Trends in the Design, Development, and Use of Digital Curriculum Materials

• In Event: Mathematics E-Textbooks and Digital Curriculum Resources: Their Design, Use, and Interactivity, for Teachers and Students

Abstract

Objectives
There is an increasing policy push internationally for teachers to use digital materials (Devaney, 2013; LEAD Commission, 2012; Selywn, 2007; Usdan & Gottheimer, 2012). Consequently, there is a need to study trends in the design, development, and use of comprehensive digital programs.

Theoretical Position
Digital curriculum programs are potentially transformative (cf. Abell, 2006; Fletcher et al., 2012; Zhao, Zhang, & Lai, 2010), incorporating greater interactivity, increased and varied social interactions, greater individualization and customization, and assessments systems embedded into the programs.

Methods of Inquiry
We analyzed eight digital programs to characterize:
1. The level of interactivity in the student materials;
2. Potential for teacher authorship or use (re-sourcing) of the content; and
3. Incorporation of built-in assessment systems, to consider adaptive and reporting mechanisms.
Based on the findings of that analysis, we revisited the literature and media reports to ascertain ongoing patterns in the development and use of digital programs.

Data Sources
We subscribed to the eight programs or used freely available content. We also continuously surveyed the literature and media reports on the design and use of digital materials over a two-year span.

Results
We noted several trends in the development of digital curriculum programs. First, commercial developers of digital programs emphasize, customization, individualization, and embedded assessment (cf. Author, 2015; Education Week, 2015), especially adaptive assessment, oftentimes bundled with learning management systems. The programs developed by large publishers typically lack interactive features and ubiquitous access to dynamic tools. Second, some programs such as those developed in Israel and Korea (Lew, 2014; Yerushalmy, 2014), emphasize ubiquitous access to dynamic tools, such as linked representational tools (equation editor, graphing tool, table) as well as potential authoring capabilities, but have less robust embedded assessment or management systems. Third, newer programs from commercial publishers that were built independent of existing content and platforms (such as those developed by Amplify and Pearson – see Confrey, 2014), have perhaps the most comprehensive and fully developed collection of digital features but are too new to determine uptake.

The use of digital programs reflects evolving trends in the role of textbooks or curriculum programs as the primary means of defining curriculum. With the continuing emergence of the use of political documents and high-stakes assessments as the primary means of articulating curriculum (Chazan & Yerushalmy, 2014), teachers “forage” for digital materials to meet curriculum needs (Selwyn, 2007) in ways that separate the materials from the coherent curriculum context in which they were developed. A second trend is the development and adoption of content-independent learning management systems such as Edmodo or Schoology, which encourages schools to see curriculum as modular components – rather than coherent programs with fully integrated features –that can plug seamlessly into these LMSs (Education Week, July 2015).

Significance of the Work
These trends speak to the promise of digital programs as well as limitations related to the commercialization of the programs, the influence of curriculum and assessment policies, and the influence of other market forces that influence how digital programs are taken up by practitioners.

Author

• Jeffrey M. Choppin, University of Rochester