In 1987 Tony Earls book The art and craft of course design was published. Why is it so interesting to refer to ideas from a book from twenty five years ago. Designing is described as a process of art and craftsmanship One of the reviewers of Tony’s book in that time, gave this clear remark:
‘ You need skills like formulation of learning objectives, making a task analysis, but also you should able to use your imagination and intuition. Especially this focus on art is special and often missing in course design’. The reviewer continues with the remark that ‘the process, instruments and skills for the craftsmanship are reflecting the creativity and intuition are given a place in design’. Concepts like art, intuition and imagination are not often used in instructional science. But in design this concepts are very important.
Design is a standard course for urban design, technical universities programs. Students in technical University like TU Delft have to follow the course Design. They learn how you can design a new product or service. They learn to use the technical knowledge and principles and use these in a creative way. This approach is missing in most course design theories. Interesting exceptions are Van den Akker en the Kessels group and Tony Earl. The resemblance of the design approach of Tony Earl with the developed Technical Design Theory is remarkable. This resemblance leads to my expectation that a closer analysis and comparison of the technical design approach with the design approach of Tony Earl will result in very useful ideas for instructional design. Therefor the 25-year book of Tony Earl is so interesting. It is a description of a successful approach of course design from which you can learn how you can be a real designer of courses in higher duration.
And of course I have my own personal motivation to publish the Book again. Personally my reason to study the ideas of Tony again that I appreciate the work of Tony Earl very much. I learned his design approach from him during my study. In my work I could translate his design approach in my way at curriculum and course level with good results. I was already a long time intrigued by the Design theory from Delft. My drive is to make the ideas of the design approach from Tony Earl available to others. According to Tony Earl, design is the plan, structure and strategy of instruction used, conceived so as to produce learning experiences that lead to pre-specified learning goals. In the courses he has been designed or supported the process of the teachers to design their course and especially in his book and his articles and reports he explains how you can make a design that fits his definition. We (colleagues of Tony: Ans Ronduite and Pierre van Eyl) decided to publish his book completely on internet.. The book reflects what Tony Earl was able to do. So you can read his story. In fact he was a typical Englishman with some crazy ideas which really works. In his workshop he succeeds to convince 75% of the teachers of his ideas.
But honestly to be able do what Tony did, is for most people impossible. We cannot copy him. However, he is still a source of excellent ideas. To help us and may be also you, we focus in a separate post on those excellent ideas from which we think it’s relevant for course design. Besides this website I try to combine the ideas of Tony it with some other experts who focus on design and creativity: Technical design theory, the Design theory of Van den Akker and the design book of the Kessel Group. This is done on another website.
Jan Nedermeijer
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