Curation is the new creative task

While there is high-quality content available online, customising it for the context is a critical task of the teacher, writes Elizabeth Jacob.

Teachers have been curators of knowledge since time immemorial. Even before books existed, knowledge was curated and disseminated through verbal communication. With printing and books, the sources of our curation became print publications. With television and the radio, at least some of us upgraded to include media inputs into our canvas.

Now, with the ubiquity of the internet, our canvas has widened. The World Wide Web is our palette, which allows us to pick and put together relevant, conceivable, and exciting things for our learners who are equally confused about what information to consume and what to discard.

With so much information readily available everywhere, the critical skill is curating the best resources for our students. We no longer need to reinvent the wheel of content creation in most subjects—effective curation is the new key for the 21st-century educator. But where do we begin?

Framework for curation

The tsunami of information sources from which to curate might lead to another messy world of curated content. Hence, a systematic curation process needs to be organised around a framework. Build upon the foundations of the teaching plan anchored on the objectives. Curation may include the subject matter, pedagogical content (how to teach the subject effectively), and curricular content (how to teach the subject at various levels).

As an artist selects the perfect blend of inputs—text, audio, video, cases, practical applications, and assessments—build an amicable teaching palette for the student. The 5-C digital curation process proposed by Deschaine and Sharma (2015) - collect, categorise, critique, conceptualise and circulate—could help evaluate and organise the content before presenting it to the learners.

Open Educational Resources (OERs) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are treasure troves for educational curation. While they offer a wealth of high-quality content for building basic understanding, customising it for the context becomes the critical work of the teacher. Linking them to the real world in engaging ways is the art the teacher needs to spend time on, not building content from scratch.

An excellent content curator can find the most relevant material for the topic, find linkages between the content, develop groupings and contexts, navigate the complexity of information, and present it to the receivers in a palatable format.

Digital curation of educational content helps create sub-groupings and options for students to choose from depending on their level of understanding. For example, instead of having a one-size-fits-all approach for assessments, a teacher could curate a variety of assessment options, allowing students to choose how they demonstrate their knowledge. This could be a traditional written exam, a creative presentation, or a digital project. By offering choice, you empower students to take ownership of their learning journey.

Innovative co-curation practices

Digital curation need not be a skill restricted to educators. Learners could also evaluate and synthesise the information they find online, thus contributing to the educational palette while becoming responsible digital citizens. A study conducted among university students showed better academic results when involved in digital content curation through four steps: search, select, sense-making, and share.

The learners may be guided to create a portfolio of their learning materials and readings, which could evaluate their level of understanding and interests, even redirecting the educators towards newer sources of learning. Curation could become a knowledge-creation exercise among teachers, among students or even a combined group of teachers and students.

A choice board is a grid of activities that allows students to select tasks aligned with their preferences and learning styles. These activities include writing prompts, research tasks, art projects, readings, experiments, and open wiki exercises. It provides a structured guide for students to explore and master specific topics or concepts.

While initially requiring effort, this curation pays off by creating a meaningful learning experience, ultimately freeing up time for teachers during class while students work independently. Publicly curated digital textbooks with interactive modes such as QR codes, visuals, links, and active content would soon be in vogue, bringing fluidity to multi-modal content. The result is a rich learning palette for students and teachers.

Co-curated learning experience

For a teacher, curation represents the intentional design of the subject for a personalised and contextualised high-quality learning experience for the students. Suppose the teaching-learning process intends a highly engaged student community. In that case, a self-directed and self-expressed educational design for our learners is the core of curatorial skills that educators must build on. Let’s seize this opportunity and break the mould to build a co-curated learning experience.

(The author is an assistant professor at New Delhi Institute of Management)