Learning design is the driver both in informal learning settings (such as community action groups or organizations) and in formal learning (such as college or university classrooms, co-curricular programs, or self-designed majors). Participants are empowered to direct their own learning regardless of context. 

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Individual design - EL as Structure

Individual learning design can take many different shapes, depending on the context, but always includes goals, actions, and evaluation. Learners define their actions for each sector: learn, apply, know. The Entangled Learning Action Plan supports self-regulated learning by functioning as a structure. Think of it as a productivity planner for learning with a page for articulating goals and a page for identifying actions. The action page can be used as a weekly planner and configured to record completion, minutes spent on task, or other metrics for self-regulation.

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Pedagogical design - EL as Process

Teachers serve as guides and mentors who scaffold learning within the context of course learning outcomes, curriculum, and assessment. Entangled Learning functions as a process teachers can use in designing assignments that lead students through designing their own learning in the action sectors to develop competence. An assignment from a learning skills course illustrates this process. Students are prompted to choose a learning strategy or skill they want to develop and engage with a resource of their choice (or from a provided list) to learn more about it. Students determine how they will apply in their own practices what they learned from the resource. After a period of time, students check or evaluate their effectiveness and determine how they might act to improve their learning in the future. Finally, students document the meaning they derived from the experience as they write a reflection.

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Program design

Creating a learning environment within which individuals design their own learning, such as within the context of a course, consists of four elements:

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Purpose defines the domain of learning, naming the objectives and outcomes. 

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Expectations are the ground rules that clarify how the community members, coaches, and any potential program designer are accountable to each other.

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Activities are the processes used in learning and relate to the design gear of our model.  Examples include maintaining learning portfolios, discovering/sharing/applying best practices, using dashboards for self-regulation, developing resources in a shared online file space, or any number of creative ideas generated by participants.

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Evaluations aligned with the purpose are essential for keeping the scope of the practice in focus while measuring the effectiveness of the learning.