ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors argue that design for learning depends on being able to analyse highly complex learning environments, not in their component parts but as whole systems. Pedagogy, as the art and science of helping other people learn, can be practiced in a variety of ways, including through direct face-to-face teaching. The language used to conceive and describe relationships when analysing learning and learning environments is important. Much of the learning that students do is accomplished without direct supervision. Task design typically results in the production of texts – often in the form of a specification of what students should do. Students interpret these texts and their subsequent learning activity can be understood as an improvisation that is informed, but rarely determined, by the text. It is often through their interpretation of key texts, such as course outlines and assignment specifications, that students unravel what is required from them in a given situation.
