E-learning - it's life, Jim, but not as we know it!

I've recently sent in my final assignment of a long and grueling Masters Course in Open &  Distance Education - what a relief! I embarked on it way back in 2003, when all that most of us had was a dial-up connection; but even then the internet was beginning to change the way we all live and work. I had an inkling that a powerful bombshell was about to hit the world of training and development, and sure enough it has, although it has not been the magic bullet that some thought it would be. Nevertheless, a recent study I saw said that 50% of learning will be delivered online by 2015!! Quite a turnaround in the world of education, eh?

I signed up with the UK's Open University, a remarkable organisation that has been a pioneer in delivering Distance learning for over 40 years. In the early days of the OU, students used to receive big boxes with course materials at the start of their courses, and were left largely to their own devices. But over the years, as technology has moved on so has the OU. Where better to learn about Distance Learning, I argued? As well as learning about the disciplines of Distance Learning, I got to be a Distance Learner myself.

I plan to try and capture some of the main learning points relevant to me and my practice whilst they are fresh in my mind. These reflections may well run to several blogs - maybe you'll find them interesting too?

I'm kicking off by looking at the place where learning takes place - the virtual classroom, often called the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

As someone who has spent almost all of my 'teaching' career in the classroom, the face-to-face arena is where I have learned my trade. The social contact in the classroom plays a really important part in the way I do my job; being able to see the audience, judge their reactions to presentations/activities/group discussions, and then being able to adjust my teaching style to fit has become an instinctive matter for me. And the social contact also works well for students too - group discussions are very good for deepening learning, and the relationships that are developed between students often have carry-over benefits into the workplace.

Is there any way that this can be replicated online?

My short answer to that question is no, or at least not in the same way! The energy that can be generated in a lively classroom is well nigh impossible to create when you are separated in space and time from your audience. My three years as a Distance Learner have seen a few moments of high emotion, most notably when a 'group' online activity has been taking place and I have felt some sense of ownership of what was going on. But group activities are just as likely to lead to frustration, either because you can't get others to join in, or because the group dynamics are hard to orchestrate when you can't see what's going on with others. On my most recent module, two of the group activities were abandoned due to lack of participation, and a third took place, but had very few participants.

The most important adjustment I  am struggling to come to terms with in the virtual classroom  is that the balance of power well and truly shifts from teacher to student. The student decides when, how, and how much they are going to contribute. If the material and activities are not of interest, there is not much the facilitator can do about it! Some might argue that the same is true in the real classroom - just because someone is present does not mean they are interested or are learning anything. But it does feel different!

My sense is that the way we deliver content and engage with our learners online has not yet come to terms with this new learning arena. Although there are many more organisations offering e-learning these days, its questionable just how qualified they are in the use of the new media for education. Few have got the pure track record of the Open University in delivering Distance Learning, and I'm sure the OU would be the first to acknowledge the challenges. The generation that is teaching today has learned its trade in a non-digital world, and is inevitably influenced by that. And the majority of (adult) learners have similarly developed learning skills in an era when the teacher was the fount of all knowledge. Both parties will have to learn new skills in this digital era - teachers seeing their role as guiding students to make good learning choices, and learners being more independent and choosing their own learning path.

Disappointing results of a study into student participation in e-learning (Garavan et al, 2010) are evidence of how hard it can be to get engagement. In a large sample of students from 275 organisations they found that less than 50% of participants successfully completed their courses. Garavan and his colleagues observe that e-leaning is an isolating experience, and that this isolation is a major cause of attrition.

If teachers and students can't make the shift to different ways of teaching and learning, its hard to see how the use of e-learning will deliver the results that our education systems need to deliver.

What's your experience of participating in e-learning? Which methods of teaching have you found work well for you, and which have been disappointing?

More later....

Reference:

Garavan, T.N., Carbery, R., O’Malley, G., and O’Donnell, D., (2010) Understanding participation in e-learning in organizations: a large-scale empirical study of employees, International Journal of Training and Development 14:3, pp 155 – 168 ISSN 1360-3736

Learner Support: Two Important Dimensions

Of the 10 dimensions that McLoughlin (2002) identifies as important for the scaffolding of learners, two seem very relevant to a course of mine; constructivism and learning orientation.

Constructivism scaffolding encourages the learners to make new meaning as opposed to conducting memorisation or rote learning.
Learning orientation scaffolding reduces the active contribution of the teacher as the learner gains more knowledge, skills and confidence.

In my situation, the learners have tended to remain in a passive role, accepting input from tutors, and offering critique or comments. The scaffolding to encourage them to create knowledge of their own and articulate it has been missing.

To encourage greater learning orientation, I envisage an individual task in which the learner must find their own case study examples that illustrate the theory they have been taught. An example can be provided, to model the way the case studies can be analysed and recommendations can be made about how and where to search for examples. If we were then to add the use of a shared workspace where the results of this research are logged, a further scaffold (collaboration) will be available.

Constructivism can be scaffolded by means of an activity that invites students to create a short presentation; this will articulate their learning to an audience of their choosing. A template which provides an outline structure for this presentation can be offered for those that a looking for greater guidance.

Yet again, I am finding that the subject of e-learning innovation is like the peeling of an onion. You think you've got the hang of a topic, and then another level is opened up into view. What strikes me about my previous efforts at e-learning is that I have overlooked the diversity of support needs and existing levels of knowledge of my students. I have assumed levels of knowledge, rather than looking for evidence of what that knowledge is and having a sense of what the next zone of development should be. Although the zones are likely to be different for each student, the more that the responsibility for that learning can be handed over to the student, the less crtical it is for the tutor to shoulder that burden.



Reference:
McLoughlin, C. (2002) ‘Learner support in distance and networked learning environments: ten dimensions for successful design’, Distance Education, vol.23, no.2, pp.149–62.

