Deeply Digital Curriculum and Online Learning: What, Why, and How?

In the K–12 2010 report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, the term “deeply digital” referred to comprehensive instructional materials for STEM education that “would use simulations, probes, multimedia, and other digital resources as needed” (p. 80) When used in a broader sense, Deeply digital curriculum can be imagined as education delivered using mainly digital instructional materials. As the term “migrated” to areas of education beyond K–12 STEM, specifically the context of online education could be considered, by its own nature, a manifestation of deeply digital curriculum. The question remains, is all online education really deeply digital? This article proposes that there are different levels of “digital” aspect in online education. In addition, when analyzing practices and experiences in online education, other questions arise. What is deeply digital curriculum and why do we want it? What are the pedagogical implications of implementing deeply digital curriculum? The goals of this article are to address these terms and share some reflections on digital curriculum from the perspective of a higher education professor who has extensive experience in online education.

What are we talking about when we talk about deeply digital curriculum? In order to answer this question, two concepts need to be defined: curriculum and deeply digital. Curriculum is an abstract term and its complexity has led to numerous definitions. While someone who is not an educator or a specialist in curriculum may interpret curriculum as the list of content teachers need to teach and students need to learn, broader definitions go beyond this content knowledge-centered concept. For example, Oliva and Gordon (2013) define curriculum as

Although this definition includes what students need to learn, the focus is on the plan of learners’ experiences. Then, the question that logically follows is, “what are learning experiences?” Ralph Tyler (1949) defines a “learning experience” as the “interaction between the learner and the external conditions in the environment to which he can react. Learning takes place through the active behavior of the student: it is what he does that he learns, not what the teacher does” (p. 63). The emphasis on what the student does is important, because it implies a shift on the role of the teacher and the learner toward a more learner-centered curriculum.

While the term “digital” is ubiquitous in the area of technology, its popularity has also extended to the business arena. In this context, “being digital” has been defined as the reimagining of business processes to be by default a fully online, fully automated process from end user interaction to back office processing, with no need for human intervention (Hmeid, 2016). In the field of education, digital learning has been associated with “technology-enabled instruction that gives students and faculty greater flexibility in how, when, and where learning occurs. Such learning can involve formats ranging from entirely online to some mix of online and face-to-face settings” (Bailey, Vaduganathan, Henry Laverdiere, & Pugliese, 2018, p. 11).

In the area of education, because in most online courses the learning processes are facilitated using a learning management system or “technology-enabled instruction,” it may be assumed that the online curriculum is deeply digital. However, the curriculum, or the experiences in online education, may fall in different points of a broad spectrum that goes from superficial to deeply digital learning. At one end of the spectrum, the learning management system is used as a virtual space used by professors to post assignments and students and by students to submit completed assignments. In this level, which has similarities with distance learning as delivered in the last century, the only advantage of online learning is the speed in which assessments are received and processed—an learning management system is obviously faster than the postal service. If we understand curriculum as the planning of the learning experience, this type of online learning illustrates an example of superficial digital curriculum level. Here, most of the learning experiences are done by the students independently and the interactions are limited to the individual student and the professor who posts and grades the assignments. At a middle level, one more interaction is included. Besides interacting with the professor, learners have the opportunity to also interact with fellow students by reading their discussions posts and responding to them. In some cases, the online learning experience at this level could also include learners’ access to e-books or presentations that facilitate interactions with the content knowledge.

At the other end of the spectrum, I envision the learners submerged in participating in a highly engaged learning community that interacts using a diverse set of very interactive and sophisticated digital tools in order to learn. At this level, for example, students interact individually with the learning content by completing modules that include interactive presentations, videos, and instantly graded quizzes. Using some courseware, students may have the opportunity to follow customized learning pathways that vary from student to student, depending on pretests and on quiz results. Learners also collaborate with fellow students in small groups using the content knowledge in order to create a product, solve a problem, or play a content game. In this deep level, the whole group of students and the professor interact in problem solving during synchronous meetings via videoconferencing sessions that also may include presentations and questions and answers activities. Learners also interact with fellow students and the professor asynchronously, in discussions where the professor has the role of a facilitator. In addition, students interact individually with the professor by completing reflective and higher level thinking assignments, receiving feedback, setting goals for learning, and reviewing these goals. Small group activities would also take place at the groups’ own time, using synchronous or asynchronous tools. The professor facilitates some of these interactions by creating the groups and guiding them when needed. The goal of these interactions is to collaborate in problem solving or to create learning products. The whole class or student body interacts with the content of the course by creating, watching, reading and/ or listening to all the learning products created for the course by each of the small groups. In addition, a whole class anonymous evaluation of the course would shed light on the knowledge constructed during the course and on the strengths and areas of improvement of the course. Here, the professor’s role consists on learning from the students.

