The Rise of Student Performance Content
- By Judith V. Boettcher
- 02/28/06
Move over textbooks: Spontaneous, course-generated content may be edging
you out.
How much content, and what type of content do we need for a course? Will content
generated spontaneously in the process of teaching and learning reduce the role
of the textbook? Just as we have recently redefined our concepts of a course,
a physical classroom, and books, it is probably time to think more deeply about
the role of content in a course.
Predictions of the death of textbooks (John W. Moore, “Are Textbooks
Dispensable?” Journal of Chemical Education, 2003), questions
about the value of textbooks (Leon Fink, “Making Textbooks Worthwhile,”
Chronicle of Higher Education, 2005), and consortium proposals to develop
open source educational software (Fred M. Beshears, “The Economic Case
for Creative Commons Textbooks,” CT’s eLearning Dialogue
eLetter, Oct. 5, 2005) are increasingly the focus of discussions on selecting
and paying for content resources. Still, within this quietly-growing whirlwind
of commentary, the textbook as a substantive, vetted collection of scholarly
content is still on its pedestal as the primary source of course content.
Yet, to ward off concerns, publishers are responding with digital content initiatives
and adding rich media content that is readily and easily loaded into course
management systems. These strategic moves mean that the “textbook”
will likely remain a significant source of course content for some time—providing
significant convenience for the faculty and for learners, as well as significant
revenue for publishers.
But other forces—separate from the issues of technologies, costs, and
multiplying formats—may cause the textbook to move over and share its
pedestal. Simply stated, the role of content in a course is shifting, and that
shift is linked to the influence of the teaching philosophies of [Lev] Vygotsky,
[Jean] Piaget and other “active learning” movements. Prepared bodies
of content, as epitomized in the textbook, have traditionally supported the
faculty-to-student communication flow. This is the same philosophy that was
rooted in the belief that learning happens when students are “told”
concepts while sitting in a lecture hall or reading a textbook. Constructivist
and social learning philosophies posit that learners learn content when they
construct and build their own knowledge in an interactive context.
This shift means that new course content that supports the re-balancing of
the dialogs within a course is needed. A dialog balance means that students
are actively dialoging with other students, actively working with realistic
and complex problems, and generating and bringing content to the course. Younger
students, in particular, want to be “doing,” and so are creating
more of their own content in the process of learning. Thus, prepared bodies
of content will be complemented by collections of content freely available on
the Internet, combined with content that is generated spontaneously in the process
of student learning.
How Much Content Do We Need?
Two closely related questions are: Just how much content do we need
for a course? And, how do we achieve a closer fit of content to any
group of particular students? Vygotsky’s concept of the “zone of
proximal development” suggests that more content choices need to be available
to ensure a fit of content to students. Similarly, Piaget’s concept of
the “optimal mismatch” of student and content suggests that a textbook
used in a linear approach and bounded by the physical constraints of a book
might be less than optimal for many students. The goal of any course is for
all the learners to achieve the specified performance goals. We need flexibility
and choice in the type of content and availability of content to design learning
experiences that fit where students are in their learning. Let’s look
at the three types of content in most online courses today.
1—Prepackaged authoritative content. Prepackaged
authoritative content generally consists of materials collected into a textbook,
representing vetted scholarship. Prepackaged content is generally developed
with the discipline and content perspective as the primary driver; the specific
learner and the learning context is abstract and assumed. Prepackaged content
often contributes about 30 to 40 percent of the content of a course and serves
to provide content containing the core concepts and principles of the course.
This content might also include problems, tests, and quizzes for the core concepts
and principles. As for format, the textbook is slowly shifting from a physical
book and a CD, to a Web site and digital book. The textbooks of the future may
well be digital and portable. Recent product announcements illustrate two possible
formats. One format by Findaway (www.findaway.org)
combines an audiobook with its own portable player; another new format by Sony
(www.sony.com) provides a
larger text-display screen that is close to the size of a paperback book.
2—Guided learning materials. Guided learning
materials are produced specifically for a course by a faculty member. They include
the content written by faculty prior to and during a course, such as the syllabus,
projects, assignments, discussion reviews, and feedback to questions. The content
generated by the faculty includes the lecture content. In online learning, much
of this content is developed ahead of time, and used for two to three cycles
of a course. As this content is continually being massaged to fit particular
sets of students, it is dynamic and customized. It is created ahead of time,
but not by much. This guided learning material accounts for about 30 percent
of a course, as well.
3—Interactive and spontaneous ‘performance’ content.
The third type of content is created and identified by students in the process
of learning. Interactive and spontaneous content is “what happens during
learning”—or “performance” content. It is the content
generated in discussion-board postings and analyses, reflections, summaries,
and reviews. It is content created by individuals and teams for projects and
other assignments, including test preparation. It is the content generated in
the solving of problems; it is the drafts of problems, and even the wrong alleys
of learning. This course content might be “found” content, including
that of current news events, etc. that students bring to the course experience.
The purpose of most of this spontaneous performance content is to stimulate
and generate the lasting, more-permanent knowledge growth within the individual
students.
Younger students want to be ‘doing,’ and are creating more of their
own content in the process of learning.
This learner-generated content has always been a part of learning, but it has
been much less visible. The learner-centered trends—combined with reasonably
easy access to sophisticated audio, video capture and editing tools—are
now bringing this content type into focus. The fact of the matter is, when using
their newly developed skills to solve new problems, students are often generating
new content. This “performance” content is the growing segment of
course content, and will probably increase to represent about 30 to 35 percent
of a course, and in graduate education, possibly even more.
Value of Student Performance Content
Should we have systems to support the use and recycling of any of this spontaneous
performance content? Though we think of portfolio systems primarily as a tool
for supporting student assessment, perhaps some version of portfolios might
be useful for capturing and archiving significant student-generated content.
Perhaps we need a feedback loop for student-created content to the open-source
consortium being proposed.
Yet, content is not king in learning. Content is one of the tools to help students
develop useful knowledge and skills. A small portion of student performance
content—if it is new knowledge—will be useful to keep. Most of the
student performance content will be generated, then used, and will become stored
in places that will never again see the light of day. Yet, having said that,
it is still important to understand that the role of this student content in
learning is critical. The textbook content is the external body of knowledge;
the student performance content is the content that shapes and molds the learner’s
unique knowledge structures. [Ed. Note: For related reading on this topic, don’t
miss the Faculty Guide for Moving Teaching and Learning to the Web,
by Judith V. B'ettcher and Rita Marie Conrad (League for Innovation, 2004).]