Addendum to "When Social Cues are Absent" Post

Having gone on to read Walther's (2006) paper on Non verbal dynamics in computer-mediated communication, I now realise that the dynamics I was describing in my previous post relate closely to the Hyperpersonal and Social information Processing Theories.

The important elements of Hyperpersonal theory to these sensitive exchanges are that the sender has been deciding precisely how much and what type of information they are sending to us. "Senders, in the process of message construction, engage in selective self presentation to a degree not afforded in FtF interaction." In situations, such as the example I gave, this gives a damaged person much more space, time and control in sharing their feelings with someone else. The anonymity of the electronic setting has, over time, led to what Walther describes as "greater self disclosure", which in a befriending situation such as this is precisely the intensity of communication we are seeking.

SIP throws more light on the subject: "it may take more messages, over a longer time, to imbue exchanges with sufficient information for participants to decode and aggregate in order to construct impressions and manage relationships." In this case, because the sender was providing very short, sharp, often pointed replies, it was possible over 45 or so emails to build up a picture of the hurt they were feeling. Capital letters, outbursts in reply to questions, emoticons and the use of other punctuation, all painted a vivid picture of the emotional state of the sender. 

All of which goes to show that "CMC users adapt affective meaning to their usage".

Although some colleagues find email a difficult medium for such sensitive 'conversations', I have heard from users of the service that the anonymity afforded by email has enabled them to share feelings they would never have been brave enough to share either in a face to face or a telephone setting. It's sad to hear that this is the case, but what a good thing it is that there is now an outlet for such extreme emotions.




Walther, J.B. (2006) ‘Nonverbal dynamics in computer-mediated communication, or :( and the net :( ’s with you, :) and you :) alone’ in Manusov, V. and Patterson, M.L. (eds) Handbook of Nonverbal Communication, Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage. (Accessed 24^th March 2011)

When Social Cues are absent

The background reading on Social Cues in H807 week 6 has made me think about what has happened in a volutary activity in which I am involved. The service is one that befriends people in emotionally difficult situations and continues to be telephone and/or face to face based, but over the past 10 years, we have begun to offer the option of email contact, for those who prefer the option. The email service has seen exponential growth in popularity since it was launched, and many users tell us it is extremely helpful.

The remote contact can be welcome because the person is not located in the UK, and therefore would find telephone contact impractical or too expensive. But probably more importantly, some people find themselves in a situation which they cannot bring themselves to talk ahout -  perhaps because of embarrassment, fear or just pain. Being able to write about these feelings is often the first step for these people in dealing with the difficult situation.

I had a difficult email encounter yesterday which has given me pause for thought about the emotional dimension of virtual communication. It would be quite improper for me to disclose anything about the situation, but suffice to say the person concerned had an emotionally charged situation which they had not shared with anyone. There had been 45 emails sent to us and replied to over the past month or so. Every email they had sent had only short statements, or just a word, and the person at first would disclose nothing at all about their situation. But gradually, as my fellow volunteers gently supported and questioned this person, the story began to unfold.

Although we cannot see this person, or hear their voice, the words on the page and the way they are written have many clues about their emotions. And the fact that we can read all the emails sent and all the replies that volunteers have given lets us build up a much better picture of the situation than would be possible in other than a regular one to one relationship. At one point we manage to persuade this person to write two or maybe three short sentences. The next response is short and sharp - pushing back on the quesion or comment made. Or even worse - capital letter shouting!

Several of my fellow volunteers refuse or are reluctant to engage in email befriending, as they think it is too impersonal, but my view is that this is their chosen medium, and we should respect that. What I have to do is to create a mental picture of the person, and to use every word they write to imagine their situation and to try and put myself in their shoes. I then have to do exactly the same with every word I write. Could that word be misconstrued? Have I been too sharp or direct? Could I inadvertantly push them in a direction that might not be natural for them?

The experience of email befriending has definitely made me much more sensitive when I write any email personal or business - and ironically, I think it has also made me a much more sensitive listener.

The other phenomenon that I think makes this kind of communication easier is that these days people are much more used to texting each other and the idea of written communication is getting more acceptable.

So I am wondering whether this point of view that face to face is the only way to pick up emotional cues will in time become irrelevant?

The OU's learning about elearning?

Having been a participant in 2003 in what felt like a very pioneering OU MA module H802: Application of Information Technology, followed closely by H804 in 2004, I can see changes that the OU has introduced to H808 (2009) and H807 (2011) which I am sure are not an accident. When it comes to elearning design, there are undoubtedly lessons for me here. I'll think of more as H807 progresses, but here are a few to get started.

One very important difference between my latest 2 modules and my first 2 is that the integration of VLE activity is now much more important. In H802 and H804, points were awarded for levels of participation, but the percentage that was awarded was relatively insignificant - from memory on H804 the amound was around 7% (in other words, not enough to change behaviour!). In both H808 and H807, at least one TMA asks you to document an online project/activity, and both programmes require you to give account of your personal contribution to the project, or other discussions. This seems to me a very significant shift in design, to encourage active participation in at least some of the online activity.

Another noticeable, although understandable, difference is that there is less 'hand-holding' around the online organisation and interactions. I'm sure this is due to the level of sophistication around electronic communications that now exists now in comparison with 8 years ago.

Thirdly, I noticed when our H807 module was launched that we had a much larger group - 21 - than was true on either H802 or H804. These earlier courses had 12-15 students at the start. However, I notice that by the end of week three, there are 10 active participants, other than myself. I know one (Claire) dropped out very early on, but the others, so far, have not been particularly active. Learner engagement has been a difficult issue in the experiments that I have undertaken around using elearning. Maybe the OU has just concluded there will always be a level of fallout, so they take account of that from the start?!

