How do we design something? It starts with the deliberate and purposeful choice of an end product (or outcome) followed by detailed planning and inclusion of all necessary components, sequencing, and safeguards to produce the end product (or outcome).
In learning, good design is also contextualized in terms of the environment it will occur in. A text book may have a desirable learning outcome and a certain learning pathway, but it cannot claim to have considered the particular learning environment it will occur in.
Let's look at what we mean. Using a textbook as a resource, a teacher goes through the process of teaching a desired learning outcome to students in a classroom. At the end of the process, many students fall short of meeting the desired learning outcome. To use an engineering analogy, if an end product does not match what was desired, designers would look for a design flaw. Likewise, in education, we will look for anything missed or not included in the learning design. We may examine some of the following: exposure to the learning material; student background knowledge and interest levels; classroom and behavior protocols; individual and/or group activities; motivation and feedback mechanisms; etc.
From the paragraph above, it is apparent that when teachers "design" a learning outcome, they have to concern themselves not only with the knowledge and skills implied by the outcome, but also with the needs of their students. While it may be impractical to meet the needs of each and every student, a teacher that designs learning outcomes within the broad needs of a particular student group can expect greater student achievement through the congruity of curriculum delivery and student reception.
