Open Learning Environments Design

Studies about the design of open learning environments local and abroad, revolving around the notion of "learner-centered", have advanced many theoretic bases, design models and practical cases relevant to the design of learning environments. The emergence of relevant studies on the one hand shows the appeal of learning environments design to the researchers, and on the other hand it reveals that it's difficult to raise an inclusive design model in view of the particular goals and requirements of learner-centered open learning environments and the complexity and specificity of authentic context. Thus, two important goals of research are: (1) Under the background of the second-stage curriculum reform implemented in Shanghai, how to facilitate the learner's learning and development effectively by designing open learning environments through a design-based research method? (2) How to generate a research process and design framework based on the design of open learning environments suitable for local context? These two are exactly the two fundamental questions this study intends to explore and answer.The research question determines research method. This study adopts a design-based research method, which is a new research paradigm trying to organically integrate pure theory research and application research. This systemic and flexible research method aims at improving educational practice and distilling the design principles and theories on the basis of the collaboration between researchers and practitioners in real-world settings and through an iterative analysis, design, development and implementation. In the study reported in this thesis, researchers, together with teachers and students undertook a one-year-long inquiry-based curriculum with the theme "Human, Architecture and Cities", which gradually produces and carried out a practical research process including three core phases: pre-design, development and implementation, reflection and analysis, and a design framework including research objective, content, activity organization (theme, activity, resource, tool), and evaluation of open learning environments.This thesis is composed of five parts:Chapter 1, holding to the core characteristic of "learner-centered" of open learning environments, collects, combs and analyses large amount of reference materials, and presents a literature review of researches local and abroad on open learning environments, and takes this as the basic point and reference of the whole research.Chapter 2 mainly introduces the origin of the questions in this research, and how the researchers, based on a preliminary research and through an analysis of all kinds of resources, constitute a design framework of the program "Human, Architecture and Cities" according to a pre-design.Chapter 3 elaborates the development and implementation of the program "Human, Architecture and Cities", including how to redesign the content, how to carry out a process analysis about the participants, how to organize the theme-based activities, how to provide the resources and tools and how to make the evaluation.Chapter 4 is a retrospective reflection on and analysis of the design framework, research methods in the pre-design, and sums up the lessons.The last part is the conclusion and prospect of the research, in which the thesis answers the two questions raised in the introduction part, that is, under the background of the second-stage curriculum reform implemented in Shanghai, whether open learning environments is effective and how to design it. After this, the thesis points out the limitations of this research and points out the direction of further research.