{"id":689,"date":"2014-09-24T16:13:04","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T23:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/teachinginadigitalage\/?post_type=chapter&p=689"},"modified":"2015-04-18T16:36:59","modified_gmt":"2015-04-18T23:36:59","slug":"5-4-managing-content","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/teachinginadigitalage\/chapter\/5-4-managing-content\/","title":{"raw":"A.4 Managing content","rendered":"A.4 Managing content"},"content":{"raw":"\"Print\"<\/a>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2910\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"456\"]\"Figure<\/a> Figure A.4.1 Managing content[\/caption]\r\n\r\n\"Print\"<\/a>\r\n\r\nFor most teachers and instructors, content remains a key focus. Content\u00a0includes facts, ideas, principles, evidence, and descriptions of processes or procedures.\u00a0<\/span>A great deal of time is spent on discussing what content should be included in the curriculum, what needs to be covered in a course or a program, what content\u00a0sources such as text-books students should access, and so on.\u00a0Teachers and instructors often feel pressured to cover the whole curriculum in the time available. In particular, lecturing or face-to-face classes remain a prime means for organising and delivering content.\r\n\r\nThe\u00a0case for balancing content with skills development was made several times through the book, but issues around content\u00a0remain critically important in teaching. In particular, instructors need to ask themselves these two questions: 'What specific content will add\u00a0value to the overall goals of this course or program? What content\u00a0would be\u00a0nice for students to cover, but could be avoided if necessary?'\r\n

A.4.1 Goals for content<\/h2>\r\nInstructors in post-secondary education\u00a0tend to take content for granted - this is what we teach. However, it is important, when designing teaching for a digital age, to be clear in our goals for teaching content. Why do we require students to know\u00a0facts, ideas, principles, evidence, and descriptions of processes or procedures? Is learning specific content a goal in itself, or is it a means to an end? For instance, is there an intrinsic value in knowing the periodic table, or the dates of battles, or are they means to an end, such as designing experiments or understanding\u00a0why French is an official language in Canada?<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe question is important, because in a digital age, some would argue that learning or memorising content becomes less important or even irrelevant when it is easy just to look up facts or definitions or equations. Cognitivists\u00a0will argue that content needs to be framed or put in context for it to have meaning. Does content need to be learned solely to enable us to do things, such as solve problems, or make decisions, and do we need only to draw on content as and when needed, as it is now so easy to access?\r\n\r\nProbably more important than the teacher or instructor being clear on why content is being taught is for the students to understand this. One way of stating this is to ask: what value is added to the overall goals of this course or program by teaching this specific content? Do students need to memorise this content, or know where to find it, and when it is important to use it? This means of course having very clear goals for the course or program as a whole.\r\n

A.4.2 Quantity and\u00a0depth<\/h2>\r\n\"Print\"<\/a>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_433\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"460\"]\"\u00a9<\/a> Figure A.4.2 Is there too much content in your course? Image: \u00a9 handyguyspodcast.com[\/caption]\r\n\r\n\"Print\"<\/a>\r\n\r\nIn many contexts, instructors have little choice over content. External bodies, such as accreditation agencies, state or provincial governments, or professional licensing boards, may well dictate what content a particular course or program needs to cover. However, the rapid growth of scientific and technological knowledge increasingly challenges the idea of a fixed body of content that students must learn. Engineering and medical programs struggle to cover even in six or eight years of formal education all the knowledge that professionals need to know to practice effectively. Professionals will need to go on learning well past graduation if they are to keep up with new developments in the field.\r\n\r\nIn particular, covering content quickly\u00a0or\u00a0overloading\u00a0students with content are\u00a0not effective teaching strategies, because even working harder all waking hours will not enable students in these subject domains to master all the information they need in their professions. Specialization has been a traditional way of handling the growth of knowledge, but\u00a0that does not help in dealing with complex problems or issues in the real world, which often require inter-disciplinary and broader based approaches.\u00a0Thus instructors need to develop strategies\u00a0that enable students to cope with the massive and growing amounts of knowledge in their field.\r\n\r\nOne way to handle the problem of knowledge explosion is to focus on the development of skills, such as knowledge management, problem-solving and decision-making. However, these skills are not content-free. In order to solve problems\u00a0or make decisions, you need access to facts, principles, ideas, concepts and data. To manage knowledge, you need to know what content is important and why, where to find it, and how to evaluate it. In particular there may be core or basic knowledge or content that\u00a0needs to be mastered for many if not most of their professional activities. One teaching skill then will be the ability to differentiate between essential and desirable areas of content, and to ensure that whatever is done to develop skills, in the process core content is covered.\r\n

A.4.3 Sources<\/h2>\r\nAnother critical decision for teachers in a digital age is where students should source or find content. In medieval times, books were scarce, and the library was an essential source of content not only for students but also for professors. Professors had to select, mediate and\u00a0filter content because the sources of content were extremely scarce. We are not in that situation today. Content\u00a0is literally everywhere: on the Internet, in social media, on mass media, in libraries and books, as well as\u00a0in the lecture theatre.\r\n\r\nOften, a great deal of time is spent in departmental or program meetings on discussing what textbooks or articles students should be required to read. Part of the reason for selecting or limiting content is to limit the cost to students, as well as the need to focus on a limited range of material within a course or program. But today, content is increasingly open, free and available on demand over the Internet.\u00a0Most students will need to continue learning after graduation. They will increasingly resort to digital media for their sources of knowledge. Therefore when deciding on content we should be considering:\r\n

(a) to what extent does the instructor need to choose the content for a program (other than a broad set of curriculum topics) and to what extent should students be free to choose\u00a0both content and the source of that content?<\/p>\r\n

(b) to what extent does the instructor need to deliver content themselves, such as through a lecture or\u00a0Powerpoint slides, when content is so freely available elsewhere? What is the added value you are providing by delivering the content yourself? Could your time be better used in other ways?<\/p>\r\n

(c) to what extent do we need to provide criteria or guidelines to students for choosing and using openly accessible content, and what is the best way to do that?<\/p>\r\nWhen answering such questions, we should also be asking whether our decisions will help students manage content better themselves after graduating.\r\n

A.4.4 Structure<\/h2>\r\nOne of the most critical supports that teachers and instructors provide is to structure the sequence and inter-relationship of different content elements. I include within structure:\r\n