Metasystems Learning Design Theory

Abstract

Open textbooks play an important role in skills development. They provide open access to global knowledge and offer the collaborative way for problem solving, critical thinking, and development of on-demand skills. The emergence of the open textbooks represents a metasystem transition from printed textbooks to OERs. This causes a contradiction between what students learn, how they learn, and what they need to learn for better adaptivity at the variety of learning environments. This chapter explores the state-of-the-art in metasystems learning design theory and norms for practical applications in designing of the open textbooks. It is argued that learning is a metasystem transition from knowledge acquisition to soft skills development and that learning is more than the achievement of the instructional objectives. The open textbooks may have an important impact on self-regulated learning if the design of open textbook will be focused on metasystems technology of thinking.