Being concise is not my strong suit. During verbal conversations I often prefer to sit back and take it all in. I am the listener. I like to have time to hear and consider the different ideas and perspectives, and I need time to process and synthesize the information before forming my own opinion. I also need time to sort through the details and narrow down my point. If I don’t sit back and take this time, I tend to be the rambler as I process on the fly. I prefer writing. I find the process of writing allows me to think, rethink and reflect. This is why I have chosen a series of blog posts to reflect on my learning throughout OLTD 503. In order to present my final revised philosophy of online facilitation though I have chosen a mind map as the medium in an effort to be as concise as possible. The Community of Inquiry (COI) framework, which presents three elements that interact with one another to support and enhance learning: teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence (Garrison, Anderson and Archer, 2000); fits well within my own philosophy of learning as a social constructivist process that becomes more meaningful and effective when approached from an inquiry-based perspective. This framework strongly influenced my learning throughout this course. I found that once I read about this model, each new concept that we discussed throughout the seminar weeks seemed to fit into at least one of the elements of the framework. I can see the many benefits of applying this model to my own practice when creating, revising and teaching online courses, so I chose to use this framework as the foundation for my philosophy of online facilitation. After investigating supporting online learners by promoting the development of self-regulation skills during Seminar 5, I realized that there was an additional element that also plays a role in the development of a community of inquiry, learner presence (Shea & Bidjerano, 2010). This addition of a learner presence element takes into consideration the “metacognitive, motivational, and behavioural traits and activities that are under the control of successful online learners” (Shea & Bidjerano, 2010, p.1723), all of which fall under the realm of self-regulation skills (Moore, 1990; Bradley, Browne & Kelley, 2017; Lehman, Conceição, & Conceio, 2013). Figure 1. Revised community of inquiry model including “learner presence”. (Shea & Bidjerano, 2010) Each week I have focused on what I believed to be the key messages and strategies for successful online facilitation that emerged from our readings, group conversations, debates and additional learning activities, and organized them within the four elements of this revised COI model. I anticipate that the branches of this mind map will continue to grow throughout the remainder of my OLTD journey, and I believe the final product will be an invaluable resource to have on hand, informing my pedagogy each time that I approach new online course development and teaching opportunities. Please download the PDF below to access the links shared in the mind map diagram, or visit Coggle to view the original diagram.
References: Bradley, R.L., Browne, B.L., & Kelley, H.M. (2017). Examining the influence of self-efficacy and self-regulation in online learning. College Student Journal, 51(4), 518-530. Garrison, D.R., Anderson, T. & Archer, W. (2000). Critical Inquiry in a text-based environment: computer conferencing in higher education model. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105. Lehman, R. M., Conceição, S. C. O., & Conceio, S. C. O. (2013). Motivating and retaining online students: research-based strategies that work. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com Michael Moore (1990) Recent contributions to the theory of distance education, Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 5:3, 10-15, DOI: 10.1080/0268051900050303 Pacansky-Brock, M. Humanizing. Retrieved February 17, 2019 from https://brocansky.com/humanizing Schwier, R.A. (2009). Pursuing the elusive metaphor of community in virtual learning environments. In G. Siemens & C. Fulford (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2009 (pp. 3072-3082). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Shea, P. & Bidjerano, T. (2010). Learning presence: Towards a theory of self-efficacy, self-regulation, and the development of a communities of inquiry in online and blended learning environments. Computers and Education, 55, 1721-1731.
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In an interesting twist this week, the seminar facilitators opted to use a more traditional style learning management system to present their course materials and activities, and intentionally set the seminar up in a way to make the learners feel a greater sense of isolation during two of the three activities. I thought this was quite a clever design as is showed each of us what is feels like to be on the end of course design that does not take into consideration so many of the positive online communication strategies and community building elements that we have been learning about and experiencing over the previous weeks. The effects of this were quickly visible as only about half of the cohort members participated in the initial Zoom session used to discuss our own experiences with being supported by others as a stepping off point for our week’s investigations. I definitely felt the impact of this isolating design, as I shared with the seminar facilitators in their feedback thread.
“Over the past 6 months our cohort has worked hard (and our instructors have worked hard) to develop a strong sense of community, and I have found this to be a valuable aspect of my own learning in the program so far. I found it interesting this week to see how little time it can take for that sense of community to drop off when it's not being carefully nurtured. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that this is week 6, and there have been snow days, and the long weekend is ahead, but this week I have found myself wanting to simply check items off the to-do list.” I did however find that without the draw to interact with my fellow cohort members, I became more fully immersed in the research on my academic write topic of supporting online learners through attending to strategies to develop learners’ self-regulation skills. This again brought the idea of the need for balance to the forefront of my mind, as collaboration and community building are clearly valuable to online learners, and so too is the affordance of time discover, contemplate and synthesize their learning. One of the primary challenges that I think may arise when putting the community building strategies into practice, will be finding that sense of balance where learners are given the independent processing time that they need, while still ensuring that they are on track and maintaining a connection to the greater learning community, especially given the variables of course and learner needs that exist and change over time.
