Using 'off-the-shelf' material

The last twenty years has seen a significant increase in the range of ‘off-the-shelf’ teaching and learning materials available for higher education teachers. Developments in multimedia have contributed to this growth, as have government incentives, such as National Teaching Development Grants, and institutional incentives. Learning materials include videos supported by print materials, CD-ROMs and web-based tutorials and labs which can be used to complement, supplement or even replace traditional units.

Off-the-shelf materials are by no means a new phenomenon. For years teachers have been using textbooks as an integral part of the units they teach rather than ‘reinventing the wheel’ and writing all of their own course materials. There are now many more print and non-print resources to choose from. In addition to a range of resources providing content, a variety of processes have been developed, including problem-based learning as a whole-of-curriculum approach, and classroom and group processes such as icebreakers and debates.

Using pre-prepared materials and processes raises a number of issues for teachers, such as:

• the extent to which packages need to be supplemented by teacher-developed materials
• the teacher’s own learning style preferences and whether they influence the choice of media
• the teacher’s opinion of the quality of what they have produced compared to the quality of what others have produced
• finding out about and getting access to materials that are relevant and produce desired learning outcomes
• trialing materials and processes prior to use by students.`

This edition of ITL explores some of these issues and provides some information about locating materials.