Chapter 8: Exploring a Description and Methodology for Learner-Centered Design

As computing technology progresses, new challenges are arising for software designers to address. One challenge involves designing computer technology to support learners, that is, a diverse audience of people trying to learn new, complex work activity in which they are novices. Designing such technology involves an evolving learner-centered design approach. Learner-centered software incorporates scaffolding strategies informed by learning theory. These scaffolding strategies support learners to mindfully participate in and develop an understanding of a new work practice. However, while there are intuitive approaches resulting in emerging learner-centered design methods and tools, there are still few concrete definitions and methodologies for learner-centered design. Here, we present an initial design process for learner-centered design distilled from our research. We briefly describe a more structured description of learner-centered design. We then describe the design process we are currently developing for designing learner-centered software. We will focus on design approaches and methods concerning design teams, scaffolding design, and scaffolding assessment procedures for learner-centered software. While our work is still evolving, we hope to provide a base for other researchers to better understand and pursue new issues in learner-centered software development.