This document presents a research proposal to study a co-design approach involving teachers, students, and researchers to generate inquiry-based learning scenarios for universities. The proposal aims to 1) study and propose an inquiry-based model to inform new learning scenario designs, 2) develop and analyze a co-design strategy involving key stakeholders, and 3) design and analyze scenarios promoting mature, autonomous ICT use by students. The research would apply a design-based methodology to explain the co-design process and support changes to teaching practices.

1. Teacher-led Inquiry and Learning Design: The Virtuous Circle.
POSITION PAPER
University students as co-designers of inquiry-based learning scenarios:
shortening distances between teaching and learning
The purpose of this paper is to present a research proposal as a response to the need
for inquiry on new participatory approaches of learning design in higher education.
Learning scenarios are required that better connect with the skills and interests of
specific groups of students, both in regard to the methodological strategies and the
uses of supporting technological tools proposed. In the next pages we expose the
arguments of our research approach, drawing on existing literature and proposing
intersections among the fields of learning design, participatory design and inquiry-
based learning. Our assumption is that it is necessary to rethink the learning design
processes at the university on the basis of the collaboration between teachers and
students in the creation of new learning scenarios. These scenarios should empower
students in the learning process, through a personal, deep and transversal use of
technology.
The results obtained in various recent studies (Lorenzo, Oblinger & Dziuban, 2006,
UCL-Cyber Group, 2008; Duart, Gil, Pujol & Castaño, 2008) show that university
students, also called digital natives, do not generally incorporate in their academic
practices a mature use of ICT, which improves their learning quality and depth. In
general, the uses of technology are rather basic and directed by teachers through
knowledge transfer activities. It has also been observed that the preferences and skills
for ICT academic and "intellectual" use vary depending on the students characteristics,
under the influence of factors such as the area of study, gender, age, etc. The research
of Kennedy et al. (2006) for instance showed the lack of homogeneity with respect to
ICT use among first year university students.
We have been involved in a R+D national project on the uses of ICT by Spanish
university students (Garcia, Gros, Escofet, 2011). Our results confirm those obtained in
previous studies conducted in different countries, showing that although university
students may have sufficient digital skills to use ICT in their everyday life, they use
them to a much lesser extent for academic purposes, and this use is often relegated
and restricted to teacher instructions. This fact contradicts the evolution that ICT use is
experiencing in other areas, the increasingly complex digital skills that it represents as
well as different cognitive and social skills that it puts into play.
Several authors have referred to the gap between the potential of technology and its
actual exploitation in educational contexts (Conole, Dyke, Oliver, Seale, 2004; Strijbos,
Kirschner & Martens, 2004), as well as to the need to provide guidance in the design of
learning, the selection of the right tools and how to use them from certain pedagogical
approaches (Conole, Oliver, Falconer, Littlejohn & Harvey, 2007; Conole, 2008).
From our perspective, inquiry-based learning can contribute to improving learning
through the use of technology enhanced environments, providing a stronger link
between the use of technology in informal situations and its use with learning purposes.
The approach of learning through inquiry is a broad label that covers various
pedagogical approaches but all of them have in common the student in the role of
researcher, providing him a greater control and responsibility in the learning process.
Learning through inquiry represents a significant contribution to the experience of
university students as it provides situations that stimulate their ability to solve problems,

