Fundamental values about learning influence the learning (or instructional) goals the educator uses
to guide subsequent learning environment design efforts. Learning goals not only determine the
selection of content, but also guide the selection of specific instructional methods and appropriate
measures of instructional outcomes (effectiveness, efficiency, and/or appeal). Derived from
fundamental values about learning, such as the formation of learning community, learning goals are
specific statements about what the students (or other participants) will ultimately achieve.
Examples of learning goal statements from cases in this study include:
- Students develop shared meaning (McAlpine, 2000).
- Students learn how to build trusting and caring relationships with each other (Turbill, 2001).
- Students learn how to share and debate personal views on course content (Lewis, Treves, & Shaindlin, 1997).
- Students learn how to engage in dialogic learning processes (Murphy & Collins, 1997).
- Students learn how to resolve conflicts of opinion among their peers (Curtis & Lawson, 2001).
Learning goals were not always explicitly stated in the case report. In many cases, the description
of learning goals was integrated into the description of specific instructional methods.
In some cases, the case report described fundamental values about learning, and then continued
on to describe the instructional methods used without discussing the specific learning goals
that the methods were designed to achieve. For these cases, I determined the implicit goals
from the description of instructional methods and the previously described values about learning.
Since I was identifying learning goals that were not explicitly stated by the case author,
I included questions about these goals in the author interviews and surveys as a way to check
my decisions about their goals.
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