The Three Spaces Model for Online CPD: a model for designing assignments for online courses in Continuing Professional Development

The paper explores the challenges of designing assignments for online learning environments and looks into the use of models as analytic thinking tools for course designers. The paper opens with a discussion on challenges central to designing assignments for online learning environments in higher education. Subsequently, two widely used models for course design, Salmon’s five-stage-model (2002, 2003) and Ryan & Ryan’s TARL model (2013), are explored with the aim of evaluating their usefulness in Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for teachers and pre-school teachers, a context which has received relatively little attention in terms of research on course design. A number of assignments that have been used in online CPD courses for (pre-)school teachers are analysed with the aim of identifying design patterns, i.e. examples of how recurring pedagogical problems can be solved and, on the basis of this, a new model that can support CPD course designers in designing assignments, the Three Spaces Model For Online CPD, is presented and discussed.