Finally, the use of references from other participants on the module was always valued, but on H807 there are explicit demands to use comments from other students in TMAs.

All very interesting - as the module develops, I am hoping to spot other elearning design lessons. We are, after all, being trained by one of the world's most experienced Distance Learning Organisations;-)

Week One Reflections H807

In Block One of H07, we were encouraged to share our initial thoughts about innovation in elearning. There were several strands of discussion, one of which was 'what is the definition of innovation?'

I think we all agreed that innovation was about creating something new, but there were several debates 

1. Does a new idea/application have to be successful to qualify as an innovation?
2. Is a new use of a existing technology an innovation?
3. Can an application that is new to a person (although not new to the world) be counted as innovation?  

With my 'business' hat on, we tend to look on innovation is a very results oriented way; if an idea has no practical application, it tends to get dismissed out of turn. But as any successful innovator will tell you, it is the tries that don't work that get you to the point where you find a try that does work. So maybe the most helpful label would be to call an innovative idea that does not work an  'experiment' whereas the idea that does work gets the label of an innovation.

As for new uses of existing technology, that, in my mind is definitely an innovation. Technologies are simply tools, and finding new ways to use them opens up our understanding both of the subject being studied and of the potential of the tool. On both counts, that is definitely innovation.

If we take the definition of innovation as being to create new or to renew, the fact that an innovation is known to one group, does not mean in my mind that it is not innovative to a new audience. And as that new audience interacts with the innovation, they are very likely to create new meaning for themselves.

Without trying to summarise what I made of the activity, there are a number of points that have given me pause for thought.

The reference which Anita Houghton made to digital storytelling took me to an excellent paper. http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=120-1 The author, Nalin Sharda, pointed out that digital technologies give learners access to incredible amounts of information, but that making sense of that information was more tricky. Simply using the electronic media to present (even more!) information does not guarantee learning, never mind superior learning. His solution of engaging learners in reading and/or creating digital stories that force them to investigate a subject, and engage with the material is an innovation that enhances learning. Sounds good to me, although I'm sure it's harder than it sounds. Sharda sums up the pedagogical challenge of elearning as follows: "E-learning systems that just transform the traditional educational content (for example, books or lecture notes) into digital media are not successful; because, e-learning content that presents only facts and figures can loose the learners attention more easily than a good lecturer, who can capture the learners' attention with personal charisma. With e-learning content, the lack of personal connection (with a real teacher) can be overcome by creating "educational stories" that embody good storytelling principles."
Nicholas Keene drew attention to the difficulty of getting colleagues who were not schooled in ICT on board with innovations. "I could name 10 professors who were hostile the varying degrees to incorporating technolouyg more into their teaching forevery 1 who was in favour." Nicholas Keene Post 36 in reply to 23 • 11 February 2011, 00:10

It is very clear that there has been an explosion in the use of technology in learning in some academic circles. This however is not reflected in business. Although all my clients are electronically wired for producing their product/service, I don't see the innovation in using technology to the degree that seems present in some academic circles. Most business leaders see elearning as a way to deliver training more easily and many assume that this will mean it is cheaper. Grasping that elearning presents a pedagogical challenge is not on many non academic radars;-)

One last thought. Nicholas also found that "My first introduction to e-learning in an HE environment was chaotic. "Nicholas Keene Post 47 in reply to 44 • 13 February 2011, 01:39 This is a very typical response to a disruptive technology - we are suddenly presented with a brand new tool and working out how to use it is always going to be a bit messy.It would be nice to think that its introduction could be more orderly, but my sense is that the chaos creates learning, and it is only then that we can create order;-)
 

Getting Organised for H807

I am very excited to be coming back to the subject of elearning technology. My very first MAODE module was on this very topic, back in the pre web 2.0 days of 2002!! It is going to be fascinating to get underneath the surface of all of the changes that have taken place since then, and to work out which technologies can play a bigger part in my company's embryonic distance learning offering.

Before getting stuck into the content of H807, I have decided to take time to reflect on some of my H808 experiences.

My overwhelming memory of H808 was of confusion. I found it hard to make connections between the various topics we covered, in particular what the eportfolio was, and how it connected with the various etivities in which we took part. The fact that my eportfolio (the H808 Examinable Component) gained me the lowest mark of any of my 14 academic submissions so far tells me something about the extent to which I did eventually work that out!

With this in mind, I have decided to spend time during the week before the module starts by studying the course structure and the assignments, and by re-reading the TMAs from H802. This will make it much easier to be making connections with H807 material right from the start. I am confident I will find the connections on H807 easier to make, given my H802 experience and the fact that I do use web 2.0 applications of various kinds already (Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Linkedin, Elluminate, Google Apps etc). Let's hope I haven't been picking up too many bad habits on my own!!

Another frustration, I now realise, was that I allowed the timing of the TMA's and the EC to dictate how I organised my thoughts. I suspect that this made the execution of these assignments more laboured than they needed to be. My mind works in quite a butterfly way, and this time around, I want to do a better job at picking up these disorderly thoughts as I go. I have created an electronic notebook which has separate sections for each of the assignments, and I plan to collect nuggets of information there, as they occur to me. There is no rule that says that you can't start collecting your thoughts for future TMA's before you have finished the current one, is there?

One last note to myself; isn't it time I reviewed the experience of the changes that I made on the second Distance Learning Programme as a result of my H808 experiences? I really must do that before I become engrossed in H807 thinking; I am planning to use this same DL Programme for my H807 Examinable Component, so summarising the progress I have made will be a great discipline for me.

What next after H808?

Having hacked my way through my toughest ever OU Masters Module, H808, I was delighted with how much of my learning seems to be transferrable to our own Future Shape of the Winner Distance Learning Programme.