Online institutions and professors implement courses that are closer to the superficial or the deep level of digital curriculum, or that are some version of the middle level. The different types of interactions at the superficial, middle, and deep level described here are illustrated on the graphic on spectrum of digital curriculum (see Figure 1 and Figure 2)

Using an opposite direction, and from the perspective of some instructional designers and courseware providers, the Learning Counsel (2019) developed a “Digital Curriculum Characteristics Scale” that has seven levels, from digital document in the bottom of the scale, where there is more instructional planning for the faculty, to highly designed digital courseware, where there is more automated learning. In the highest level, the Learning Counsel describes “software that is known as ‘courseware’ [which] requires very little in the way of instructional planning, because it is the learning plan within a gaming type environment of scale and sequence learning” (p. 181). The graphic on digital curriculum characteristics scale illustrates these levels. When describing the different levels in the scale, Cauthen (2019) claims that highly designed digital courseware should be used

Having students independently learning while using software that engages them in gaming-like activities and freeing time to focus on individual students’ needs seems a dream situation to professors and students. From the perspective of a higher education professor, however, being required very little in the way of instructional planning may come with some risks and hence, triggers some questions that are worth analyzing before considering jumping into the deep end of the digital curriculum:

1. Deeply digital curriculum for what? Or how does a set of instructional materials align with the goals of the course?

2. Do the instructional materials meet the quality standards adopted by the school?

3. Do the values promoted by the instructional materials or program align with the values highlighted by the school’s mission and vision?

4. What are the roles of professors and students in deeply digital curriculum?

5. What institutional and personal adjustments are needed for a productive adoption and implementation of deeply digital instructional materials or programs?

6. What are the advantages and limitations of adopting a deeply digital curriculum?

For educators who are not instructional designers, instructional materials that include sophisticated software such as virtual reality and 3D environments can be fascinating and become, in their minds, excellent tools for student engagement. However, the “awe effect” of technology should not be the only criterion used to adopt or recommend the adoption of sophisticated digital learning materials or the design of deeply digital learning experiences. If the general goal of a course is for students to acquire specific knowledge and master certain skills, then the selection of the learning materials should be based on the products’ ability to effectively help students learn what they need to learn (content knowledge) and be able to do what they need to be able to do (skills). In other words, curriculum alignment should be Okept in mind as the main factor for the selection of instructional materials. No matter how engaging specific learning experiences are, if they do not help students learn what they have to learn, they are not relevant.

Although most areas of higher education are less affected by the standardization of education that is facing K–12 education, without advocating for standards, I dare to state that online education in higher education needs quality guidelines to assure that students have effective online learning experiences to help them meet the desired outcomes. Several organizations have created scorecards, rubrics, and other guidelines that are worth considered when designing, teaching, evaluating, modifying online courses or integrating instructional materials in the online curriculum. Some examples of these guidelines are the Quality Matters’s (2018) Rubrics and Standards and the Quality Course Teaching & Instructional Practice Scorecard by the Online Learning Consortium. These guidelines include a variety of factors that need to be considered to ensure a quality learning experience. When focusing in learning experiences and activities, although these factors include the materials’ ability to engage learners, they clearly go beyond engagement. Some of these factors are learning materials’ promotion of high-order thinking, problem solving skills, communication and collaboration, offering activities that reflect real word application of knowledge, representation of up-to-date theories and practices, and alignment with desired outcomes.

Curriculum is never value neutral (Apple, 1993), no matter if it is digital or not. As instructional materials in face-to-face learning, instructional materials used in online learning carry and promote certain values. Although values are usually easy to identify in textbooks, either in printed or electronic versions, instructional materials also implicitly or explicitly foster or highlight certain values while they omit or undermine others. Those values may differ from the values adopted by the college that considers adopting deeply digital instructional materials. If, for example, the mission of a college highlights collaboration and cooperation, instructional materials that promote individualism and competition would not be in alignment with the values of the college. If the mission of a school emphasizes diversity, instructional materials that include images of mostly White people or materials that include pictures in which only men have power or authority undermine the mission. In order to assure alignment between the values supported and fostered by the school and the values promoted by the instructional materials, the values fostered explicitly and implicitly by these materials need to be analyzed carefully.

