Design patterns : connecting systemic functional linguistics and pattern languages

Educational institutions, such as universities, are steadily working to make more effective and extensive use of technology. They seek to improve connections between students and teachers, and to achieve a closer fit between learning activities and the environments, materials and other systems that support them. Two other requirements are key. First, there is an emphasis on the value of collaboration and participation in the co-construction of knowledge in communities of practice. Secondly, there is a growing demand for methods of sharing and re-using successful educational design experience, through the use of new approaches, methods, repositories and design. This chapter describes work on a patterns-based pedagogical framework that combines ideas from systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and pattern languages. This framework is intended to support the creation and use of design patterns for teaching and learning in higher education. In particular, it focuses on the creation of patterns for developing online tasks that help students engage in meaningful and relevant learning activities in online discussion groups.