There are several different angles which I hope to apply.


Point One: the fact that our learners are so varied in their backgrounds and experience, and also have different reasons for wanting to do the Programme might seem to make the design of a generic programme very tricky. However, this ought to be where the 'distance learning' element comes into its own. If we can get the right structure and the right support material, the differences could be a strength not a weakness. I found the H808 focus on creating a Professional Development Plan (PDP) was a very useful way of encouraging students to set their own framework for their learning. Providing our students with a FSW skills/knowledge template to help them create a PDP structure for FSW is well worth considering. Not only will that focus the students, but it will also give tutors the chance to tailor their inputs/discussions to respond to the objectives of our students. The process of creating that template will be a good discipline for us, as it will make us consider the key dimensions we are aiming to communicate. The PDP discipline may also give us the scope to get academic accreditation for the programme, which would add to its attractiveness to potential students.


Point Two: the 'invisibility' of what learning was taking place on the programme seems to be a weakness. Three months after the end of the first programme, we find ourselves with only one student actively using the Excellence Audit, and we are not in a position to pinpoint what - if anything - is missing from the programme. In my TMA1 I wrote the following:


Moon (2001) outlines a hierarchy of stages of learning; “noticing; making sense; making meaning; working with meaning; transformative learning” (P6). The further up this hierarchy that learners progress, the deeper the learning and the more the learner is able to apply the new meaning creatively in their own situation. Citing the research of Marton, Hounsell and Entwhistle, (1997) Moon (2001) reports “A deep approach is where the intention of the learner is to understand the meaning of the material. She is willing to integrate it into her existing body of previous ideas, and understandings.” (p5). Moon (2001) recommends reflection skills as being key in generating this deep learning.


Being able to track our students' progression through noticing, making sense, making meaning, working with meaning, transformative learning, would give us a fantastic insight into how they were getting on with their learning. Therefore, I am considering two revisions. 1. Changing the accreditation conditions to include the requirement to submit a learning log of their reflections throughout the programme. 2. Encouraging/requiring? the learning log to be kept as a blog, which will allow all the students access to each others' reflections, but also will help tutors to track progress, and make adustments as needed to programme content etc.


Point Three: A major H808 insight was around the overall pedagogy of the programme, which I now recognise is heavily influenced by the face to face bias that all the tutors have. There is still a strong desire for us to tell the students what we think they need to know, rather than encouraging them to explore and make sense of the ideas, and to work out how they might use them. I believe it would be unwise to attempt to make a U turn in pedagogical thinking, not least because we have very limited experience in this more participative virtual approach. So I think a good step forwards would be to convert all of the presentations which we made during the web tutorials into podcasts. These will be incorporated in the pre-work ahead of web tutorials, and the telephone conference will be a chance to discuss and reflect collectively - a much more participative way of using the synchronous forum.


In summary, if I can convince my colleagues that these three modifications to our approach are worth trying, I believe we will have a great deal more insight into the extent to which students are getting to grips with the new knowledge, and this will hopefully enable us to support them more actively in becoming active users of the FSW model.

E-Learning Design - Reflections

The work on H808 TMA 2 made me go back over some of my H802/H804 reading and has reminded me - gulp - of the shift in teaching focus that is offered by the online medium. Prensky and Schank are strong advocates of a learner centric approach to education.

Although in the back of my mind, I was already aware of this, I now realise that the Distance Learning programme that I have just recently delivered to 8 consultants has, at its core, a transmission approach to teaching. Our Web Tutorials had at least 50% of the time devoted to making presentations of materials, which, to be frank, may have felt uninspiring to the audience.

In version 2, I am considering converting some of these sessions into podcasts, which students can listen to in their own time. The Tutorials could be devoted to conversations about the implications and practicalities of the information provided in the podcast, and other background reading.

However, a much more learner centric model is provided by the Carnegie Case Study which I chose in Activity 6.1. If I were to follow Elizabeth Barklay's approach, I would define a number of learning outcomes, and then offer students a variety of exercises/activities to achieve this learning. Whilst this would be a major undertaking in the short term, if we could achieve the increased volume of students that were achieved in the study, the effort would be well worth it;-)

My most significant challenge in the new course design will be with my colleagues, who are all professionals who are genuine experts in the transmission mode of teaching. I am not sure how wholeheartedly they will embrace my proposals.

Reflective practice and action?

In the model of situational learning presented by Dealtry (2004) , I find myself involved quite regularly in all four categories of learning.

Situation
		Familiar	Unfamiliar
Learning task	Familiar	A A learning task in an area you know well (low risk)	B A familiar learning task but applying it to a new situation (moderate risk)
	Unfamiliar	C An unfamiliar learning task but in a familiar work situation (moderate risk)	D New learning in a new part of the organisation (high risk)

In my case, Box A represents courses of mine that are popular and well established, which customers request on a regular basis. The learning that takes place on/after these events is driven by feedback from participants, which encourage me to consider making small modifications to the way I facilitate the course. Box B learning takes place when one of these familiar and popular courses is booked by a new client. The preparation needed in this case is to research the new context, including interviewing typical course delegates. This research provides material for reflection, which will be converted into modifications to the way that the course is delivered; content, style, duration, assessment etc. Both Box A and Box B are well established routines in my company. Box C is my company's preferred forum for Product Development. We get feedback from our regular market research that there is a potential demand for a 'new' course. Having conducted our research, we would aim to find an existing client who would be willing to partner us in prototyping the event. This means that the only learning that needs to take place is learning about the impact of the new course. Box D is altogether more risky, and would not be my chosen place of learning. However, in order to make that Box as safe as possible, putting a lot of effort (would that be reflection?) into getting to know the context by researching and interviewing the client's business, invariably gives a new course a better chance of success.

