If you
were going to describe your online practices, what would you point
out as significant?
Difficult
question when you are in the middle of activities. But I’ll give it
a try. I’ll give you an overall description which I hope will
enable you to ask for what might be appropriate for a book chapter or
an article.
First of
all we are doing online teaching meaning that the students are fully
online with no or almost no meetings IRL. Generally we attract
full-time working people. All work within courses are done in our LMS
(learning management system). Apart from storage of course
material and information to the students, the actual interaction with
people and material takes place in the “course room” which is the
metaphorical expression for the actual space where activities take
place.
The over
all structure is specified in the so called study guide. The
courses are a mixture of what Mason calls "wrap around" and
"integrated model" which means that we specify text books
and Internet resources but we also require that students find and
contribute with resources which they know of or have found in various
databases. It should be pointed out that all our courses are on the
advanced level
Most
courses have also recorded lectures given by prominent lecturers.
These lectures are in many cases recorded live which means that they
are not professional productions. Normally they are presented
together with slides. There are also short presentations explaining
complicated theoretical parts from textbooks. Normally such
presentations consists of an audio file with synchronized slides.
The
general approach to learning and instruction on which the course is
based is computer supported cooperative work
meaning that there should be interaction among students as well as
among instructors and students. We emphasize particularly interaction
among students as a means of learning. It goes without saying that
continuous access to computers and the Internet are prerequisites.
When a new
course starts we introduce it, if possible, with an optional
meeting IRL. It is generally valuable to have seen each other
before the actual work starts. In the first meeting we deal with
issues such as registration for the course and other practical
matters. The main activity, though, should be something of great
value for the participants. Normally we also have some group
activities to make the participants acquainted with each
other. Lunch will give a good opportunity to familiarize (on one
occasion we even prepared the lunch together). On several occasions
the students have taken photos of each other, photos which later on
will be used as identifiers in the course work when people are
geographically spread out. The photography sessions are normally
quite cheerful events and with the digital camera it is possible to
delete and take photos until the participant is satisfied. During the
initial meeting we also explain the course structure and what we
require of the participants. We will turn to that part now.
Every
course is divided into modules. The general idea of each module is
presented in the study guide. After that the particular resources and
the specified reading is introduced. The assignments are of
particular importance in an online course. It must be spelled out
what the participants are expected to do and accomplish. Apart from
reading (acquiring) the participants should also participate
and contribute, meaning that they should not only read and
acquire text material but above all make written contributions and
discuss other’s contributions. The philosophy behind the
acquire-participate-contribute sequence is described in Collis and
Moonen’s book Flexible learning in a digital world.
The
contributions are mainly of two kinds: seminar entries and discussion
entries. The seminar entry is similar to the traditional
academic seminar where every participant ideally contribute to the
discussion. An advantage with virtual seminars is that participants’
contribution are uploaded in advance so that other participants can
read and reflect upon what is written before the actual discussion
begins. When seminar entries are uploaded according to a set
time-table, the participants are required to discuss the
seminar entries. Normally, we specify how participants should respond
to the seminar entries. We have found out that it is necessary to
give detailed instructions about to whom and how many responses are
required. For grading reasons we normally have to tick off what has
been completed. Ideally we do not focus on grading.
It is
extremely interesting when students end up in lengthy discussions as
a consequence of their contributions. These discussions may partly
be demanded but the best discussion appear when the students get
really interested in some topic. As a course instructor you can
benefit a lot from appointing students as moderators for the
discussions.
Do the
discussions really have any substance?
I think it
is fair to say that not all discussions penetrate their issues
deeply. This does not mean that discussions are superficial but that
they are as deep as possible at that particular moment. When you read
theoretical stuff I think you will need time to understand what is in
the texts. In this case I do not think you are worse off online
compared to being in a classroom.
It might
be of value to consider the text mode used in the online courses. In
most cases discussions are carried out by written contributions. The
delay between production and feedback might be a disadvantage in some
cases. Fellow students may not respond in due time and tutors often
have several other courses to take care of. However, the time delay
is noramally an advantage since participants will have the
opportunity to think things over before they respond to something.
