More than the sum of its parts - designing learning formats from core components.

With increasing numbers of students in tertiary STEM education and stagnating numbers of available teaching staff, large class lectures often remain the last resort. Lectures are not inherently bad, but they tend to foster negative learning attitudes among students like passivity and a feeling of isolation. Furthermore, some topics are better taught using other formats than lectures. Technology in the form of educational software enables a more appropriate learning and various teaching formats deployable in large classes. This article first identifies core components of educational software based on today's information technology and second demonstrates how these components can be combined in different manners resulting in various learning and teaching formats. The core components are: document management, workflow management, content enrichment, input interactions, learning analytics, and system messaging. The contribution of this article is threefold: Core components of educational software are proposed and motivated, four teaching methods and four learning and teaching formats are proposed that build upon the aforementioned core components, and field evaluations of three of these formats are reported about.