Student Generated Content; F2F

I have read several of the recommended H807 articles on the subject of Student Generated Content; what I have been wondering is - what is the link between Student Generated Content and Social Constructivism? Here I will reflect on my recent use of Social Constructivism in a Face to Face setting, in which one of the outputs has been Student Generated Content. In particular I want to think about the kind of scaffolding and pedagogy that means that the learning objectives of the client and the student are met. I am hoping this will help me create some guidelines that can be applied in the online setting.

In a current face to face programme of mine we are making extensive use Social Constructivist pedagogies. The client has engaged us at a critical point in her company's growth to reinforce amongst all staff (new and experienced) the essential difference they are seeking to bring to the troubled banking sector. When it came to the session in which we were engaging with the subject of the principles that will guide the way employees act, the client was very anxious that we had failed to give her a slot in which she could explain these concepts to the audience. What we had done was to:

• encourage existing employees to bring their own examples of these principles in action today 
• encourage new employees to bring examples of treatment they had experienced from companies that they have appreciated/admired
• provide high level descriptions of the five principles
• organise employees into groups that have varying amounts of company experience

There is another structural benefit at play here, too, which is that the company is part of the Virgin group, which has a strong brand presence amongst consumers.

With all of these pieces in place, we set the mixed groups on a task of 'storytelling' and working out together how they would explain the company's principles to their mum or their pals in the pub! All I can say is that the results have been most impressive, and are being collected into a repository of stories that can be accessed by any employee. They have taken concepts that are more typically converted into 'corporate gobbledegook', and turned them into authentic and personal explanations. Having been initially concerned at the 'lack of structure' the client has agreed that the outcome was exactly what she was looking for, and is now happy with this pedagogy going forwards!

I have to say that the quality and credibility of the outputs does vary - but these sessions and the conversations they are generating back at work are a perfect way to inform and develop newcomers, and to iron out misunderstandings without declaring anyone right or wrong;-) When all is said and done, getting principles into action can only be done if people agree with them and are motivated to work out how to use them for themselves.

In the next blog I will attempt to draw out some principles of Student Generated Content that can be applied in the online setting.

IMS Learning Design Use Case: Excellence Audit Analysis

The IMW Learning Design Use Example provided on H807 was used to create this outline design:

Learning objectives

Awareness of the data available in the Excellence Audit

Experience analysing data of a real client

Come to conclusions about what to recommend to the client

Roles:

Tutor

Learner

Evaluator

Different types of learning content used – the following content is used:

Task narrative

Excellence Audit Data; Full Group and 3 subgroups

External web based resources with client background

Practitioner's guide to ExAud analysis

Different types of learning services/facilities/tools used

Conference – to share out activities, report back, consolidate results and come to conclusions: tutor to moderate.

Different types of collaborative activities – students engage in the following

collaborative tasks:

Division of audit analysis jobs

Discussion of any differences in results

Consensus on client recommendations

Conclusion

Learning activity workflow – There are four activity structures, each comprised of a

number of learning activities:

• Division of groups (Full group and subgroups)

Proposed division

Agreed division

• Analysis

Reading of explanatory information on audit

Apply analysis to allocated group

Draw conclusions on recommendations

Report analysis back to group workspace

• Asynchronous discussion

Agree process

Contribute analysis on allocated group

Read summaries of others

Debate the full picture created by analysis of each group

Debate which areas require attention based on the audit results

• Sum Up/Conclusions

Agree three recommendations for the whole group, and any further advice for the client

Individuals create their own presentation of the analysis of results

Scenarios – Real life example of final report presentation.

Other needs / Specific requirements – none.

Ref:

http://learn.open.ac.uk/file.php/6591/Course_resources/block_3_resources/ebook_h807_b3_Patterns_Example5_l3.pdf

Support and My Learners

The sequence of activities that look at learner support have given me pause for thought about my current approach.


Knowing a bit more now about student support, I realise that I have so far only focused on one - the pedagogical support. Even then, I have tended to limit support only to the content of the learning and not the process. For example, I have not thought about whether any support is needed to help people use the technology we are using. I have also failed to give much in the way of pointers for further research, other than the content that we provide. With the variety of resources now available on the web, this seems to limit the richness of material studied. The 10 scaffold supports given by McLoughlin are a good resource to expand on current practice. The spectrum of support from instructor-learner is also valuable for progressive reduction in scaffolding. 


