Project Name: Developing meaningful dialogue and participation online

Lead Institution: University of Wolverhampton

Project Lead: Dr. Andy Cramp

 

The table below provides a summary of all aspects of this Transformations Project. I have slotted it in at the beginning but left the formative work below.

 

Case Study Title   Learning as Social Practice Online: how can meaningful dialogue be nurtured online in the spirit of learning as social practice?

Background   The MA Education programme is a flexible part time CPD award aimed at practitioners in any sector of education. The majority of participants are teachers in schools and colleges, looking to extend their skills and understandings of education and learning. We have explored the option of running the programme as an online only award but decided instead that we and our participants value face to face learning too highly to lose that mode of learning. So instead we have designed a blended award where face to face sessions become key moments in most modules and are followed by 2-3 online sessions.  To increase the flexibility of the award we have designed 2 online modules, one of which is 'Learning as Social Practice Online'. This was developed using  JISC Transformations Project funding; It  explores how meaningful dialogue can be nurtured online in the spirit of learning as social practice. The Project aimed to put 'activity' at the forefront of the learning experience online and challenge narrower conceptions of learning online as the individual consumption of  'digitised resources'.   Pace The module pace is controlled by three key note video conferences (VCs) during a 9 week activity period followed by 2 weeks of independent study leading to final summative assignment submission. Participants e engaged in online tutor (OLT) led discussion and activity leading up to each VC; Between the 3 VCs, participants worked at a pace that suited them, supported by online discussion in a Face Book Group (open only to participants) with the OLT and other participants;   Place This module is  totally online and forms part of The MA Education programme which engages participants using a blended approach. Two modules are fully online using the institution’s virtual learning environment (VLE) – WOLF. The rest of the award is a mix of key face to face events followed typically by online debate and reflection; We decided against a fully online programme because of the value we and our participants place on face to face learning activity. However we are careful to control how often participants are required to attend face to face and  modules like 'Learning as Social Practice Online' allow greater flexibility for those flexibility to study at the most convenient time and place for them. This induction involves meeting the programme team, an overview of the programme, and a practical research methods workshop related to the first module.   Mode The module is underpinned by the principle of activity-led learning (ALL) and  informed by compulsory and recommended readings. We use the word 'participants' rather than 'students' to emphasise the role of participation in the module and indeed the award as a whole; The VCs bring the community of learners together focussing on a important aspect of the module and also allowing the time to speak openly and freely any aspect of the module.

Description of activity: How online discussion tools are used to support collaborative learning outside the class environment    The LOs of this module are as follows; By the end of this module you, the participant, should be able to: 1. Engage critically and collaboratively with theories of learning as social practice; 2. In the light of LO1. above, critically reflect on how meaningful your digitally mediated collaborative learning has been, noting factors which have enhanced or limited your learning; 3. Envision and analyse how digitally mediated learning (DML) may be significant in your future professional development.   Pre-induction occurs via early access to WOLF. Before the first week of the module, registered students are required to engage with a Power point presentation discussing the hardware/software needs and the obligation to be an active participant. The power point also outlines some preparatory reading;  Week 1 begins with the first 'key note video conference' which occurs at a set time and date. It can be repeated where attendance or larger groups proves challenging. The software used (WebEx) allows a recording of the event so a URL can be sent to those that missed the opportunity. The VC is followed up by discursive activities in Face Book. In week 1 for example we have asked participants to post images that best sum up their approach to learning. This is an opportunity early in the module for participants to get to know one another; In week 2, 'Learning Conversation' groups are set up so that smaller groups of participants can get to know one another better; From week 1, 'Wikispaces' (https://www.wikispaces.com) provides an opportunity to work on a 600 word formative assignment in the form of a critically reflective account of online learning experiences. this is where learning from the VC and the FB conversations can be captured. Participants read posts and make comments about for example, areas to explore, endorsements of particular points and wider reading that might help underpin ideas and views. The formative is  submitted in week 5 for feedback and feed forward to the summative assignment; As the module progresses from VC to VC, the participants and the OLT build a written, aural and visual record of what has taken place. This is very useful during independent study time to reflect back on and is possibly an advantage over face to face modes of learning; The module falls into 3 phases: Phase 1: Formative development (weeks 1-5); Phase 2: Summative Development (Weeks 6-9); Phase 3: Independent study leading to summative assignment submission. The assignment tasks provide shape and structure to what might feel like an open and 'messy' experience to some participants.

