Semantic Technology and the Question-Centric Curriculum
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Semantic Technology and the Question-Centric Curriculum Joshua Fost
Published online: 23 March 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Abstract In this article I describe software that facilitates “question-centric curricula” in which big questions, rather than academic disciplines, are the primary means of organizing educational resources. To find these questions, the software scans course catalogs and extracts all sentences ending in a question mark. To find connections between questions and courses, I present several computational techniques. One leverages the Library of Congress system; another implements so-called semantic technology that uses huge numbers of simple internet searches to ascertain the meaning of texts. The software assembles the results and shows, in one image, how every course at an institution relates to a given question. Keywords Question-centric curriculum . Educational software . Student engagement . Inquiry-oriented activities . Semantic technology
Introduction A 2007 report emerging from the national LEAP initiative (Liberal Education and America’s Promise) suggested seven principles of excellence for higher education. One of these principles is to “Engage the Big Questions.” This means to “Teach through the curriculum to far-reaching issues, contemporary and enduring, in science and society, cultures and values, global interdependence, the changing economy, and human dignity and freedom.” (Association of American Colleges and Universities 2007, p. 26). The recommendation is supported by the finding that focusing on real-world implications improves both student engagement and learning outcomes (Bransford et al. 1999) and the corollary principle that students need a compass if they are to avoid a college experience about little more than amassing credits and satisfying graduation requirements. By itself, the big questions approach is not especially innovative, in the sense that many instructors already use it to guide instruction at scales ranging from ad-hoc discussions to Joshua Fost is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and University Studies at Portland State University. He received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Princeton University. He held previous positions as a private-sector Chief Technology Officer. J. Fost (*) Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA e-mail: [email protected]
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Innov High Educ (2013) 38:31–44
instructional units and in some cases entire courses. Indeed, the LEAP recommendation serves more as an endorsement of this approach and a reminder of a best practice rather than as an introduction to a novel practice. It leaves relatively open, however, most of the details regarding implementation, several facets of which are the topic of this article. The innovations described below concern a collection of software tools I am developing that facilitate the creation of what I have termed the question-centric curriculum. They encourage a view of teaching and learning that is guided more by questions than by disciplines. One such tool, for example, provides
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