Interest in how to support the design work of university teachers has led to research and development initiatives that include technology-based design-support tools, online repositories, and technical specifications. Despite these initiatives, remarkably little is known about the design work that university teachers actually do. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study that investigated the design processes of 30 teachers from 16 Australian universities. The results show design as a top-down iterative process, beginning with a broad framework to which detail is added through cycles of elaboration. Design extends over the period before, while, and after a unit is taught, demonstrating the dynamic nature of design and highlighting the importance of reflection in teachers' design practice. We present a descriptive model of the design process, which we relate to conceptualizations of higher education teaching and learning, and compare with the characteristics of general design and instructional design. We also suggest directions for future research and development. Understanding university teachers' design workInterest in how to support the design work of university teachers has led to research and development initiatives that include technology-based design-support tools, online repositories, and technical specifications. Despite these initiatives, remarkably little is known about the design work that university teachers actually do. This paper presents findings from a qualitative study that investigated the design processes of 30 teachers from 16 Australian universities. The results show design as a top-down iterative process, beginning with a broad framework to which detail is added through cycles of elaboration. Design extends over the period before, while, and after a unit is taught, demonstrating the dynamic nature of design and highlighting the importance of reflection in teachers' design practice. We present a descriptive model of the design process, which we relate to conceptualizations of higher education teaching and learning, and compare with the characteristics of general design and instructional design. We also suggest directions for future research and development.

The need to improve the quality of higher education has fostered an interest in technology tools to support effective design for teaching and learning. Over the past decade this interest has led to the development of tools to support the creation of online learning experiences, specifications to underpin design systems, and repositories to share examples. Despite this significant activity, there remain unanswered questions about what shapes university teachers' design decisions and how tools can best support their design processes. This paper presents findings from a study of university teachers'; design practices that identified teachers' perceptions of student characteristics, their own beliefs and experiences, and contextual factors as key influences on design decisions. The findings extend our understanding of activities fundamental to higher education teaching and inform thinking about design support tools. Highlights-Design is an important, routine part of university teaching, but is poorly supported.-Technology tools to support teachers design online learning experiences are needed.-We identify student, teacher and contextual characteristics that influence design.-These contextualise and extend an existing conceptual model of higher education.-We discuss the implications for the functionality of technology design support tools. 2 AbstractThe need to improve the quality of higher education has fostered an interest in technology tools to support effective design for teaching and learning. Over the past decade this interest has led to the development of tools to support the creation of online learning experiences, specifications to underpin design systems, and repositories to share examples. Despite this significant activity, there remain unanswered questions about what shapes university teachers' design decisions and how tools can best support their design processes. This paper presents findings from a study of university teachers' design practices that identified teachers' perceptions of student characteristics, their own beliefs and experiences, and contextual factors as key influences on design decisions. The findings extend our understanding of activities fundamental to higher education teaching and inform thinking about design support tools.

There is an increasing expectation in tertiary education that students take control of their own learning, experience independence and manage their own cognition. This research sought to investigate techniques for university students to manage their own cognitive load. This paper presents two experiments conducted with postgraduate university students enrolled in an educational psychology subject in an Australian university. A total of 86 students participated in Experiment 1 and 85 in Experiment 2. The results of both experiments show that it is possible to instruct students on how to self-manage split attention. Furthermore, the findings from Experiment 2 show that students can transfer skills of split-attention management when provided with new instructional materials. The implications for this unique direction of cognitive load theory research are discussed.

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Gesturally controlled information and communication technologies, such as tablet devices, are becoming increasingly popular tools for teaching and learning. Based on the theoretical frameworks of cognitive load and embodied cognition, this study investigated the impact of explicit instructions to trace out elements of tablet-based worked examples on mathematical problem-solving. Participants were 61 primary school children (8-11 years), who studied worked examples on an iPad either by tracing temperature graphs with their index finger or without such tracing. Results confirmed the main hypothesis that finger tracing as a form of biologically primary knowledge would support the construction of biologically secondary knowledge needed to understand temperature graphs. Children in the tracing condition achieved higher performance on transfer test questions. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.