The Clegg et al (2002) model of reflective practice in academics has less obvious application in my practice.

	Action	Reflection
Immediate	A Immediate action that follows workshops, often characterised by an instrumentalist approach to instruction	B Reflection-on-action, most usually by experienced practitioners with relevant and immediate opportunities for reflection
Deferred	C Action following reflection does not happen because there is no immediate opportunity to put anything into practice	D Reflection following action is often prompted by formal assessment processes – this also happens after a period of rumination

Reflection takes place in a number of situations; following an event, to respond to a new client need, to respond to competition in the market place, to create a new dynamic in my own business, as a result of fresh research, reading etc. 

Perhaps because my clients are business people, there is a tendency to value tangible ideas, rather than theoretical ones, and whilst many clients require a report at the end of a course or courses, they would expect a series of action recommendations based on our experience. That seems to me to put these reflections in Clegg et al's Boxes B and D. However, in both cases the reflection would result in action, so the separation of these two activities feels forced in my situation.

One other situtation bears consideration; reflection to stimulate action. In my experience, committing to make a presentation or facilitate a course on an unfamiliar subject is a valuable method of forcing myself (or colleagues) seriously to engage in Deep Learning about a subject, and to integrate it into my existing knowledge base. 

Both of these models (Dealtry, 2004 and Clegg et al, 2002) have reflective journals as a key mechanism through which reflection takes place. In my case, summaries of my learning are made, but rarely purely as a learning journal. Much more typical is that the learning is recorded as part of the report given to a client, or appears when the next proposal for a course of a similar type is written for a new client. This may practice may lack academic rigour, but in my experience, it does inform and support the incorporation of my learning into future projects. This enables me to discover whether my reflections had any validity. However, the weakness of this approach means that the drive towards CPD is left to chance.

In creating my e-portfolio for H808, I hope to experiment with creating new routines around reflection that I can incorporate in my professional career.

References

Clegg, S., Tan, J. and Saeidi, S. (2002) ‘Reflecting or acting? Reflective practice and continuing professional development in higher education’ (online), Reflective Practice, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 131–46. Available from: http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14623940220129924 (accessed 4th December 2009).
Dealtry, R. (2004) ‘Professional practice: the savvy learner’ (online), Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 16, no. 1/2, pp. 101–109. Available from: http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13665620410521567 (accessed 3rd December 2009).

Reflection and Emotion

Since re-joining masters level studies in September, I have been reminded of the turbulence and emotion that accompanies the incorporation of new learning into my own thinking process. The period in which new input is being received, either by reading or through conversations of various kinds feels very stressful. Why would that be so? I suppose my existing 'certainties' have been reached over a significant period of time, and have been re-enforced by experience, which embeds them deeply into my sense of what is true. New information either fits in there, in which case, I have to find a way to make the links, or forces me to reconsider and revise my point of view. In a way, both of these scenarios is uncomfortable, which may account for the emotional reaction.. I think the worst part of the process is the part when the outcome feels uncertain. Just how does this fit? Have I been wrong in the past? Where does the new thought connect?
I am wondering whether my mistake is to keep ploughing on with trying to make the links? My normal way of working is to assume that if I work hard and stay focused, I will find the answer. But Anne Miller describes a mental process (in innovation) which is called hypnagogic creativity.

"It's important not to be always "on", because the creative process needs to alternate periods when you are energetically gathering information or thinking analytically with periods of quieter reflection to incubate ideas and listen to your intuition." (p52)

My recollection of Moon's description of the reflective process had a period in which the new ideas were absorbed. I am beginning to feel that it is important that I develop personal strategies for coping with this emotional period.

One strategy, of course,would simply be to take a break when I reach overflow point and deliberately do something that takes my mind off the subject under consideration.
A second idea is to engage in conversation with others who can add perspective to my thinking. One of two of my work colleagues are especially helpful in this regard, as they are well aware of my existing points of view and can counter them well.
The OU is also a place to see solace, either with tutor group colleagues, or possibly in the public areas of H808?
Maybe there are others?


Miller, A., (2009) How to get your ideas adopted (and change the world), Marshall Cavendish Ltd,. London

The Professional Debate

Activity 5.2 encourages us to consider definitions of profession, e-learning, and e-learning professional. I've been trying to get my head around this whole subject, and why it is worth this consideration, and here are some random thoughts.

So just what is a profession? The obvious examples of a profession would be a doctor or a lawyer; probably amongst the longest established professions that exist today. What is characteristic of the status of being a doctor or a lawyer is that you are privvy to knowledge and expertise that has been developed through learning from masters and that this learning is not easily gained. Time, commitment and often sacrifice have been devoted to earning the right to be described as a doctor or a lawyer.

Warrior, in her article, refers to the struggle that has been going on in teaching to establish itself as a respected profession. Progressively over the 20th century, job roles which demand a level of knowledge and expertise that requires commitment and particular expertise have sought to have that status acknowledged. Professional Institutes of all kinds are emerging; IMechE, Institute of Marketing, Institute of Personnel and Development..... and so on. Membership of reputable Professional Institutes is a guarantee of quality: such institutes are therefore concerned with allowing only suitably qualified individuals to join, and to providing members with the wherewithall to keep their professional skillls honed and practiced. As new technology has come onto the scene, IT Professionals have followed the Institutional path; an example of such an institute is the ICCP.

So, the burning question I think we are being challenged to consider is - does a e-learning as a profession deserve a separate professional category? Or do we find ourselves at a point in time when learning professionals have yet to integrate the use of the electronic medium into their normal practice?

