Formulated Professional Identity of Learning Designers and the Role of Open Education in Maintaining that Identity

Abstract

Educators and educational systems, whether they are in the corporate, higher education or school sector, face significant challenges and competition including more cries for accountability, improving results and the ubiquity of technology. Meanwhile, learning designers, despite lack of clarity about the nomenclature, are in demand as organisations of all kinds strive to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. This nexus offers opportunities to further define a professional identity of learning designers, as well as challenging the de-professionalisation of teaching. Rather than suggesting learning design and teaching are exclusive, this chapter argues that teachers working in contemporary contexts now need to draw on the skills practised by learning designers, in the way suggested by Goodyear (HERDSA Review of Higher Education 2:27–50, 2015), who argued that teaching is an act of design itself. Doing so empowers teachers to assert professional standing, and thus become greater advocates for the importance of education and teachers. This chapter presents a framework for this expanded definition of teaching and discusses how it might fit within existing learning design frameworks. This extended definition is closely linked to more attention being paid to open educational resources, infrastructure and other tools, as opposed to proprietary platforms. Teachers, utilising a reinvigorated professional identity, are well placed to act as advocates for such open educational approaches.