2. require their active role in authentic contexts, involves knowledge construction
processes and triggers reflection and deep learning. However, teaching from this
approach is not easy. Research on this topic (Ellis. et al, 2005; Ellis & Goodyear, 2010)
indicates that teachers need support in the design and implementation of this kind of
learning activities.
Several authors (Reigeluth, 1999; Ellis & Goodyear, 2010) have argued that although
education has always involved planning and design, the need to invest efforts in the
systematic design that clearly and constantly establishes and guides student activity,
may be especially high in networked learning situations. On the other hand, Trigwell et
al. (2000) state that in order to achieve the implementation of academic knowledge in
real practice, teachers need to be informed of the theoretical perspectives of learning
and teaching, reflect on their practice through systematic research, present their results
to their peers, etc. This will create a breakthrough in understanding how to achieve
deep learning (Kreber, 2003; Trigwell & Shale, 2004).
Although the initial focus of “learning design” was on learning objects, in recent years,
its attention has shifted to learning activities, their description, parameterization and
representation (Conole, 2008). In this sense, the design of the scenarios (including
socio-cultural, pedagogical approach and learning objects) in which these activities will
be developed allows to elicit learning processes intended to be facilitated and
promoted among students. The field of learning design or “design for learning” has
developed in recent years and now offers as a good set of tools, systems, patterns and
models (McAndrew & Goodyear, 2007; Masterman & Vogel, 2007; Craft, Brock & Mor,
2012) that can empower teachers to design scenarios that provide richer learning
experiences.
Participatory design methods, also named co-design, have been used in the last years
in the educational domain. Those experiences have typically involved teachers,
researchers and developers as partners in educational innovation processes. Co-
design has often implied participation in the design and deployment of technological
tools aimed at supporting learning processes (Mor & Winters, 2006; Roschelle, Penuel,
& Schechtman, N., 2006; Penuel, Roschelle & Schechtman, 2007). In the co-design
method active and joint participation of different actors enables the traceability and the
interpretation of the phenomena associated with the use of certain methodologies and
technological tools. It is usually based on teachers’ active participation in the process of
the innovation design, as well as in its implementation and ongoing evaluation in daily
practice. This procedure ensures the connection and orchestration of theory, models of
practice, tools and participants perceptions.
Taking as its fundamental point of reference the needs of the stakeholders, the co-
design method retains many similarities with the approach of student-centered
learning. This approach recognizes the "student voice" to their circumstances, abilities,
interests, learning style, etc. as a focus and starting point for the design of learning
situations. It proposes further responsibility and active engagement of the student for
their own learning.
In recent years, different authors have proposed methodologies in which students and
teachers participate in "co-generative" talks, aimed at sharing their perspectives and
jointly reflect on how to improve the practice of teaching and learning (Roth, Lawless &
Tobin, 2000). More recently, direct involvement of students as learning "co-designers"
has started to be explored in different educational contexts (Scanlon et al., 2009;
Könings, Brand-Gruwel & van Merriënboer, 2011; Cameron & Gotlieb, 2009; Cameron
& Tanti, 2011). Some results show that this approach can promote deeper learning

3. among students and also provide key elements and opportunities to guide teacher
intervention. However, there are still few studies addressing the effects of this
approach in higher education. Moreover, some of these studies have found different
points of tension that may hinder the co-design process (Penuel, Roschelle &
Schechtman, 2007; Scanlon et. al, 2009; Brand-Gruwel & van Merriënboer, 2011). On
the other hand, students’ involvement is often limited to specific workshops and not
allowed along the whole design process.
We believe that co-design processes participated by teachers, students and
researchers may have a positive impact both in enhancing student engagement in
learning and in improving teachers understanding about learning and teaching
processes. The results obtained in research-based teaching and learning activities and
projects have been promising (Neary & Winn, 2011; Wieman, 2004; Brew, 2006). But
although the literature comprises a range of rationales for students’ participation in
curriculum design, there is still little systematic evaluation on its real impact and
specific dynamics (Bovill, Morss & Bulley, 2009).
Our proposal aims to make progress in the research about methodologies based on
inquiry learning processes with technological support in higher education. The purpose
is to study the application of a model based on inquiry pedagogy to generate learning
scenarios in universities that can be adapted to different training contexts and student
profiles. These scenarios, generated from a co-design process involving teachers,
students and researchers, will be based on a more mature, self-managed and
comprehensive use of technology, in order to allow the intersection of different contexts
and activities in which students develop learning processes.
The project intends to contrast the proposed learning scenarios with students’ actual
interests and learning perceptions. It is also the purpose of the research to develop
tools and patterns that support the representation and the explanation of the designs.
Acting as mediating artifacts among participants those patterns and tools could scaffold
the co-design process (Scanlon et al., 2009) and at the same time facilitate the sharing
of the design scenarios and its transference to other areas (Mor & Winters, 2006). The
specific objectives of the project have been formulated as follows:
1) To study and propose the inquiry based model to inform the design of new learning
scenarios in the university, identifying the elements that allow its adaptation to
different contexts of practice and student profiles.
2) To develop and analyze a co-design strategy of learning scenarios involving, as a
key players, teachers, students and researchers.
3) To design and analyze learning scenarios based on a deep, transversal and
autonomous ICT use by students.
4) To propose and use tools and patterns to represent and explain the co-design
process and the resulting scenarios, so that they can be shared, repurposed and
reused by other teachers.
5) To validate and systematize the inquiry-based learning model used as well as the
instruments developed and the proposed design strategy.
The study will apply the methodology of design-based research as the most
appropriate and consistent with the project theoretical framework and the set research
goals. The design of the investigation is iterative, situated, and led to the intervention
but underpinned by theory. Research is not defined by the methodology (quantitative or
qualitative) but by its object, which is essentially to explain and to support a process of
change. The object of study is therefore the very process of designing the learning
scenarios, taking as key agents both the teachers and the students to whom those

4. practices are addressed to. A mixed approach (quantitative and qualitative) will be
used for data collection, analysis and interpretation.
We believe that this research proposal can contribute in different ways to the field of
learning design by providing a new insight on participatory design processes based on
teacher and student led inquiry.
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