When someone says the question should be, "does this help someone learn?" my response is usually to ask, "what do you mean by that?" Part of that is the philosopher in me, but the rest of it is a concern they're focused on teaching to specific outcomes or teaching to the test, neither of which really has the interests of the learner in mind. David Hopkins doesn't exactly take that path, but he is very concerned to make us aware that learning isn't always fun and that design should not increase cognitive effort. Standard instructivist stuff. It's as though learning is a search problem: "They find what they need, understand it and move forward with confidence." I appreciate the desire to get the message across. But that's not 'learning' in any meaningful sense.
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