Reflections and lessons learnt : The impact of meaningful dialogue in flexible online learning was much higher in quality and quantity as a result of the learning outcome requiring critical reflection on participation. Taking part in the dialogue online, knowing that it would be part of the assessment, led to an enhancement of participants' learning experience; Actually taking part did change the participants' views on how they would design online learning in future themselves; there was a greater understanding once the module was complete, of how important dialogue is in online flexible learning opportunities; Meaningful dialogue was more effective and richer where participants already knew each another; Exchanges around the sharing of  formative assignment work was seen by participants as particularly useful to summative work. There were gains in flexibility here in that the opportunity to comment and amend was open for 3-4 weeks; Participants really appreciated the flexible ways in which the OLTs worked on FB. Comments to participant posts came at very different times. This was facilitated by the fact that the OLTs were FB users so it was easy to engage with participants whilst using social media in private time. This is a controversial comment perhaps but participants did enjoy it; Institutional change has taken place within the School for Education Futures via a set of draft guidelines to future online developments as CPD for teachers; this will hopefully influence further flexible learning opportunities.

Post module interviews to gather evidence of impact. (Interviews were with three of the original participants in the design of the module: Associate Dean: Blended Learning; Associate Dean: Distance Learning Developments and Professor of Mobile Learning)   A module learning outcome which mandates online participation as a part of  professional critical reflection in a postgraduate qualification is an effective  approach; The varied and engaging design of the module has had an impact on DML design in the university and could be used as part of our marketing. For example, the University doesn't just 'do online' but does it in engaging and interesting way; The module is an antidote to 'Crowd Funding' because of its emphasis on online tutor (OLT) responses; f2f is often regarded as the 'gold standard' but engagement in this module suggests that DML can be more effective for students who have a history of not frequently contributing in a f2f setting; meaningful engagement online was successful in this module for a number of reasons but there is clear evidence that the OLTs' responses to posts in Wikispaces and Face Book were speedy, directly relevant to the assignment task and often with high degrees of positivity and humour. It was clear to participants that the OLTs were 'present', had identities of their own and that they were not posting into an empty space. Very few posts/conversations went without OLT comment, even if it was just a couple of words; The OLTs were often directive in their responses so that participants often had a task to pursue to support assignment completion. 'Please read...', 'If you search for X then this will help to...', 'You might want to try and discuss X with Y...'; The approaches above can be usefully framed by the notion of  'kindness' in pedagogical practice as developed by Clegg and Rowland (2010), where kindly acts and pedagogical acts are described as both requiring  'the actor to identify with the concerns of the other' (p724); see also Cramp et al (2012); These approaches have influenced the thinking of the person responsible for distance learning developments in the University and will impact on the Distance Learning Policy which is currently under development.

 

 

Background

 

The University of Wolverhampton's Strategic Plan 2012-2017 makes blended learning integral to planning, delivery and assessment and an investment strategy supports this aim. Increasing access to learning via enhancing distance and blended opportunities are now clear aspects of the university's business transformation. The School for Education Futures is at the forefront of this organisational transformation. This bid aims to enhance student learning by extending participatory engagement in postgraduate blended/distance learning programmes. In 2012 we piloted an MA Education module by distance, using 'learning episodes' interweaved with discussion forums. This module was reviewed favourably but two problems emerged:

 

1. Student participation in dialogue through discussion forums involved 28 out of 40 (70%) participants;
2. However, 'meaningful' participation in dialogue where students revealed a clear and positive change in their understanding of and engagement with the module learning outcomes, took place only with 16 out of 40 (40%) participants.