Although in the late 1940s Ralph Tyler explained that “it is what he (the student) does that he learns, not what the teacher does” (Tyler, 2013, p. 63), today many professors still consider the lecture—either in front of a class or via video or digital presentation—a main learning activity. Engaging students with independent work in courseware to learn concepts and offering learners opportunities for social interaction with professor and classmates via discussions, videoconference meetings, group projects, and other activities means a significant shift in the roles of professors and students. These kinds of learning experiences, added to the current massive availability of resources, remove the professor from the traditional central role as the person who has and shares the knowledge and moves her to the role of facilitator of the learning process. Similarly, in this type of learning experiences, students cease to be the subjects who listen to lessons and repeat concepts in tests. Instead, they need to engage in individual interaction with the content knowledge using instructional materials and later use that knowledge in social interactions to discuss or creating products. This shift in roles creates a less hierarchical and more horizontal relationship with knowledge in which the teacher is not the owner of knowledge. This shift in roles is not always easy, and may create a sense of discomfort or even open opposition to it. If implemented without opportunities for faculty members and students to reflect on the changes and to make some personal and institutional adjustments, the discomfort or opposition may diminish the potential of the deeply digital instructional materials.

Curricular improvements, including the integration of new instructional materials or courseware, need to be implemented in ways that facilitate better learning and teaching. For that, understanding the culture of the college, its needs, and the needs of the faculty and students, is essential. This implies a need to give professors a voice in the decision-making process related to the adoption of deeply digital or any instructional materials. Once the decision is made, faculty members need to be supported, before and during the implementation, with opportunities to learn how to effectively use the new materials and to reflect on how to adjust to their somehow new roles. Professional development programs and products such as workshops, peer coaching, webinars and tutorials are helpful before implementation of new deeply digital instructional materials, while provider’s help lines, faculty meetings, and professional learning communities are useful support strategies during the implementation. In addition, students should have easy access to support services and products such as tutorials and 24/7 provider’s help lines, among others. The availability of resources required to address the needs of faculty and students should be assessed before making the decision to adopt deeply digital instructional materials. Does the institution have the resources? If not, does the budget allow for the additional resources needed? Does the college have instructional designers or other highly educated staff to make sure users have easy and continuous access to the support they need? These are some of the questions worth considering before implementation.

As discussed above, clear advantages of deeply digital curriculum seem to be the ability to engage student in individual learning while freeing faculty time that can be used to promote students’ interactions with other students and the professor. In these interactions, students use the content knowledge acquired independently to discuss and produce work. In this context, the learning materials or courseware offer effective and engaging interactions between learners and knowledge, while the professor, from the role of facilitator, designs and implements effective and engaging interactions between learners and learners, and learners and professor. Regarding assessment, the automated section of the courseware or digital instructional materials offer feedback and grade to the students, which also frees faculty from some basic content knowledge grading. The professor offers feedback and grade for the more complex learning products, and guides students in the process of goal setting and metacognition.

Some risks associated with the adoption of instructional materials or courseware for a deeply digital curriculum relate to possible data breaches, security, and privacy protection policies. Expert and detailed analysis of the materials need to be implemented by the institution adopting the materials or courseware in order to protect users, both students and professors, and to protect the institution, too.

Although many of the ideas discussed above may seem obvious, my experience transitioning to four different learning management systems in two institutions and my experience with many processes of curriculum review, reform, and redesign in different schools indicate that sometimes, when it comes to implementing changes, the urgency defeats the opportunities to reflect on obvious factors that would enrich the urgent implementation. This paper poses that before jumping into the deep end of digital curriculum, it is imperative to open the reflection and discussion on the topics introduced above.

In synthesis, when considering submerging into deeply digital curriculum, colleges need to go beyond the instructional materials’ capabilities to engage students and keep focus on curriculum alignment, examine the quality of instructional materials and courseware, and analyze the alignment—or lack thereof— between the values promoted by the institution and by the instructional materials and courseware. In addition, institutions should promote professors’ reflections on the shift in their roles. Investment on resources to support professors and students before and during the implementation of the new curriculum is also a need that should be considered before adoption.