Take another professional category - the Purchasing Professional. Anyone wishing to operate in that field today must be familiar with IT systems that enable Supply Chain Management and Enterprise Resource Planning. An awareness of how to use such systems effectively and to incorporate their features and benefits into the Purchasing Function is essential. Is the status of IT in learning any different to that? Is the inherent nature of learning as a profession different to other professions that are incorporating electronic media into their modus operandi?

I wonder what anyone else thinks about this?

TMA 1, What was Different?

TMA 1 was the first experience of putting together an assessed academic document in my new 'e-portfolio' era. I want to step back here and think about what was different, compared to my previous H802 and H804 experiences of TMAs.


The TMA 1 fell into two parts, one of which was a reflective summary, and the other of which was a more traditional critical reflection on the main learning of Blocks 1-4 of the course. 


What was noticeable to me was that, as I had gradually cottoned on to the discipline of recording, organising and tagging my course work, the orderliness of my TMA reflections improved. So the least well organised thinking was from blocks 1 and 2 of H808, when I had really failed to grasp the full significance of what the modules were meant to be teaching me. This was a point that I had picked up in a couple of earlier blogs.


The reflective summary felt a great deal easier to complete than the normal academic assignment, as I had kept a pretty good record of my thoughts using my blog right from the very start. I suspect the other reason that it was easier was that I was working with material that had come from my own head, rather than having to describe material that is presented by others. 


A second piece of learning, picked up from previous H80X experience, was that in my planning for the TMA, I outlined the main sections of the assignment, and limited myself to the right general proportion of words per section, in order to meet the TMA requirements. Although there then had to be some editing and reshaping of the final version, I am convinced that I wasted much less time than previously on too many words.


Another discipline that was new was that, having outlined the main sections of the assignment, I left the sections that I thought were the easiest (usually the introductory sections!) until the end, beginning with those where there were the most significant 'gaps' in my thinking. This had the emotional effect of me feeling relieved the closer I got to the finishing line - rather than the opposite effect of feeling like the steepest hills were still left to climb!


One slight confusion was that I have material stored in a few different places. I am tending to gravitate towards Google apps as the main organising centre for my thoughts, as it is such a ubiquitous application, and is incredibly easy to access. However, the formats and range of files types supported do make its use a bit limited. And the fact that the labelling of documents across the Google apps family is not identical is a bit frustrating. But I suspect the main issue for me to come to terms with is the need to be orderly right from the outset - not a natural mind set for me, as I have reflected previously.


So the mental notes to carry forward for the rest of H808 (and maybe my life?!) are;

1. When reading and studying, store and oraganise new material with future use in mind (TMA/EC/work projects)
2. At the outset of every piece of academic work, be clear what I want to get from the activity
3. Where word limits apply to a piece of work, set these limits at the "organising of thoughts" stage
4. Where possible, convert outside inputs (academic or otherwise) into a blog posting, so that these thoughts can begin to be incorporated into my own more fully.

In conclusion, I suspect that the big breakthrough on TMA1 was that being more organised makes the compilation of thinking for TMAs much more efficient. It remains to be seen whether the quality of what was produced is as good as, or better than, previous attempts;-)

My Mental Block around E-Portfolios

The first six weeks of H808 have been a period in which I have felt extremely confused. I have had these same emotions on previous H80X programmes, and I have found that if I can trust the expertise of the Open University's course designers, the fog will eventually clear. Or perhaps to be a bit more theoretical about the description of this process, I will find a way to integrate the new knowledge into my existing knowledge bank.

My confusion has largely been around the use of the e-portfolio. The idea of having an electronic place to store, organise and retrieve pieces of work or pieces of interesting research or information is a straightforward enough idea, particularly in the era of Web 2.0. My confusion has arisen around how an established professional, with many years of experience and insights, and with a multitude of uses for an e-portfolio, would begin to set up and organise one.

On reflection, maybe the root of my problem is that I am not someone who thinks in a linear way. My first degree was in Music, and my Belbin team role is Plant; I have always considered myself to have a more creative than scientific mind. Organising thoughts at a meta level is not my strength, and I am lucky to have a business partner for whom this comes naturally. This may therefore have let me off the hook with this discipline in a work context.

My H808 confusion has arisen because I did not grasp quickly enough that to use tools like My Stuff, de-licious, and Google apps (these latter two highly recommended by H808 colleague Eugene), I must first decide how to sort and store my data. When I went back into My Stuff after 5 weeks of collecting, the tags were chaotic, to say the least.

So, I decided to become intensely practical, and to organise my thoughts around the immediate challenge; H808 activities. With that in mind, I was able to organise the My Stuff tags, which meant renaming a few tags, housekeeping the tags I had set up to avoid duplication, and revisiting those artifacts already stored there to include as many tags as are relevant. I then moved on to my Google Docs Application, and carried over as many of the My Stuff tags as are relevant to this (work based) project. Some additional tags were needed to reflect the H808 Skills and Competencies requirements of the EC. And lastly, I revisited the tags I had set up on De-licious, and discovered similar chaos to the other two repositories. Again, I have done an editing and clearing out job here, and have tried to maintain tag consistency with Google and My Stuff.

This all feels as if I have managed to clear out a cluttered kitchen drawer;-)

It will be most interesting to discover whether I am able to hold myself to the discipline of organising my thoughts, my work and my reading beyond H808. I suspect that I will, as my unease with the early clutter of H808 mirrors my general unease with the amount of data that is available in the world today. The explosion of information over the last 10 or so years that the internet and the other publishing media are generating has felt, at times, overwhelming. Having a way of categorising and then storing information which adds value to my practice and my hobbies is beginning to feel like a watershed in my cognitive mapping process.