Looking at the support that encourages students to sustain their studies (Dearnley, 2003), there are several points here to consider. Although the core delivery mechanism of an online web tutorial does build some sense of community, the extent to which support goes on outside the tutorials is not obvious. I am aware that some connections have been struck up between individuals and the tutoring staff, but that has happened naturally rather than being an explicit design feature. Maybe these are examples of what Dearnley (2003) calls "informal professional networks". This is a feature which could be developed in future.


On occasions, an individual's personal commitments (holiday/family illness etc) has prevented them participating in a tutorial, but the fact that the session is recorded does at least let the person catch up what they have missed. This is a helpful support feature, it seems to me. 


One aspect that is not covered in any of the readings is language. I invariably have at least one delegate out of the 8 who does not have English as their first language. Although there is no promise made that allowances will be made for difficulties in this area, I am wondering whether there is any support that can be made available. The fact that the core discussion forum is via a synchronous web conferencing system may well make it much harder for 'non-English speakers' to stay engaged. One option that comes to mind is that any content to be delivered is provided in advance, say, as a podcast, and that the discussion topics are also provided in advance to allow for preparation. A further option is to create a discussion thread in an asynchronous setting, which can supplement the live discussion, and give those requiring more time to think the chance to do so.


The final reading, Ludwig-Hardman, S. and Dunlap, J.C. (2003) has opened my eyes to what is probably the biggest oversight in my distance learning offers - what the student is looking to gain the learning. All my students are university educated and most also have a postgraduate qualification. However, it is rare that they have done any distance learning. The learning orientations assessment they describe provides a sense of the motivation that the learner has towards the learning outcomes of the programme, and can also point to the extent to which they are disposed to self directed learning. A version of this kind of assessment at the outset would provide information about the kind of support that each learner may need to achieve the outcomes they are looking for from the course.

Dearnley, C. (2003) ‘Student support in open learning: sustaining the process’, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, University Press/McGraw-Hill Education.

[online] http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/132/212 (Accessed 1 June 2011).

Ludwig-Hardman, S. and Dunlap, J.C. (2003) ‘Learner support services for online students: scaffolding for success’, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning [online] http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/131/211 (Accessed 1st June 2011).

McLoughlin, C. (2002), Distance Education Vol. 23, No. 2, Learner Support in Distance and Networked Learning Environments: Ten Dimensions for Successful Design.

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.

Looking Forwards with e-Learning Theory and Pedagogy

Having reviewed the Mayes and de Freitas (2004) study, they provide some very helpful pointers to incorporating e learning theories and pedagogies into my online teaching approach. 


As I said in my previous post, my current face-to-face practice begins with an associationist approach to defining outcomes and breaking a topic down into manageable chunks. But once I get into teaching and learning activities, my approach becomes more cognitive, with learners being encouraged to make their own meaning with scaffolding from tools and activities. Whether my learners could ever be called a community of practice, as in the sociative genre, is less arguable, as they are often from different disciplines, levels of experience, intellect etc. However, by the end of a programme, I do think my activities become more socially constructivist in style, with groups being asked to work together to make sense and communicate main messages from an event.


In moving into e-learning, my early efforts have fallen into the category that Mayes and de Freitas (2004) describe as "pragmatic rather than pedagogic" (p4), consisting of groups of participants for whom getting together to learn is completely impractical. In adopting more of an associationist approach to delivering content, we have failed to exploit many of the affordances of the new technology.


Mayes and de Freitas outline the following overall approach to e-learning design

• carefully defined intended learning outcomes,
• learning and teaching activities that enable the students to achieve that learning, 
• assessment tasks which will genuinely test whether the outcomes have been reached

I'm sure I can do a better job of breaking down the various learning outcomes needed, and that incorporating more constructivist activities into the programme will help my learners to build better frameworks for their own learning.


However, the big gap I can now see in my approach is that I have left assessment too late in the process. In the current programme, assessment only occurs at the end of a five module programme, by which time gaps in understanding may have been missed. An important affordance of technology is that formative assessment becomes much easier and offers the chance to make learning much more personalised. This takes me back to one of my eye opening moments on H807 - web 2.0 assessment (Elliott, 2008).  I can now see that formative assessment is a vital element in being able to offer learners scaffolding for their development.


Not quite back to the drawing board, but a lot of food for thought;-)




Ref:

Elliott, B. (2008) Assessment 2.0: Modernising Assessment in the Age of Web 2.0 [online], Scottish Qualifications Authority; available from http://www.scribd.com/doc/461041/Assessment-20 (Accessed 12th April 2011)

Mayes, T. and de Freitas, S. (2004) ‘Review of e-learning theories, frameworks and models’ [online], Bristol, The Joint Information Systems Committee, http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/Stage%202%20Learning%20Models%20%28Version%201%29.pdf (Accessed 24^th May 2011).