The seminar facilitation week was an awesome learning experience, both for the opportunity to really dig in to two models of online learning: Salmon's Five Stage Model (Salmon, 2003), and Garrison, Anderson and Archer's Community of Inquiry (COI) Model, and for the facilitation experiences itself, where my teammates and I were able to put some of the theory we had been learning about into practice. Learning about both of these models during our preparation for our facilitation week provided me with the “aha” moment that I had been hoping for as they provide concrete, yet flexible, frameworks to reference when planning for and teaching online courses. My group wanted to apply some of what we had learned about the COI model within our own facilitation process, as well some strategies that we hoped would help to reduce cognitive overload, as this had been to focus of the previous week. We chose to present our seminar content about building virtual communities using a Weebly site, something that we felt was familiar to the cohort members and would be easy to navigate. We also chose to use other technology tools that had already introduced, such as a Coggle mind map and a discussion thread, as well as providing our learners with the option to select tools that they had already experimented with. Starting our seminar week with a synchronous Zoom session made sense given the focus on building social presence within a community of learners as we felt that the ability to actually see and interact with one another couldn’t be as well replicated asynchronously or without video and audio. I was lucky enough to have two amazing teammates for this facilitation process, and I think Wendy’s ability to connect with each one of the learners who attended the meeting really set us up for a successful week in which our cohort members felt comfortable contacting us for support as needed. My main role during the week was to create some instructional content around the COI model to share with our cohort, and creation and facilitation of the icebreakers collaborative mind map and G+ conversations activity as well as the philosophy for building online community activity. Throughout the week I really enjoyed viewing the ideas and work shared by members of the learning cohort, and interacting with the learners through written means as well as video and audio recordings. Maintaining an ongoing presence throughout the week did take a significant amount of time, and I found myself wondering what was enough teacher presence versus what may be too much teacher presence. There were three people working together to facilitate this week, and Thai took on the role on facilitating the debate threads as a whole. I can definitely see how it would be a challenge to manage more posts and activities independently. I think this is where the social presence aspect can begin to take on a life of its own and greatly support the instructor as the students themselves take on a portion of the teaching presence role, providing feedback and support to one another. Overall I really enjoyed this experience and look forward to implementing some more of the strategies practiced within my current teaching role.
References: Garrison, D.R., Anderson, T. & Archer, W. (2000). Critical Inquiry in a text-based environment: computer conferencing in higher education model. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105. Salmon,G.(2003). The Five Stage Model. Retrieved from https://www.gillysalmon.com/five-stage-model.html There was an interesting discussion in my class today that had me thinking about the pros and cons of online communication and the potential impacts of increasingly digital social interactions.
Lately I have tried to incorporate some learnings from OLTD 503 into my current teaching practice. I have been created some mini modules in our Canvas learning management system that make use of video explanations, both in an effort to humanize the course (Pacansky-Brock), and to support learners who are in different stages in their literacy development. I have also included discussion boards to encourage peer to peer interactions outside of class (eventually). Today we continued working on a shared novel study. I read a chapter aloud, we reviewed summarizing which we had talked about and practiced last class using a discussion board to post, then provide feedback to others on their summaries, then a couple of students volunteered to help me write a summary for today’s section. Afterwards, we looked at a new piece of our reader’s response - analyzing. I explained and shared examples as well as a few possible sentence starters before passing out paper and having the students write instead of type their responses. The majority did it, and in looking over their shoulders I could see they were on the right track. Then, I asked for some people to share. Crickets. I even called on a few specific students, but they said they’d rather not. So, I asked if they’d prefer to post on the discussion board and have others respond to them that way. They said yes. Interesting. We are a small group, already in a room together, we’ve known each other for over five months, and verbal sharing and responses would only have taken a few minutes; yet the students would prefer to take more time to set up the computers and type (in this case also having to rewrite) their responses. “Why?”, I asked. Several responses were the same, “because then people don’t have to stare at me while I’m talking.” I thought this was interesting. I wasn’t expecting that response. The students can be a chatty group otherwise, yet the informal conversation level of comfort does not seem to transfer over to academic discussions. Perhaps they feel like there is a greater expectation, or a little more on the line? I let the students get out computers and within ten minutes several posts had been made and peer responses were starting to come in. For me this really made me think about the importance of balance and connected well to the ongoing conversations that we have been having in OLTD 503 about the merits of using social media in our classrooms. Using online communication tools can absolutely support student learning, and some tools such as discussion boards can help to build community online. Should these be able to take the place of face to face communication and an in-person sense of community? I don’t think so. I haven’t figured out the answers yet to how best to design a blended learning program, or when it may be best to take a step back from technology rather than leaning in to it, but this experience has brought these questions to the forefront of my mind. Based on what I’ve learned so far, I think the trick really is to figure out the balance and support students in learning the skills to navigate both the online and physical world. Discovering the perfect balance will have to be a continuing goal. Reference: Pacansky-Brock, M. How to humanize your online classes. Retrieved from https://brocansky.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Humanize-Infog-Letter-Size-for-Printing.pdf |
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