The Development of a Mediation Artifact for Representing Teaching Practices: A Study Connecting the Areas of Design and Learning Design

Learning activities can be codified through different forms of representation. These are known as mediation artifacts. The design of a sequence of activities using a mediation artifact generates a document which can be shared with other teachers in order to exchange ideas for using digital technologies in the classroom. This research aims to contribute to the studies on mediation artifacts by introducing the design process of the development of a mediation artifact which articulates studies between Design and Learning Design. The research, based on a qualitative approach, was organized into three phases: (a) learning design study meetings; (b) the design process of the mediation artifact; (c) validation with pre-service teachers. The main characteristic of the produced mediation artifact is that it is based on a conceptual map model and it has been organized into colors and icons. An amount of 76 icons were organized into four groups: yellow for learning tasks, including learning outputs; purple for learning tools and resources; red for representing the involvement and/or support of the actors in a learning task; and a social media special group. The mediation artifact was tested within two groups of undergraduate teacher formation students using the conceptual map tool available on GoConqr.com. Results pointed out that the use of a visual pattern can facilitate the comprehension by teachers from different countries and languages; the proposed model does not require much time for appropriation; the online tool GoConqr is an interesting space for sharing learning practices using the mediation artifact.