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The Rise of Student Performance Content
2/28/2006
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.
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).]
Judith V. Boettcher (judith@designingforlearning.info) is an independent consultant specializing
in distance learning and the applications of new media.
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