Trends in the design, development, and use of digital curriculum materials

Digital curriculum resources in mathematics education: foundations for change

“…At the same time new DCR have been characterised as being potentially transformative. This special issue extends the recent focus on DCR (e.g., Bates and Usiskin 2016;Choppin and Borys 2016;Pepin et al 2016), which has addressed the following topics: the development of smart or digital textbooks; the ability to customise or individualise within digital environments, including the kinds and impact of embedded assessment systems that may switch the locus of control from teachers to digital programmes; digital resources collectively developed by teachers, with potential impact on coherence and patterns of uptake; the appropriation of digital resources by teachers and students. In this special issue, we explicitly recognise and build on this research, in order to establish theoretical framing for this work and to hopefully spur broader empirical research efforts.…”

“…Typically such programmes rely on student performance on multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank items to decide whether to move on to the next topic or to continue with the current one. As reported in more detail elsewhere in this special issue (Choppin and Borys 2017), a number of studies funded by the Gates Foundation and other foundations have shown that the use of adaptive courseware gave rise to modest learning gains, but that these gains were usually associated with narrowly focussed and relatively simple content; furthermore, the use of these programmes slowed the pace at which content was covered and completed and did not address deep learning when needed (Means et al 2014;Yarnell et al 2016).…”

“…They conceptualised the learning space in terms of learning experiences, differentiation/individualization, social/ collective features. In the second framework, Choppin and Borys (2017) look at DCR with respect to four perspectives that inform the design, development, dissemination of curriculum resources, and they explore how these perspectives lead to a foregrounding (or backgrounding) of the features described in the Choppin et al (2014) framework. The four perspectives-private sector perspective, designer perspective, policy perspective, and user perspective-are often in tension with each other in terms of the purposes for design, the resources and capacity necessary to adopt digital programmes, and the potential to develop teacher capacity.…”

“…As Choppin and Borys (2017) note, the potential complexity of digital problem spaces has the potential to "disrupt welldefined lesson structures and allocations of time (both duration and synchronicity)… interrupting the potential flow of a lesson, with implications for following a prescribed scope and sequence of mathematics" (p. xx). In addition, hyperlinked texts may alter a prescribed scope and sequence of content, changing the logic of how learners proceed from one topic to the next.…”

“…Examples include digits (http:// www.pearsonschool.com/index.cfm?locator=PSZwZ5) and CINCH (http://www.mhcdi.com/cm_about.html), which took previously developed materials, digitised them, and added distinctive digital features, such as dynamic tools and interactive media (Choppin 2016). Primarily, the impact of the digitised versions of these materials was in the presentation space, where the developers added media to introduce or explain topics (Choppin and Borys 2016). These developers also embedded their curriculum programmes in LMSs, which are prominent in the way these programmes are publicised.…”