking skills, the Learning Worlds approach is designed to incorporate strategies and principles that provide the foundation on which to construct and evaluate educationally effective learning solutions. These strategies and principles apply to the capacity to:

  1. Assist learners to recognise relationships among information sources that lead to new meanings, concepts and ideas using strategies such as:
  • identify and analyse concepts by juxtaposing previously unrelated ideas
  • analyse the properties, structures, and representations of different knowledge domains to construct common vocabularies and derive new concepts that facilitate shared understandings and give rise to multiple learning pathways
  • relate theoretical ideas to everyday experiences so that such ideas do not remain as independent concepts that are without reference to real world contexts
  • identify and relate evidence and arguments in instances where theoretical principles are not explicit
  • organise and structure information into coherent wholes from which to identify the interrelationships that lead to metacognitive thinking (thinking about thinking) as opposed to viewing information as independent, decontextualised facts and concepts.
  1. Employ systems-based learning and knowledge construction principles tuned to technology supported environments (digital learning ecosystems)
  2. Emphasise learning as a cognitively active process that is unique to each individual
  3. Apply adaptive / interactive learning content selection and display techniques using pedagogically focussed, standards complaint learning object resources
  4. Manage the problems of deriving meaning due to information overload by incorporating ‘intelligent’ search, locate, filter, and display systems that respond to individual learner preferences, learning styles, and generational distinctions, and learning needs.

The LitW capability is significantly strengthened by its observance of the recommendations made in the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council (PMSEIC) report “Transforming Learning and the Transmission of Knowledge: preparing a learning society for the future” (dated 2nd December, 2009):

  • establish a Science of Learning Programme delivered through a number of interdisciplinary, inter-professional Science of Learning Centres that integrate disciplines such as cognitive science, neuroscience, and psychology
  • ensure that all students in remote locations have access to full-time, trained and qualified teachers and quality learning environments
  • introduce a campaign that embeds the excitement of learning, and the value and benefits of acquiring and sharing knowledge, as integral parts of a modern Australian identity
  • introduce a campaign to enhance the status and esteem society holds for its teachers. In addition, it is recommended that remuneration and support for their continuous professional development in both pedagogy and discipline studies reflect the central importance of teaching in learning and learning in teaching
  • conduct a rigorous evaluation of the many widespread applications of digital technology currently employed in learning settings
  • implement additional teacher professional development in order to develop the understanding and skills required for the more effective pedagogical integration of digital forms of learning into curricula planning and presentation for teachers, other learning practitioners and students.