Synchronous text messaging is often better suited for practical
matters or just for a friendly chat.
Ok.
This seems pretty interesting but what is your actual contribution to
the flexible learning arena?
I think
the most interesting part is how you can make the participants
collaborate. It is interesting to find out if it is possible
to run online education with such great responsibility for the
students. It is a way of giving the students responsibility for their
own learning and since they are experienced students I think they
should be responsible. But the strategy also puts the teacher role in
a somewhat ambiguous position.
What
does the collaborative approach really mean? Is it problematic in
some way?
Well some
students might come to the course with an idea of handing in
assignments to the teacher. They will soon be aware that this is not
the way to do it in this course. Instead they are required to read
and think for themselves initially and eventually discuss with
others. It goes without saying that it is a quite demanding task to
read texts, sometimes quite lengthy texts and then produce a
well-formulated account.
Do all
succeed?
Unfortunately
not. Quite a great number of the students do not finish their studies
but it might not necessarily be because of the course structure. In
most cases it is because they cannot find time enough to study. I
think, generally, they tend do underestimate how much time it takes
to be an online student. Besides, they might learn quite a lot even
if they do not get the credits when the course is over.
So how
would you go about changing your courses in order not to lose so many
students?
First of
all, I think we should rely on some old reinforcement principles e.g.
make the students feel they succeed and progress. It might be
possible to divide the courses even more into self-contained modules,
the completion of which will make you feel that you have actually
laid a part of the course behind you. The visible indicator of this
is that your get your credit. However, with too much modularization
you run the risk that students lose coherence. I think that also the
assignments could be better specified in order to make the students
feel they have accomplished something.
Because of
the drop-out rate we have also started an informal mentor program. At
the moment two former students have volunteered to devote some of
their time to helping their successors in the course. This approach
is yet to be evaluated but thus far there have been lots of
activities.
Ok,
this seems interesting but still it will not qualify as a theoretical
account of online learning. How about turning to the analytical
level? What are your theoretical foundations? On what analytical
principles do you base your practice?
First, I
think you just mentioned one, namely practice. Previously I’ve
been doing studies where I used activity theory as a
conceptual framework. Practice is an essential foundation for those
theories originating from Marxism. Still, I think the Lave and Wenger
concept of Community of Practice is what guides me most in my
work. I would really make the participants feel they are belonging to
a Community of Practice. This will also be facilitated by the fact
that the theory of Community of Practice is one of the study
objects in one of the courses. Overall, I think it is appropriate to
consider the participants as having a “mutual engagement”, a
“shared repertoire”, and a “joint enterprise” in Wenger’s
own words (might be wishful thinking, though).
Second, I
think the availability and access to technology is important in my
courses. Apart from the LMS you should only need publicly available
technology (as long as you consider Microsoft Windows applications
publicly available). Still, the LMS does not need dedicated software
for the end-user. Only software that comes with the OS or that can be
downloaded for free is used. Generally we are not dependant on a
particular OS even if Microsoft Windows still dominate.
Third,
text is interesting. How does text have an effect on the
contributions?
These are
just three aspects which occurred to my mind. There are probably many
more underlying suppositions which I am not aware of because I am so
deeply involved in practical matters, as I pointed out initially.
Hm!
What you’ve just said isn’t of much value for a theoretical
account. Have you any ideas for the future?
Well, I
think our courses are rather traditional meaning that they follow the
normal semesters at the university. They are not really flexible in
that sense. I also think we are pretty traditional when we use our
LMS to propagate our views of teaching. Today people talk a lot about
Wikis and other collaborative software. I also think that the
university generally have to deal with the Open Educational
Resources movement (OER). Recently a report (“Giving Knowledge
Away for Free”) from the OECD presented by Knowledge Foundation in
Sweden sketched out a future scenario with an increasing access to
open educational resources. I don’t think there are any strategies
for these matters at our university.