FSW DL Reflection tool (1)

In an earlier blog posting (Reflecting on Reflection, 2nd October 2009), I described a moment of realisation about my own professional practice. I have tended to assume that allocating time for my students to reflect assumes that they will know how to reflect. My research around the subject of reflection has given me pause for thought on that subject.

I decided this week, to provide some extra scaffolding for reflection on the Web Tutorial. On this session, all students had been asked to prepare a five minute input summarising their learning on a section of the course manual (Practitioner's Guide). Listening to any subject tackled 8 times can be both tedious and challenging; I therefore provided a Reflection Tool for everyone to use if they chose. The tool listed all the names of students, and invited the listener to record their answers under three headings; features benefits that they focused on, powerful images/phrases, ideas to incorporate into your pitch, any questions.

Students have been invited to contribute to a blog discussion following that session, and I will be fascinated to see if there any good evidence of listening and reflection.

H808 E-Portfolio: Web Tutorial 2 Review

The second web tutorial in our series of four took place on 19th October. Students had been assigned pre-work of studying five sections of the Practitioners Guide describing the Future Shape of the Winner organisation model and prepared a five minute input to describe the features that they judge to be unique.

This exercise allowed us to judge their early grasp of the model and also to get a sense of their presentational capabilities, albeit in the limiting arena of a teleconference.

We audio recorded this conference, which provided my colleague and I with the opportunity to review the inputs of students, and make a more considered assessment of progress.

Two had clearly developed an excellent understanding of the model and were able to relate the model to their existing mental models around organisations. Four showed good understanding being able to articulate the model well, and two, both native Spanish speakers were more limited in their grasp.

In one case, this may be due to the student's poor spoken english; this student's presentation showed signs of his questioning whether the model can truly be useful in his practice. In the coming weeks, I must monitor the situation with both students, to decide whether additional learning support is required.

Today's review will support my PDP in two areas; Assessment and Awareness of Students. In carrying the review out with my colleague, I was also improving our collaboration on e-learning.

Memo: Extracts from PDP Goals which are being addressed in this activity
This is the first programme that we have developed in this field. I will work with colleagues, and research best academic practice to establish the criteria against which we will judge the performance of our learners.


I will engage my colleagues in the assessment process, which will give me a benchmark to judge my own assessment competences.

Structure for my H808 E-Portfolio

Structure for H808 E-Portfolio: Madeleine McGrath

H808 is designed to help students to develop their understanding of what it means to be an e-learning professional in a period in which this medium is in its relative infancy. A major element of the module is for students to create an e-portfolio as a record of their learning and development during H808. This document outlines how I intend to organise my e-portfolio artifacts in order to meet that course objective.

Structure for Storing Artifacts

The H808 Course Guide provides us with a Personal and Professional Development Template, and we have also been required (activity 3 part 2) to conduct a Needs Analysis of the areas in which we require development. These two frameworks will guide the structure of the collection of my e-portfolio artifacts.

The tagging structure I will use to label artifacts will be as follows:

Areas of Practice

H808EP Skills

H808EP Reflection

H808EP Critique

H808EP Proactivity

Competencies

H808EP Practice

H808EP Communication

H808EP Technology

H808EP Research

These tags may combine both areas of practice and competencies in the following format (H808EP Skills/Practice).

I plan to use the same tagging structure in 2 e-portfolio repositories. The OU's My Stuff Repository will be used to collect artifacts related to the H808 learning, and Google Apps will be used for artifacts relating to my Work Based learning. This division is to enable me to continue to use an e-portfolio after my OU incumbency, assuming that the experience of using one proves valuable in the long term.

Connecting PDP with H808 Personal and Professional Development Template (PPDT)

My PDP has highlighted 8 meta skill categories (Prefixed below with MS) and 17 individual skills (Prefixed below with S) that will benefit from attention during H808 and beyond. Some of these fall into more than one area of competency.

Here is how they can be plotted against the PPDT areas of competency:

Practice

MS 1a-c. Awareness of students and their learning needs

MS 5a-c Student assessment

S 4a Transform teaching material for the online environment

MS 6a Steps taken to improve my teaching

Communication

MS 2a-c Creating the right online atmosphere

MS 3a Generating 'stickability" (Learner persistence)

S 4d Developing an online community

MS 8a Collaboration with teaching colleagues

Technology

MS 3a Generating 'stickability' (Learner persistence)

MS 4 a-d Ability to use IT appropriately

Research

MS 6a Steps taken to improve my teaching

MS 7 Organisation and record keeping

Each area of competency may have evidence of skills, reflection, critique and/or proactivity development.

Sources of Artifacts

Evidence of my development/performance against the PPDT elements will be drawn from:

• Forum postings from H808
• Selected H808 activities
• Relevant academic research
• Www sources
• Previous H80X ECs and TMAs
• Specially created documents to chronicle relevant aspects of my work based Distance Learning Project
• Audio and other AV records from my work based DL Project

Purpose of Unit 3

Having had a rather disorientating experience in Unit 2 of H808, one of my learning resolutions was as follows:

"with every new activity I must ask myself, why am I doing this, what do I need to get as a personal learning outcome and how will it contribute to my H808 studies?"


Here's how I think the activities of unit 3 will help me to make progress.

TMA1 has two parts, the first of which focuses on the pros and cons of using of e-portfolio systems in PDP and assessment, and the second of which requires me to provide a reflective commentary on my own PDP on H808.

As I see it, the activities in unit 3 help in both of these elements of TMA1. Core activities 3.1 and 3.2 will encourage a deeper understanding of the functionality of a number of e-portfolio systems and will enable me to consider the various arguments (from the literature and from colleagues) for and against the use of these systems. This should supplement the learning from Units 1 and 2.

