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.

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.

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).