What if a course, instead of bringing all students along one linear path, was set up for exploration, with some curated paths predesigned? This thread is building on another fantastic thread
Take a Twitter thread as an example. Ideas are broken down into their most atomic chunks, and each tweet can be quote tweeted, allowing people to remix ideas in whatever order they want.
Now imagine a course where instead of having 10 one-hour long lectures, each lecture was broken down into many mini-lectures that are meant to be a self-contained education on a concept.
These mini-lectures would be linked to relevant mini-lectures so people could see both suggested prerequisites and suggested follow-ups, allowing the learner to explore their curiosity.
The course doesn't have to be entirely exploration oriented. The instructor can curate certain paths for the learner that they recommend, giving learners starting points, while ultimately leaving what people choose to learn ultimately up to the learner.
What's interesting to me about this format is that it's unique to online learning. I'm really not sure how this could be replicated in person, and *could* be an improvement over the normal linear learning experience. It's pedagogy that encourages exploration.
One challenging part is that people may struggle to feel as though they've completed a learning when learning is open-ended. This is an [[open question]].
Curation could perhaps look something like skill trees where skills (mini-lessons) can exist in multiple locations at once. This simultaneously shows users recommended paths and gives the user progress markers towards completion, while allowing exploration
How do you think this may be improved? What do you think some potential obstacles are? @calhistorian I'm curious your thoughts, I know you've explored similar curiosity driven/nontraditional pedagogical styles.
Core tension I notice: I think there's a balance to be struck between open-ended learning and curation. Too open-ended and many students will feel lost, too curated and students lose the agency required for curiosity driven exploration.
Outside of curation, there's a role for design-based guidance. In Metroidvania games, players have a lot of freedom as to where they can explore, but the design ups the likelihood they go down certain paths. That's behavior design in a nutshell, a thread for another time though.
Scavenger hunts may also be an interesting way to provide curation while encouraging exploration. Quest design in open-world games would be another source of inspiration.
