Building on recent advances in learning design and focusing on higher education, this thematic series addresses the specific challenges that designers of learning arrangements face when designing in situ professional development (such as workplace learning). As always, such designs should cover the activities that learners engage in, the social setting (fellow learners, facilitators) and the context in which learners carry out their activities. If the workplace is the context and the learners are professionals, designers face unprecedented challenges. For example, how can educators be convinced to become genuine designers who cast aside their default constraints of school, curriculum, lecture and embrace the opportunities of online or blended learning? How can learning activities be designed that are at the very least compatible with but better still make sense in a workplace setting? How can team learning be facilitated? How can the transition from merely learning in a team to learning in a large, personal networked learning environment be made? And also, how should this kind of learning be implemented in a workplace environment that has been spoon-fed on training sessions with mere knowledge transfer, often in settings away from the workplace?
Edited by: Muriel Garreta Domingo, Peter B. Sloep, Davinia Hernández-Leo and Yishay Mor