Pre-work! There’s no such thing. Pre-work! – what exactly do we mean by this? Work is either work or it’s not. And if it’s not ‘work’ what is it? Is it reading? If so, reading is something you do therefore it’s work! Is it watching (a video)? If so, it’s still doing ergo work. There’s nothing ‘pre’ about it. Are you getting the drift?
Of course, to make any sort of sense, it’s got to stand for ‘pre-course work’ but even that’s equally confusing. Let’s explore.
The reason for this little rant is that my pet-hate of a phrase (as if you have yet guessed) has been rearing its ugly head quite a lot lately. I’ve read a few blog posts, articles and had conversations with people where these terms are being handed out without any thought about their implications. It’s always baffled me when people use this term. I mean, really! Even when traditional classroom training was the default delivery, we were very often given ‘pre-course work’ to do. The term indicates that it some sort of activity (usually reading) that needs to be done before attending the course. Students are usually provided with details of this as part of their joining instructions or booking confirmation. And what do they do? Well, the don’t do they? This pre-course work is often (to be fair not always) forgotten. Usually, it’s down to their perception that this pre-course work is optional. After all, if it was necessary, it would be actually part of the course wouldn’t it? Its often provided with no clear guidelines about what they should do with it or how it’s going to be used when they arrive at the classroom. There’s no real deadline apart from the date of the classroom course and more often than not there’s no tutor support or facilitation.
This all tells the student that if the tutors/facilitators can’t be bothered to put that effort in then why should they? OK, I might be being a little unfair but it gets my point across.
Now us learning designers know that isn’t the case. We’ve toiled for hours carefully creating this material and determining its importance in the course design. I too have thrown my hands up in the air, looked skywards and silently screamed when set work hasn’t been carried out. So why, if we have determined that this work is a necessary part of the course do we insist on calling it ‘pre-course’? We’re not helping ourselves here.
In today’s multi-media rich world has opened the opportunities of the course to be more than classroom. There is a wider adoption of blended solutions where different elements of the course are delivered via a range of different media channels. Some don’t have a classroom element at all. Strangely enough, those blended solutions where all elements are delivered remotely using a variety of media options are less likely to have ‘pre-course’ work included as it is easier to see it as part of that (likely) online delivery.
But where we do see these blended solutions having a significant classroom delivery element, any set activities outside of the classroom element are still being referred to as ‘pre-course’ or ‘post-course’. Is it any wonder then that we still hear concerns from learning designers that their students are unlikely to carry that work out? Using the phrase ‘pre-course’ perpetuates the misconception that the classroom is still the only place where the real learning happens. Anything else is less important. And, sadly, there are learning designers, trainers and facilitators who still think that themselves.
Over the past 5 years I tried to do my bit to persuade people to think differently about using the term ‘pre-course’ work and to consider using terms such as ‘part 1, part 2 or stage 1, stage 2. It will also help when we no long consider the bulk of the learning/training to take place in the classroom and concentrate on the course being the content not the classroom.