 

Other blended modules/programmes in the School for Education Futures and across the university too, have also reported the challenge of nurturing student engagement online via participation in dialogue.

 

Aims and objectives

 

This Project will ensure that colleagues and students are clear about the crucial importance of participatory and transformative dialogue in blended/distance programmes. It will also develop ways of increasing students' meaningful engagement online with each other and e-tutors. The Project will do this in the following ways:

 

1. Initiate professional development sessions for university colleagues teaching postgraduate students via blended/distance modules which clearly depend on participatory dialogues to reach module learning outcomes. These sessions will go through an open process of developing a level 7 module exploring how social software can be used to nurture more meaningful dialogue (See for example the JISC publication: In Their Own Words)
2. This module will become part of the MA Education programme and be built around the theme of 'learning and teaching as social practice'. It will be transferable to other awards in the university and the sector. Engagement with this module will be via progressive use of emerging technologies involving participation and dialogue.
3. A small group of MA Education students will be partners in this work and support the development of the module.
4. The final product will be a module which will act as preparation and support for future blended/distance learning engagement. It will nurture student participation in Web 2 technologies and develop participants' skills and understandings of the potential and importance of participation where blended/distance modes of learning exist.
5. We will pilot the module with learners as part of the MA Education programme and evaluate the experiences of learners and tutors in a real institutional context.
6. This approach will develop teachers' understandings of the power of web 2 creative dialogues and therefore have a wide community impact on those they teach and work with in the future.

 

Context

 

Postgraduate professional development for in-service teachers.

 

The business case

 

Developing our expertise working online in a co-constructive spirit will help us to work with schools and colleges where CPD (particularly research implementation and consumption is often challenged by time constraints) is often difficult to fit in. Developing partnerships with educational settings is probably the only way we will be able to survive as a PG CPD group.

 

JISC resources/technology used

 

The following list helped us to focus on what we wanted to do and they have been useful in framing the module we are preparing. All are availbale on the JISC website: 

 

1. Digital Literacies
2. eTutor - Education Through Ubiquitous Technologies
3. Appropriate & Practical Technologies
4. Audio Supported Learning
5. Master’s students in technology-rich environments
6. Students as partners in blending learning
7. Supporting Learners in a Digital Age.
8. Digital storytelling
9. In Their Own Words
10. Patchwork Text Assessment

 

Outcomes

A key outcome so far is the validation of the new module by the university. This was finally validated last week and we are ready to work with students from next week (WB 21st Juanry 2013). The info below is a quick overview of the module's aims and objectives and part of the bid was thatwe make this available to other universities:

 

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7ED030 Learning as Social Practice Online (module developed with  JISC Transformations Project Funding)

 

The MA Education programme is committed to providing a rich, digitally mediated learning experience. It is now the norm for study resources to be online displacing static print materials, but this module emphasises the importance of dialogue, debate and co-operative behaviours in digitally mediated learning. The module aims firstly to engage students in a critical dialogue about learning as social practice (LaSP) and four of the theories framing this idea: learning and identity; Communities of Practice, Communities of Enquiry and Co-operative Learning. The module will provide an overview of these theories and then use them as the context for a further discussion around pedagogies of online learning asking the following questions: 

 

1. What are the key principles behind LaSP?
2. How does LaSP work online and what behaviours and technologies can successfully promote meaningful academic discussion online?
3. How important are the answers to questions 1 and 2 above to participants' professional development?

 

By the end of this module you, the participant, should be able to:

 

1. Engage critically and collaboratively with theories of learning as social practice;
2. In the light of LO1 above, critically reflect on how meaningful your digitally mediated collaborative learning has been, noting factors which have enhanced or limited your learning; 
3. Envision and analyse how digitally mediated learning (DML) may be significant in your future professional development. 

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Achievements = A

 

A1) The module has been running now for 4 weeks. We had a lengthy run-in as a result of internal university procedures taking a while to validate the module; that is not unusual for big universities and I think they struggle to keep up with the imperative for change and innovation and take a few calculated risks. The university still talks about 'content' too as the main 'unit' of student experience in DML which is not the point of this module.

