What’s the best way to teach someone how to use a complex piece of software — particularly one that even its own designers do not understand, like today’s AI large language models? Or, to expand on the problem a bit, what is the best way to motivate learners to want to learn to use these tools and help them overcome the inevitable setbacks that come with mastering a new skill?
These are becoming essential questions for everyone in an age when AI is promising to radically change work as we know it. A traditional approach to workforce training gives learners a structured curriculum to work through, with sets of modules each focused on part of the software’s functions. Quizzes and tests are used to assess how well workers recall information or perform certain tasks. “This approach assumes that learning is primarily about acquiring knowledge and skills through direct instruction and practice,” said Jonan Phillip Donaldson, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the UAB School of Education and Human Sciences.
First of its kind in Alabama, and one of a few worldwide
Donaldson advocates another approach, one focused on tinkering, experimentation and maximizing engaged learning to “empower learners to become designers of their own worlds,” he said. It is known as “the learning sciences,” and it is at the heart of a new online graduate program launching this fall and enrolling now. The Master of Science in Learning Design & Learning Sciences is the first master’s program focused on the learning sciences in Alabama, and one of a handful around the world, Donaldson says.
“How do you motivate your students to do the hard work of learning?” Donaldson said. “Imagine you want to get into top personal shape, so you go to a gym, hire a trainer and say, ‘You have six months to get me in shape. I’ll be back then to see how you are doing.’ That won’t accomplish anything. In learning, you have to do the hard work. Designing that hard work is the core part of this program.”
The group, not the individual
The learning sciences are an interdisciplinary field, founded in 1991, with the idea that “learning is complex and messy — and it needs to be,” Donaldson said. The learning sciences argue that learning is not isolated in the brain. “The brain is involved, but it is more in contexts and in relationships and in community,” Donaldson said.
Jonan Phillip Donaldson, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, directs the new program, which is focused on tinkering, experimentation and maximizing engaged learning to “empower learners to become designers of their own worlds,” he said.In the AI example, a learning sciences-informed approach would encourage students to work together, share their discoveries and troubleshoot their problems collaboratively, Donaldson says. Instead of a multiple-choice test, the educator would “assess understanding through authentic projects or tasks requiring learners to enact their knowledge and skills in real-world contexts,” he said.
The Learning Design & Learning Sciences program will train practitioners for jobs in corporate, informal and higher-education learning and development positions as learning experience designers, learning engineers, learning architects and instructional designers, Donaldson says. “They can also use this as their launching pad to go into a Ph.D. program in the learning sciences,” he added.
Augmented intelligence, not artificial intelligence
Nearly every assignment encourages students to use AI, including extended discussions of theories and perspectives with AI chatbots that then carry over into discussion board conversations with their human classmates. “I want my students to develop this mindset of constant tinkering and exploring the latest new tools,” Donaldson said. “I tell them, ‘Don’t worry about AI taking your job; be worried about someone else using AI better than you taking your job. Lean in as hard as you can.’”
The learning sciences field has a unique perspective, thinking of AI not as artificial intelligence, but as augmented intelligence, Donaldson says. “It’s all about this augmentation of human awesomeness, and how you can use AI to help you be more human, and more awesome at being human,” he said.
Before he came to UAB, Donaldson ran a lab at another university, where he set aside 15 minutes of every lab meeting “to celebrate our epic fails,” he said. “You never learned anything from a success. We have to enjoy productive failure — celebrate it and love it. That’s the vibe I’m going for with this program.”
“A whole new philosophy on learning”
In every course in the program, “students are going to be learning by making and designing” collaboratively, with a focus on real-world projects, Donaldson said. “I have had students work with nonprofit organizations, in companies, and in church or volunteer groups — designing one day of learning activities, or even just one hour; manageable, bite-size things.”
Recently, a major Alabama employer came to Donaldson looking to hire a number of students as it staffed up an entire new department focused on in-house learning. “Big companies are investing more in their learning apparatus,” Donaldson said. “This is a whole new philosophy on learning, and this program is a great way of getting involved with it.”
Learn more about the Master of Science in Learning Design & Learning Sciences program and applying to graduate programs in the School of Education and Human Sciences.
