The design came mainly from wanting students to construct their own understanding of the process in a non-verbal way, then be able to talk about it and describe it in their own words.

We based the design on tutor-student interactions, that is; interactive questioning to reach an understanding.

ORIGIN OF THE LEARNING DESIGN
I came up with this idea based on:

• The difficulties experienced when I was trying to give large-group lectures on this material.
• Student evaluations of the unit.
• Anecdotal evidence from tutors about how students were dealing with this part of the syllabus.

TIMES THE LEARNING DESIGN HAS BEEN USED
Many times since implementation, in fact in various ways it has been used every semester since 1994/5.

MODIFICATIONS SINCE FIRST USE
Corrections were made to some minor typos, but the design colours and styles were changed slightly when the program was converted into dual-platform and web-accessible format. This was purely to accommodate the technology.

DISSEMINATION
In a non-university context, it has been trialled in the TAFE (VET) sector with Vet Nurses and with mature-age Human Biology TEE (HSC) students but no follow-up has been done. I understand that the Vet Nurses found it too detailed for their needs.

RESEARCH CONDUCTED ON THE DESIGN
Evaluations have been conducted and the results have been published in various conference proceedings. An extract from a paper presented at ASCILITE '95 (p. 186) is as follows.

Lecture Animation

The moving overhead transparency was trialled in the lecture in Semester 1, 1995, and an evaluation of the lecture itself was undertaken. Using the Minute Paper evaluation technique (modified after Cross, 93) students were asked to identify the best or most useful thing from the lecture. Of 300 students who completed the form, 64% stated that the computer animation was the highlight of the lecture, and other comments indicated that students had enjoyed the lecture and felt they had understood the process of muscle contraction. The lecturer noted that although she used the animation a number of times in the lecture, manipulating its speed and direction and talking about the significance of the various components represented, the process of explanation took only 20% of the time usually allocated to the explanation of this particular concept.

Self-paced Tutorial

An essential part of the development process has been the formative evaluation of the user interface. Much of this took part within the development team as part of the comprehensive paper design. The use of the requirements specification enabled us to walk through the details of the user interface. For example, we decided to use hot spots on the animation to access other screens of information. The team then needed to explore the ways by which users would return to the animation. Possibilities were identified and the side effects of these potential solutions were analysed to identify the most natural functionality consistent with the rest of the interface.

A questioning strategy was chosen which matched questions typically asked by students. However, our design team were extremely conscious of the fact that a list of questions on the screen would look like the main menu of typical objectivist IMM programs. A list of questions would imply a ranking or logical order, inviting students to start at the top and work through one by one. This would seriously weaken the effectiveness of the questioning strategy as a means for students to construct their own knowledge.

The approach we chose initially was to make the "what, where, how, why" questions into the four sides of a spinning top. When this screen was entered, the top would spin a random number of times to leave a different question above. For example, when "What" is shown, its relevant sub-questions appear. Each sub-question could be clicked on to take the user to a single screen containing an answer to the question. Clicking on "Where", "How" or "Why" rotates these questions to the top.

Questioning via the spinning top.

Most of our team really liked the spinning top idea. It was a quirky way of presenting a series of questions without a list, it was fun to spin, and the design looked great. It was displayed at a residential IMM workshop held at Muresk in June 95, with the aim of gaining some peer review.

Two serious problems arose with this aspect of the user interface when a prototype program was constructed. Formative evaluation with novice users of the program revealed that the spinning top metaphor was not successful. Users didn't make the visual connection between "What" and "does it do?". A revised strategy uses a rotating wheel with questions in full on the outside rim. The second problem became evident when some content was produced to put in the prototype. The idea of having a single discrete screen for the answer of each question was not effective because of the varying amount of material for each answer. Some questions could be answered by a few words and a picture; others needed much more detail. Still others were more appropriately dealt with by linking the user to another part of the resource smorgasbord.

Based on these observations, the second prototype contains only one screen per topic, with the answers to all questions contained in a scrollable window, like a World-wide Web page. The size problems are alleviated, and the student has more context about the relationships of various aspects of the content.

DESIGN EFFECTIVENESS VERSUS INTENDED OUTCOMES
This is hard to answer because I feel we have not done a thorough evaluation of the program, apart from ascertaining that students found it useful and doing some comparisons of relevant exam questions. We don't know how or why it is useful or how the learning takes place within the framework of the program. With our present demands we only react to things which DON'T work well.

UNEXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES
In the second and third year our Human Biology degree students do many communication tasks as part of assessment requirements. They are usually very skilled at this and often have quite creative ideas for presenting material in tutorials and seminars but we don't know if Sarcomotion models good communication of HB concepts or not. It is only one of many factors.

LEARNER ENGAGEMENT SUPPORT
Learners are engaged by the dynamic, colourful, simple appearance of the animation and by the fun way of accessing resources. They choose their own path and can choose to access the resources in any order. The text commentary in response to the questions is pared down and the explanatory animation is fun to play.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF LEARNING CONTEXT
Invariably there will be cultural assumptions built into the learning design but the predominant one would be youth culture - access to information which is basic, fun and doesn't dictate to them how they should learn the concepts. Formative trials with students from various backgrounds helped us to finalise the design features, and the design itself aims not to depend upon a particular learner framework for its appeal. The learning context must acknowledge that students are studying this material as part of the syllabus of a service unit which they must pass in order to get to what they consider the 'real stuff'.

HOW THE DESIGN CHALLENGES LEARNERS
The learning design challenges students to articulate their own constructed understanding and interact with the material by posing questions rather than receiving information. No-one is telling them what happens, they see the process and must form their own commentary.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR PRACTICE
Students are encouraged to articulate to themselves their understanding of the concepts, and also to tutor or fellow students depending on the learning context in which Sarcomotion is used. Feedback is available on the answers to the questions immediately but no feedback is available on the articulation of the process.