Learner Centered Concepts

Hey Everyone!

It has been a while. Crazy how busy one can get. I'm back in school working on a doctorate in curriculum and assessment to enhance my instructional design degrees. This has led me to wonder about credentials and the blending of education with design. I have found that my educational background and expertise has given the projects I work on a pretty clear focus on the learner and their experience. However, getting SMEs to focus on this aspect versus just the content is a challenge. I also have encountered a lot of developers who are very content driven and can forget that there is a learner to be concerned about as well as standards that must be mastered. There are modules that provide information and modules that provide professional development. I know I have had this conversation a bit before. However, this made me wonder how others engage creating curricula or are you typically given content from which to design and develop? I am often given a blank slate or a list of benchmarks and tasked with building actual curriculum for courses versus one stand alone module (language is always an issues when discerning a module from a course from a unit from a chapter...etc.). Anyhow, do you use a learner centered approach/philosophy? Is this important?  Is there a difference between "training" and "professional development"?

Happy Holidays!

PS. I finally have my own Lectora license and can start developing along with my designs!!! Happy Me!!! :-)