The three parts of core activity 3.4 will give me a framework for mapping out my PDP needs, and should then give me the chance to incorporate the H808 reflections on my development that have been recorded to date. I am hoping that if I can get H808 colleagues to critique this work, I can avoid the trap of 'sterilized selection' that was flagged by Hazel Beadle in her 17th September posting on the Activity 2.5 forum. These studies should build on the work done on Learning and Reflection in Unit 2.

Core Activity 2.5 Criteria for Reflective Writing

Hazel has focused on one of the aspects of the PENNState Reflect: Providing Insight website pages that gave me pause for thought, namely the selection of the subject for reflection. Hazel wondered whether this advice would lead to what she called 'sterilised selection', and I am inclined to agree.


On the very first page of the website, they describe what reflection can help learners to do; understanding yourself, reflecting on experiences, reflecting on yourself as a learner by discovering what kind of a learner you are, are three of those outcomes. The four stage Reflection process they describe in the Reflective Writing Steps section mirrors precisely the four stages in the Kolb Learning Cycle, referenced by Moon (2001), and whilst Moon observes that this process has proved very popular with teachers, I wonder if, for professional self development, there is enough emphasis on critical reflection. For my taste, the tone of all of the Reflect pages is rather introspective, and I wonder whether this introspection might focus the learner too heavily on what is already known or experienced - 'sterilised reflection' to extend Hazel's point;-)

Moon (2001) also considers Schon's work on professional learning. Schon's research has concluded that professional practice is not derived from theory, but rather develops when the professional adapts their theoretical learning to apply in the practice area in which they are engaged. This practice over time become what Schon calls tacit knowledge, and professionals can be unaware of the personal mental models upon which they are basing their professional practice. As I reflected in my blog on activity 2.4, "Making this 'knowing in action' explicit in order to reflect on it critically is seen as an essential trigger to professional development." On that basis, a model which focuses unduly on what has happened and what can therefore be concluded about the learner may make the learning process 'sterilised' (to use Hazel's term). My favourite writer on the subject of Transformative Learning in Adults is Jack Mezirow. His research (1991) highlights the predisposition in adults to develop a set of assumptions which, over time, become strongly held, and are rarely open to question. Yet if, as professionals we are to make our 'knowing in action' explicit, as Schon recommends, the subjects that we choose for reflection are surely vital. To make our tacit knowledge explicit, we must surely reflect on experiences which were, for us, routine, and which we handled instinctively?
Having made that selection, the Penn State advice does not cover how learners go on critically to reflect on that experience to surface an assumption. Mezirow's (1991) model includes a reflective stage in which an assumption is critically reviewed, "to re-establish its validity or to correct distortions"(p15). Moon's (2001) input-output model of refection imagines a number of possible outcomes of reflecting on an experience, two of which are; critical review and material for further reflection. Looking outside of the experience for material that challenges the assumptions, and brings an alternative perspective to supplement the existing mental models would seem to me to be important stimulus to engender transformational learning.

That said, the basic structure of the PENNState Reflection advice seems solid and logical, and gives learners an understandable structure which, for many, may de-mystify the process of reflection. In particular, I found the Rubric in the section Description vs Reflection gives valuable questions that learners can use to critique the extent to which their reflective writing has progressed beyond the purely descriptive to the sharing of meaning. The advice about writing style in the Reflective writing steps is most practical and makes what could be a most challenging task seem eminently do-able.



Madeleine


Note: this blog duplicates my posting on the H808 website, and is included on my personal blog for completeness of records.



Mezirow, J. (1991) 'Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning', Jossey Bass, San Francisco.

Moon, J. (2001) ‘PDP working paper 4: reflection in higher education learning’ (online), The Higher Education Academy. Available from: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/resources/resourcedatabase/id72_Reflection_in_Higher_Education_Learning.rtf (accessed 29 June 2007).

Penn State University (2006) REFLECT: providing insight, http://portfolio.psu.edu/reflect (accessed 10 July 2009).

Reflecting on Reflection

Activity 2.4, in which I read several pieces on the subject of reflection in learning has given me pause for thought in my H808 studies.

In H808, we are required to reflect on our own personal development, and it occurs to me that devoting some time to examining my approach to reflection would be a valuable activity that would benefit from the rigour of the H808 framework.

There is no doubt that in my life, I have a bias for action. I am someone who always likes to press for action when a problem or opportunity arises, and I try to create that kind of an environment in all the circles in which I operate.

When applied to my professional life, the kinds of programmes that I am engaged to organise and run by my business clients are invariably attempting to solve 'people' problems, for example situations where managers are failing to show leadership, situations where employees are not providing the right level of customer service or situations where groups are not operating as a team. I have some long held beliefs about not only the kind of reflection that is needed in such situations, but also how to set up learning experiences that make people want to stop and think about their behaviour. However, the literature I have read recently on reflection has made me question whether my tacit assumptions are overdue a spring clean! In reading the literature, it struck me that my practicing theory may be missing an important element, namely I am assuming that when the period of reflection is set up that my learners will know how to reflect. But there may be more asssumptions that require challenging.

So, my latest thinking on my H808 e-portfolio study is that I reflect on my professional practice in providing learners with the support they need for reflection. This, in turn, may require me to revise other aspects of the way I set up and support learning programmes. The H808 Skills Framework looks a good model in which to do this reflection. 

What is quite exciting about this area of study is that it spills over into a voluntary activity in which I am involved. For many years, I have been involved in a help line for people who are feeling suicidal or despairing. Whilst a proportion of these callers have mental conditions which have no hope of cure, a good proportion of callers find themselves in a depairing frame of mind because of combinations of unfortunate circumstances. If I can improve my understanding of how to engender quality reflection in my learners, there may be the chance for me to do a better job of helping these callers make better progress with dealing with some of these challenges.

All in all, outcomes that will improve my professional skills on many levels.