 

So by the time we were set up, it was quite difficult to recruit studetns whose yearly module plan was often already set in September. We planned to recruit 7 studetns but have ended up with 4. A2) This has turned out to be a good thing because in activity on FB and WebEx, with 4 students and 2 tutors a total of 6 interacting seems about right. When we run this module again will will hope to recruit more but only work in groups of 4-5. This makes demands on the time of the online tutor (OLT) but we have not started this Project becasue we think DML is a cheap HE 'delivery' option. 

 

Key lessons

 

What is the structure of engagement in a DML module? What is the lifecycle like? Our experience after week 4 is that the following has taken place:

 

Induction week: We started the week before the module formally began to try and get technical issues out of the way. This worked OK on FB but not on WebEx where students had to commit a particular space of time.  However, we did get up and running pretty well and it allowed one or two to opt out of the module becasue it wasn't for them. Though this meant we eneded up with fewer participants it was theright thing to happen.

 

Week 1: lots of chat on FB about setting up FB, Wikispace sand how to work in WebEx. Also chat about the first formative assignment too. All perfectly natural at the start of a PG module but very important here because it isnt a case of just finding a room in a building and then speaking. Ice breaker tasks worked quite well but there is clearly some worry about academic exposure.

 

Week 2: engagement and a few technical issues still on-going but starting the switch to engagement with the formative task in Wikispaces. Students still worrying about writing ideas to FB until they start to feel more about the identities of others in the group.

 

Week 3: dialogue dies down as students feel more secure about the technical side and are perhaps feeling that the module is up and running so they have some space to leave it alone for a while.  Re-engagement through direct Qs in FB.

 

Week 4: The webEx conference this week really enlivened the meaningful debate in the group. This engagement method is so much better than typing into FB. We get some really positive and reflective conversations developing that are then followed up on FB the next day. It does calm down a little after that but I think we should have more WebEx conferences - one each week. The only problem is making participants turn up at a particular time.

 

Week 5: This week was a continuation of week 4 with Facebook activity to support work now toward the summative assignment. The FB strings are now getting too long at times. It is hard to keep track of who is commenting on what and where. I'm still not aware of a discussion forum that allows clear navigation as the dialogue builds. Certainly if we have more students contributing this would be a much larger problem which suggests that however many students are involved, we will have to work in small groups in future.

 

Week 6 and 7: Moving on to look at CoE and connectivism. Students seem to be focused now on developing the summative and we have moved into another phase of online activity. In the first 2-3 weeks there was more social activity that was open and discursive. Now we are in a phase where questions are posted that are directly related to the assignment as the deadline becomes closer. The questions to promote activity during these two weeks on FB have been answered but almost as if the students were not really in 'social' mode any more. They just wanted to do what was relevant for them in the assignment.

 

Week 8: Final Web Ex meeting about discourse analysis. Generally I think we have packed too much theory into this module and 'discourse analysis' was perhaps a step too far. We introduced it because the assignment asks students to examine their contributions online with regard to social practice. I think if this had been a f2f module we could have explained more clearly what we were doing this for - even the Web Ex didn't get the point over well enough.

 

Week 9: This week helped last week's reservations about discourse analysis. We were more able to firstly talk about each individual's approach and then discuss how DA might help. This was a good way to bring the module to an end.

 

Week 10, 11, 12 and 13: Independent study toward the assignment deadline. We reminded all participants to look back a the Wiki spaces and FB content during this phase to remind themselves of what we had covered. This is a tangible advantage of online discussion - there is a record of it and a recording of the Web Ex events which we sent to all participants during this phase of the module. 

 

Looking ahead

 

We are in the process of re validating our MA award and have included this module in the re validation. This means that the issue of meaningful dialogue when working online as teachers has a clear profile in the award as a result of the work we have done is this module.

 

Sustainability

 

We hope to write at least 2 papers from the experience we have had. We also hope that the impact factors (recorded in the impact grid) will go forward to other parts of the University to initiate more change in the way we work online with students.