Pearson Shares Its Learning Design Principles

In December 2016, Pearson published a set of 45 learning-designprinciples under a Creative Commons license. A company blog post calls them the “nexus of education research (i.e., products basedon research) and product efficacy (i.e., research-based products that evidenceimpact on outcomes).”

Pearson is an international company that creates educationalcourseware, publishes textbooks, and sells a variety of technology-basedlearning services and products. From its place at the center of the US battleover “privatization” of public education, the multibillion-dollar company isnot without controversy, particularly for its dominance of the standardizedtesting market. Pearson designs curriculum, creates learning materials andstandardized tests, trains testers, runs tutoring centers and online educationprograms, and more.

The publication of the learning design principles is,according to EdWeek Market Brief editorialintern Leo Doran, “part of a company-wide push for transparency in evaluating theefficacy of their products.” The company simultaneously released a report onhow it uses learning design. Transparency is certainly valuable, as is insightinto how Pearson and other instructional designers “make the sausage,” so tospeak.

The principles are grouped intosix themes:

• Foundations (eight principles)
• The nature of knowledge (ten principles)
• Practices that foster effective learning (elevenprinciples)
• Learning together (five principles)
• Learning environments (seven principles)
• Moving learning sciences research into theclassroom (four principles)

They are presented as “cards,” each filling the front andback of a full sheet of paper. Each includes a description, list ofcapabilities, sample design implementations, learner impacts, and a“self-assessment instrument.”

It’s not clear how Pearson hopes or anticipates that learning or eLearningprofessionals will use these principles or “cards.” They are not written in away that will be easily understood or useful to everyone. For example, oneprinciple under “practices that foster effective learning” is “universal designfor learning” (UDL), pictured in Figures 1 and 2 below.

Figure 1: Pearson’s practices that foster effective learning

Figure 2: Pearson’s self-assessment instrument

The description offers a broad definition of what UDL meansand why it matters. The learner impacts—behavior and self-regulation—are vague,and the capabilities and sample design implementations listed are somewhatobscure, though perhaps they are meaningful to Pearson insiders. Theself-assessment grid, also vague, does provide some insight as to how adesigner might apply or implement the principle, with several entries hintingat “provision of multiple options” presumably referring to providing learnerswith multiple ways to achieve each learning objective.

Similarly, the description for “games and virtual worlds,”under “learning environments,” explains why people use games in learning andreferences several research studies. But the “capabilities” section says only“Instruction: Active learning experience”—not very meaningful. Nor are thestatements on the “self-assessment instrument” particularly helpful.

In short, some of the principles are more accessible thanothers, and instructional designers might find useful ideas among the sampledesign implementations suggested. The PDF with the 45 principles also includesa lengthy bibliography, which could be useful to many eLearningprofessionals. 

The Pearson blog post says that the company has also created designtools and guidance documents. They use the cards to “set a common language andunderstanding of learning science research” for their product designers anddevelopers. The Pearson announcement hints at additional releases and an“extended dialogue,” which might provide more information on how people, bothwithin Pearson and outside of the company, are using the principles.