Layering Guidance
I am an academic old-timer and I remember a research topic I remember described as "adjunct questions". The idea was that instead of having students, even college students, read lengthy passages and then come to class to discuss or seek assistance it might make more sense to embed questions within the text itself. I even remember that some textbooks made the commitment to give this idea a try. Questions are a good way to guide and encourage thinking and why not have access to this guidance while processing content. The argument was to encourage reflection while it was efficient to reexamine the content rather than wait and have to recreate the context available during the original reading experience.
The idea of adjunct questions came and went. As I remember the problem, the textbook providers learned that most students simply skipped the questions and the publishers decided that the wasted space resulted in an unnecessary cost. Researchers also knew the value of using questions to periodically revisit stored information and I suppose to encourage revisiting of content when answers are not available.
The core idea of attempting to guide (some might say scaffold) comprehension and inferencing processes still makes sense to me. If possible, why not make the effort to guide these processes in real time?
I began to revisit some of these ideas after exposure to some new tools allowing educators to layer guidance on existing web content they might assign to their students. I describe this as layering guidance because this just seems physically what educators are doing. Some services allow educators to take an existing web resource and add content (highlighting, questions, statements of explanation, etc.) on top of what is already there. The tools do not modify the original content which would be inappropriate or do not reveal the added information to those not wanting to consider the additions. Online content not designed for instructional purposes may benefit greatly from this type of amplification, but even content created for the purpose of instruction does not offer real-time guidance.
There may be multiple tools suited to the purpose I have described. Here are a couple of examples.
Hypothesis -
DocentsEDU -
The following video offers a peek at how these two services work.
Layering was described in the Primer as a content delivery system merging the contributions from two sources - the information source and the instructional designer. This combination allows the instructor as instructional designer to create an experience for learners that facilitates more effective processing of the unsupported content.
Layering services are available for both web pages and online video. I have written another online guide explaining the technical details of layering and suggesting some tactics educators and students themselves can use to benefit from the generative potential of the elements (e.g., annotations, questions) that can added to existing information sources. This resource is offered using a strategy that is similar to that used with this Primer - there is an eboook and free online resources. The online resources associated with the layering book are mostly product demonstrations. As a matter of efficiency, I am linking to these resources rather than duplicating Amy original efforts by reposting them here. The link that follows will connect you with this material.