The second of ten Principles of Learning Design is that we design to harness authoritative voices. This may appear if it is stated as its opposite, we certainly design to harness the voices of the ignorant! However, it is worth restating that in higher education in the Occidental world, we operate in a post-enlightenment, rational context in which those with evidence and wisdom, rather than thoughts and urges, are deemed worthy of emulation. There is a caveat to this opening statement, though. The days when you went to university, and you got the course based on the book of the lecturer who declared themselves as the authority have largely gone. A plurality of voices, opinions, conjectures and evidence is ordinarily present in most higher education courses today, although not always labelled as such.
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