Contribution-oriented pedagogy

Draft

Introduction

Collis & Moonen (2004) define contribution-oriented pedagogy as “approach in which students find, create, submit, and/or share resources using a Web-based course-support environment is identified as a model that is particularly valuable for forms of distance and computer-based learning.”. More precisely, the key ideas are “Learners contribute to the learning materials via contributions made available to others in a Web-based system. The others may be others in the same group or others at other times. The others may be at the same or different locations.”

The concept is also known under other names, e.g. “A Contributing Student Pedagogy (CSP) is a pedagogy that encourages students to contribute to the learning of others and to value the contributions of others.” (Hamer et al. 2008).

See also:

• communal constructivism
• Community of practice
• Community of learning
• Knowledge-building community model
• Connectivism

Benefits

Hamer et al. (2008) , in their literature review, conclude that contributing Student Pedagogies are attractive for a variety of complementary reasons:

• adaptivity to the diversity of learner needs and abilities,
• requiring deep learning and interaction with course material in a variety of ways — selecting, filtering, creating, presenting, reviewing, responding to feedback, etc.
• shifting of power relations to more closely mirror those practiced in the computing industry and in research.
• encouragement of independent learning, to develop self-monitoring and control
• engagement in social interaction to develop social skills,
• valuing contributions to counteract the feeling of being passive recipient in education.