Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Focus
The Rise of Student Performance Content
2/28/2006
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.
Recommended Reading
- Sun, Stanford Working To Archive History
In May in San Francisco, experts from leading universities, libraries, and research institutions around the world met as part of an ongoing effort to address a pressing issue: archiving the world's history, right up to today.
- The Quilt Coalition Rolls Out XO Communications for High-Capacity Network Services
The Quilt, a coalition of 28 regional network organizations, has added XO Communications Services to its authorized vendor list. The Quilt represents 200 universities and thousands of other educational institutions across the United States. With this new relationship, Quilt members can purchase XO's high-speed IP transit and network transport services at competitive rates.
- The Quilt Coalition Rolls Out XO Communications for High-Capacity Network Services
The Quilt, a coalition of 28 regional network organizations, has added XO Communications Services to its authorized vendor list. The Quilt represents 200 universities and thousands of other educational institutions across the United States. With this new relationship, Quilt members can purchase XO's high-speed IP transit and network transport services at competitive rates.
- Wimba Classroom 5.2 Expands Classroom Capture Support, Adds MP3 Downloads
At the NECC 2008 conference in Texas this week, Wimba launched a new version of Wimba Classroom, the virtual classroom component of the company's Collaboration Suite. The new 5.2 release expands options for classroom capture and adds a variety of other functional and ease of use features.
- Automation Chimera: Education Is Not Management
The lure of automating workflow online so human intervention is minimized is continually reinforced in the minds of higher education administrators by examples of automated campus systems such as financials, student information systems, and other enterprise systems. But what's good for management is not always good for learning.
- Cognos Releases BI Software for Linux-based IBM System z Mainframe
Cognos, which IBM acquired in January, has released an update to its business intelligence software that will run on the Linux operating system on IBM System z mainframes. IBM Cognos 8 BI was being developed by the two companies prior to the acquisition, but assimilation of Cognos into IBM accelerated development.
