Contemporary technological and social developments demand transformation of
educational practices. Teachers and schools are no longer fountains of
knowledge that fill students with information. Rather, their primarily role
is to equip students with new literacies, competencies for productive use of
information technology, and sufficient disciplinary-specific bases of
conceptual knowledge. This requires changes toward student-centered
practices. In such contexts, teachers are designers of learning; therefore
lesson planning is replaced with a concept of ?learning design.? This paper
introduces the RASE (Resources-Activity-Support-Evaluation) learning design
model developed as a framework to assist teachers in designing learning
modules. Central to RASE is the emphasis on the design of activities where
students engage in using resources and in the production of artifacts that
demonstrate learning. The paper also emphasizes the importance of ?conceptual
models? as a special type of educational multimedia resource, and its role in
assisting learning and application of concepts, as opposed to the
?information transfer? models. RASE is beginning to emerge as a powerful
framework for transformation of teachers and their traditional practices to
contemporary, relevant student-centered practices. The model is also an
effective framework for productive uses of information technology in
education.
Learning design for science education in the 21st century
