A new ‘gold standard’ in higher education?


Alternatives to the traditional textbook suit diverse learning needs.

We’re not all four-year undergraduate students living on campus. Many of us have jobs, kids, families, and mortgages. Some of us commute on public transportation, are coming back for a second career, or are getting our diploma after a long hiatus from school.

Our learning styles are as diverse as our demographics—we’re not all “A” students, fast readers, question askers, or test acers. We learn best by listening, or by watching, or—as I do—by being actively engaged in material in order to internalize it. Some of us need repetition, some need highlighters and flashcards; we all need motivation. In today’s technology-driven society, even the fundamental notion of what constitutes a “classroom” is being questioned. Hybrid classes and online degrees are becoming increasingly popular, as we look for more efficient and effective ways to get an education.

Once upon a time, the textbook served as the “gold standard” in the classroom, but alone, these “hardcovers” are failing to meet the diversified needs of today’s learners. Thus our old (heavy) friend, the textbook, is rapidly being replaced by eTextbook platforms. And the new gold standard? Meeting the individual needs of each learner. Education in our digital age has the potential to offer something we, as students, have been hard pressed to achieve in the past: a real voice and a sense of ownership over our educational process.

Recently, I was lucky enough to participate in a student focus group for a new eLearning platform called Tuatara. This is the first digital platform I’ve encountered to place its primary emphasis on the student’s workflow, and the focus group reached out to varied types and demographics of learners. Their goal was first to understand, and then to address, the specific individual needs of students.

This was quite exciting to be a part of.

There are lots of students who are struggling, whether financially, with family or work obligations, or with learning disabilities that make grasping new material difficult. These are marginalized students, and unfortunately, they are also the students most often denied educational opportunities. Soon, organizations like Tuatara will be able to use technology as a bridge, linking students who might otherwise fall through the cracks with the resources and alternatives they need to succeed.

The focus group learned that instructors could place their lectures and notes on file with tutoring and support centers. The tutors then work with materials straight from the classroom, allowing them to better supplement the instructor’s lessons. For those of us in need of extra help, we can use these support centers, confident that the information being covered is coming directly from our instructor. From personal experience with less-than-effective tutoring and support services, this notion of collaboration between tutors and instructors is no small feat.

Time is also a huge factor for many students. Some of us have children, juggle school and jobs, struggle to feed families, and burn the candle at both ends. In newly developing “student-centered” digital education, real-time chat features allow busy pupils to access tutoring and support services at (virtually) all hours of the day or night. For many students, this offers a chance not only to get their degree, but to simultaneously keep their jobs, feed their kids, and take care of themselves. Without opportunities like this, these are the students who fail.

This technology-driven educational revolution does not just deal with the demographic disparities between students. It also addresses our different learning styles. A “hands-on” learner myself, I seldom rely solely on my textbook (either online or hardcover) to learn. Instead, I gather outside sources on my own (YouTube, Khan Academy, Wikipedia, etc.) to supplement my assigned readings. And I am not alone in this—increasing numbers of students are turning to outside resources that speak to them as individual learners.

With platforms like Tuatara, if the textbook paragraph that explains how the heart pumps blood doesn’t make sense to me, but a short video on YouTube does, I can drag and drop the video right into my online notebook. This is absolutely fantastic. I have the textbook resources, plus any content from other sources, all available to me in one central location.

As digital technology advances, more and more options are becoming available to students. Tuatara’s platform allows us to collaborate on group projects in real time and get help from our instructors during online office hours—wherever we are. We can share notes, attend study groups, and toggle seamlessly between our online textbooks, notebooks, and PowerPoint slides. Instead of spending hours flipping through endless pages of textbooks looking for content, we can use “Relevant Search” features to find exactly what we’re looking for (and in what context we’re looking for it). All of this lets us be as active in our educational process as we want or need to be—it allows us to interact with eTextbooks and open-source content in ways traditional textbooks cannot.

It doesn’t matter whether I’m a “traditional” student or not, whether I’m taking online classes, or struggling to raise two kids while getting my degree. The historic part of this new digital technology is that, rather than being force-fed a “one-size-fits-all” education, we now have options. We are being offered learning platforms, like Tuatara, that adapt to our individual needs not only as students, but as learners and as people as well, allowing us to gain a bit more control over our own education. And this, as a student, is nothing short of empowering.

Jennah Epstein Kraus is a nursing student at Northeastern University.

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