Programme Design for Online Learning Environment Stories from Designing and Developing the New Zealand Certificate in Early Childhood Education and Care Level 4 Programme

The New Zealand Certificate in Early Childhood Education and Care Level 4 programme was designed and developed in the context of a Level 4 early childhood education qualification becoming a requirement for educators in home-based sector, and the Open Polytechnic transformation. The programme is delivered fully online. This paper is to share our stories of designing and developing the programme. The stories focus on pedagogy that empowers learners in an online flexible distance learning environment, our innovative of team work, and initial feedback from stakeholders. The pedagogy is underpinned by the integration of sociocultural and constructivist theories with information communication technology (ICT), specified by the CSI Model (The Pedagogic Model of Integrating Constructivist and Sociocultural Learning Principles with Information Communication Technology), the key educational design principles and the assessment approach. Based on the pedagogy, the programme was created in two phases: Design and development. The work of the first phase was on designing at a programme level while the work of the second phase was on developing the three courses of the programme. With the pedagogy and innovative team work, initial feedback from stakeholders was very positive. It is recommended that feedback from stakeholders is formally collected later this year and in the new year