Design Patterns for Online Learning

developed for the Islands Institute by Caffyn Kelley

cjk @ saltspring.com

 Contents:

Introduction

I.                  Visual Learning

II.              Friendship

III.           Flow

IV.            Teachers

 V.                Desire Lines

VI.            Spiral

VII.         Sparkling Conversation

VIII.     The Dreamed-of Community

 References
 

Introduction

            Pattern Language is a practice developed by Christopher Alexander and colleagues (1977) to assist in planning towns and buildings. Its principles have been fruitfully adapted to computer systems design and more recently to instructional design for online learning (E-LEN Project, n.d.; Griffith & Pemberton, 1997). Terry Anderson (2005) and his students at Athabasca University (Wiebe, Thibault & Fyvie, 2005) have been exploring Pattern Language as a way to support complex design for learning environments on the Web.

Alexander et. al. (1977) describes patterns in this way: “Each pattern describes a problem which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever doing it the same way twice” (p. x). The patterns are written according to a formula involving a specific sequence of elements, from title to conclusion. Each pattern also incorporates a visual image suggesting the archetypal nature of the pattern and a diagram presenting the solution.[1] Small and large-scale patterns are linked together to create a Pattern Language that can be used as a vocabulary by designers. Pattern Language is a way to integrate abstract with concrete, conscious with unconscious elements, and overall principles with specific strategies. Using Pattern Language as the design approach for the Islands Institute will help to establish the creative, interdisciplinary environment essential to this project. It offers a deep and flexible vocabulary that can be used for ongoing course and community design.

Pattern Language is a useful design tool; it is also a way of understanding and living in the world. Alexander et. al. (1977) write:

“Each pattern can exist in the world, only to the extent that it is supported by other patterns: the larger patterns in which it is embedded, the patterns of the same size that surround it, and the smaller patterns which are embedded in it.

            This is a fundamental view of the world. It says that when you build a thing you cannot merely build that thing in isolation, but must also repair the world around it, and within it, so that the larger world at that one place becomes more coherent, and more whole….” (p. xiii).

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