Design Principles for Applied Learning in Higher Education: A Pedagogical Approach for Non-traditional Students in an Online Course

The profile of university students is changing, as a larger percentage of the population fill our online and on-campus classrooms. A new teacher education program commenced at an Australian university in 2011, with an explicit focus on applied learning. The course highlights a pedagogy whose time may have (finally) arrived in higher education. A set of design principles, underpinned theoretically by contemporary learning philosophies have been developed to provide a guiding framework for course developers and teaching staff in the fully online program. This paper describes the applied learning design principles; how they manifest in course development and delivery, and the study being undertaken to examine their effectiveness. The research seeks to identify the extent to which the course design better enables students to integrate theory with practice, and develop the skills required in their workplace. This study is designed to create a set of tested design principles to encourage and support applied learning design in higher education settings.