BBC Learning Design Toolkit

You can find links to the BBC learning design toolkit and booklet below:

Learning Design Introductory Booklet


Learning Design Toolkit Cards




Towards the end of 2008 we began to realise that whilst learning was changing all around us, ways of thinking and behaving were not. For sure people were starting to talk about ‘learning 2.0’, ‘social networks’, ‘generation Y’ but there is always a danger with learning design that we build around our own preconceptions and practices rather than around the needs of our audiences – that is, we fail to make our designs truly learner-centered.

Mindful of some big projects on the horizon, we decided that we should look again at learning – considering it afresh - and as an experience rather than a set of conventions. We didn’t want merely to survey our learners (‘what do you like about training?’, ‘what don’t you like about training?’) because we were acutely aware that the vast majority of learning happens outside of the ‘training/learning’ social construct, and that people are probably learnng differently in a web 2.0 world. To put it another way: if you ask people about their experience of learning or training you get a very narrow range of responses around the formal experience. We wanted instead to get a picture of the experiences and behaviours that had made a difference to people – to their careers, to their sense of self, to the way that the do their job. These, after all, are what make a difference to business performance.

We worked with a service design company (Engine) on two pieces of work:
1) research that would enable us to understand more clearly the ways in which our staff were developing and how their natural patterns of development were changing
2)A learning-centered design framework, based on this research, which would help to guide the learning design process in future.
The project was led by experience designers Shane Samarawikrema and Rachel Simnett, who between them already possessed many years’ worth of experience in innovative, user-centred learning design.

The research method was unconventional: we wanted insights into the lives of our learners; the things that had affected them most deeply, and into the resources and techniques that they use informally – strategies which are integrated into their everyday lives. We handpicked our research participants from a long list of high-calibre individuals across a range of roles. We didn’t want large numbers – instead we wanted to choose people who would be representative of best practice.

The research used a number of in-depth techniques: interviews with experts, one, two and three week diaries. The diaries themselves used a variety of structured prompts, requiring each participant to document their experiences and reflect on their learning using a range of approaches and perspectives. We then spent several weeks reviewing and analysing this material (using a POINTS analysis system), looking at emerging themes, and segmenting these by ‘tribe’. The sheer volume of insightful refection and telling comments was staggering.

Based on our findings we began the construction of the Learning Design Toolkit – an iterative process involving a range of people over a period of some months. The end result is something which incorporates some familiar elements of thinking about learning, with some new approaches in a conceptual toolkit intended to guide the work of anyone involved in learning design and deployment. Whilst some elements of the work may be specific to the BBC, we hope that there are many elements which are useful – or at least of interest – to anyone involved in learning.


The toolkit incorporates ideas that you will find familiar and some that you may not. At its heart is a theory of learning that suggests that all data is stored according to complex contextual cues which are predominantly emotional in nature – without these emotional ‘markers’ information merely passes through our system. Learning is a bit like the cognitive equivalent of those hooked seeds that get caught in your clothing – or like a virus. Sometimes we attach our own markers – as when something is important to us. This is pull learning. Other times an inspiring person in our lives will make something stick.

The design wheel then reflects those elements that we have found to be important – for example in building learners’ confidence it is important to equip them with the skills they need, make the learning relevant to their lives, and nurture their belief in themselves.

Once learners have this foundation, it is important to connect them to a world of resources and peers, allowing room for experimentation (whether in the classroom or online) and inspiration. Encourage them to stumble upon things that move them.

I don’t believe that these things are specific to the BBC, indeed a key finding was that our organisation subsumes a great many cultures – or ‘tribes’ Some of our tribes only like learning from an experienced authority, for example, and some tribes are happy to learn from anyone, anywhere so long as their work is ‘cool’.

We hope that you will find this work interesting, Shane and I would welcome your feedback.