Design for Learning: Principles, Processes, and Praxis

Reviewed by Pamela Sullivan, Professor, James Madison University on 10/19/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

Design for Learning: Principles, Processes and Praxis is a comprehensive view of instructional design intended to both facilitate an introductory level of knowledge and to review the current practices of design for practitioners. These dual intentions result in an expansive review of knowledge and practices contained with a mammoth thirty-six chapter text. The authors/editors stated goals for utilizers of this text are to help complete a basic design project and to help create effective and engaging learning environments by exploring the current design thinking. While those dual purposes can and do lead to a great deal of information included within this text, each chapter stands on its own and it would be entirely possible to create a smaller set of readings customized to individual purposes from within this resource. The index and table of contents are helpful in organizing smaller groups of readings.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

This text appears to be accurate, error-free, and unbiased.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Because this text is intended for beginning learners in the field or as a review of current practices, it does focus on content that both remains relevant and is timeless research inherent to the field, as well as more up-to-date practices and implementation of said research. The very focused chapters make it possible to update information on an on-going basis whilst continuing access to the literature reviews that wouldn’t change. These updates would be straightforward and easy to implement by simply updating the affected chapters.

Clarity rating: 4

The clarity of the text did vary between chapters but overall the text was very well-written. Although some chapters contained more technical information than others, jargon was avoided and the information was adequately explained for the beginning level readers comprising the stated audience for the text. Many examples and case studies were provided to illuminate the ideas presented

Consistency rating: 4

All of the chapters in this text are well-organized and follow a similar format. They include figures, tables, case studies, examples, and videos when appropriate to illustrate the ideas in the text. These additions to the text are quite helpful and useful. However, some of the chapters also contain reflective exercises to aid the reader in summarizing or applying the information and some chapters do not. This is unfortunate as those exercises are quite helpful for beginners to the field. Several chapters are also reprints, by permission, of work originally printed elsewhere, and these chapters are often formatted differently than others in the text. An instructor may need to carefully filter these chapters to ensure students follow the flow of information. Similarly, there are stylistic differences between chapters, expected in an edited work, but something an instructor might need to account for to students. One example of this is the included videos, some are embedded within the text while some are presented as a set of links within a table. As an instructor, noting this and including explicit instructions for your students as to whether and when to watch the videos might be important for a successful class experience.

Modularity rating: 5

This text lends itself to subdivision into smaller reading sections, in fact, with thirty-six chapters, it might be necessary. The text is grouped in sections with several chapters included in each section and a brief introduction at the beginning of each section. The section organization is well-thought out and described for the reader, however, the chapters contained within could benefit from reorganizing and better links between them. Information varied quite a bit across chapters, from general to highly specific, and it will take time as an instructor to sort through which chapters provide the best fit for class purposes. Conversely, some information is repeated several times across different chapters as well.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The topics in the text are presented in a clear, logical fashion. The sections are helpful in organizing the chapters into themes to support the overall goals of the text.

Interface rating: 5

The text is easily navigable. Display features and items such as videos work as integrated into the text. Each chapter is available as an audio file as well, in an excellent example of universal design.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text contains no grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

This text includes chapters by a diverse set of authors and while the representation of a variety of races, genders, backgrounds in examples and videos also varies by chapter, across the entire text there is a diverse representation.