Evidence Based Design: The Open Learning Initiative

The Academic Intersections Journal is about the intersection of technology, scholarly and creative works, and the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education. This article is about that same intersection and describes how OLI uses technology to deliver theoretically informed instruction that instantiates teaching and learning goals and simutaneously uses technology to collect data on student learning that informs the next iteration of the course and the underlying learning theory. The general disciplinary home is in the cognitive and learning sciences. The article specifically gives examples from mechanical engineering, chemistry and biology; however, the general approach described has been applied and is of use in a range college level courses.