H807 Week 15: My approach to teaching and learning

My most recent learning programme contains several elements that are typical of my approach.

From what I have read so far, I think I incorporate a bit of all three associationist, cognitive and situative elements in my work.

Maybe it's because my business clients have a clear objective in what they want their people to learn, but I always need clear objectives/outcomes for an event. Having set these out, I then plot out a very clear route through the material that people need to learn. I think these are both associationist characteristics.

A firm bias of mine is to ask delegates to carry out pre work, which gets them thinking about the subject before they attend the event proper. This pre-work begins the process of how the learning is going to apply to the real world. This connects with another bias, which is to bring real examples/situations from the workplace into the classroom; customer feedback, well known work issues, well known objections are all examples of this.

When it comes to how I get the message across, I like to create a variety of activities; some will be informative, for example a video case study, a model or organising framework, an input with stories and examples, a worksheet with relevant information; others will be activities/mini projects/problem solving etc. I like to be able to vary the learning styles that are called on for these activities - eg. music, drawing, discussions, fun, physical activities.

Where possible, I like to get delegates to teach each other, and draw on each others' experience. In my most recent programme, mixed groups put together a description of the highlights of the company's growth and development to date drawing on each others' experience, and some background information provided by us.

I also favour groups discussing topics and coming up with their own version of the truth. This lets organisers assess the extent to which the message is being picked up.

Finally, I have a belief that for people truly to take on board a new message, they have to put themselves (physically, if possible) into the subject, and get a feel for its real meaning. I usually set this up with a collaborative activity in small groups, which most often has a light hearted dimension to it - performance is usually an important element.

The balance between the three theories of learning in my approach varies from project to project, and client to client, but I definitely don't prefer the lecturing/input approach. Some of my colleagues (especially the American ones!) are much more comfortable with being the subject matter expert, but I am less so.

Ref:
Mayes, T. and de Freitas, S. (2004) ‘Review of e-learning theories, frameworks and models’ [online], Bristol, The Joint Information Systems Committee, http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/Stage%202%20Learning%20Models%20%28Version%201%29.pdf (Accessed 24^th May 2011).

Analysing the Monticello Website

I have gone about the analysis of the Monticello website comparing the affordances of the website with the declared mission and vision of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.
It's mission is :

• preservation -- to conserve, protect, and maintain Monticello in a manner which leaves it enhanced and unimpaired for future generations -- and
• education -- to interpret and present Thomas Jefferson to the widest possible audiences, including scholars and the general public.

Followed by their vision:

• The Thomas Jefferson Foundation engages a global audience in a dialogue with Jefferson’s ideas.
• Facilitate conversations and to use its extensive research and knowledge to stimulate interactions on a variety of topics that were of keen interest to Jefferson, the most powerful of which are liberty and self government.  Through virtual, off-site and on-site engagement, the Foundation seeks to excite the world about Jefferson’s relevance today and ignite a passion for history.

The website has done an excellent job of presenting this extensive knowledge in a format that makes it interesting and engaging for a wide audience. Accessibility and interest are achieved in many ways: 

• The house and grounds are described in separate short mulitmedia animations.
• These animated tours incorporate many of the different areas of interest in the house and grounds (history, architecture, geography, culture, people etc)
• Commentary is given in audio and written format, which caters for different disabilities and preferences.
• Floor plans and maps of the grounds accompany the animations
• Extensive background/further reading material is presented by organising it in separate subject matter sections.
• Users can explore whichever areas interest them at their own pace.
• I was able to access the material via both pc and mobile devices.

I noticed it has missed a number of opportunities to fulfill its vision and mission:

• Sadly english appears to be the only language (misses the global ambition?)
• Although the site educates in an engaging format, there is no way of interacting with the site via feedback, blog etc. (misses offsite interactive and engage in dialogue ambitions?)
• I came across no use of music (lost excitement opportunity?)

All in all, I think a creditable job of presenting the material reflecting many of the values of the organisation has been done. 

I imagine three keystone species which were essential in creating the website were: 

• all of the various historical/subject experts, 
• sensitive multimedia artefact designers
• people with extraordinary user focus, who can look at this subject naively

I  can see how the group that have created the site are operating in an ecology, but am not sure how the user becomes part of that ecology, other than as an observer. Or have I missed the point here?