Experimental study on the reuse of learning objects and teaching practices

This paper aims at pointing out learning objects and teaching practices professors reuse from others when producing a course, and what they do with them. It presents an experimental study on the reuse of learning objects and teaching practices by four university professors working asynchronously in groups of two only through course material. Prior to the experiment, each professor produced a written description of the teaching practices he used in class for teaching the material he had selected for the experiment. The experiment consisted in reusing course material for producing a course of a few hours, on the basis of one's own material and of the material and the teaching practices provided by another professor. We collected data from four teams of two professors each. Main results show that the professors fully reused their own material and teaching practices, reused some learning objects provided by their collaborator but not his teaching practices. Learning objects of interest for others were reused without modifications with a clear preference for standardized content. Results also show that the professors linked teaming objects to pedagogic activities. The paper concludes with a discussion on the reasons why others' teaching practices were not used.