ONL171 Topic 4: Design for blended reflection

Course development and revision seem to be constant processes in higher education, not least so in teacher education, where governmental decrees frequently call for change. This is not in itself a bad notion. Higher education courses need to respond to changing circumstances, but they need to change thoughtfully and with measure. The question, as always, is what exactly is the impetus for change and how it is brought about. In the following I will address one of the most challenging aspects of teacher education: bridging the gap between theory and practice (Beauchamp, 2014).

My focus will be on the potential role played by features of blended learning in an otherwise campus-based program. I understand blended in this context to include digital resources of various kinds that enable above all asynchronous communication and reflection to take place (cf Brindley, Blaschke & Walti, 2009).

Studies in teacher education have repeatedly shown that teacher students’ cognitions about core pedagogical features are very hard to influence and change (Bronkhorst, L. H, et al., 2014). The apprenticeship of observation is strong. But there are also studies that indicate that with appropriate scaffolding a reflective process in the Deweyan sense can be induced (Gelfuso & Dennis, 2014; Bendtsen, 2016). What would be needed is a set of “knowledgeable others” in the form of university tutors and certain clear principles for teaching the subject area in question. These features are most likely in place in all teacher education programs. However, the study in question also points to the usefulness of video recorded lessons that serve both as a memory repository but also, and more importantly, as a lever for the teacher students’ cognitions.

Here is the plan for implementing this.

Students are asked to video record a couple of lessons that they are teaching, and then edit these videos down to one shorter video (no more than 10 minutes long). They pick out instances of dissonance, that is, instances in their own teaching that did not unfold according to plan.

This video forms the basis for

1. a descriptive summary of what is happening in the selected sequences,
2. the explicit formulation of the dissonance, and
3. suggested possible courses of action that the teacher student could have taken to deal with the situation.

The edited video, the verbal description of the identified instances of dissonance, and the suggested courses of action are uploaded to share with the university tutor and eventually the group of peer students.

The teacher student will have a conference with the university tutor. The aim of this conference is to analyse the teacher student’s verbal reports and for the tutor to probe into the reflective process of the teacher student, and discuss the suggested courses of action. This will be done with recourse to teaching theory, and pedagogical content knowledge.

The teacher student then writes a report on the conference, where particular emphasis is placed on how the teacher student perceives the instances of dissonance after the session with the university tutor. After this the whole group assembles and a joint presentation and discussion of the various instances of dissonance are discussed. Similarities and differences in types of dissonance are noted as are the various suggested courses of action.

The teacher student writes a final report where his/her own instances of dissonance are revisited and reanalysed. In addition to this each teacher student also selects one instance of dissonance presented by another student and suggests courses of action to deal with that.

The final product is uploaded on a shared platform for everyone to read and comment. In subsequent practicum periods these documents are revisited and form the basis for further collection of dissonance that are then dealt with in a similar way. By repeating these procedures and adding new material and insights to the previous observations, the teacher student will not only extend his/her previous knowledge but also be able to revisit and reanalyze previous experiences in light of current knowledge and insights.

With this suggested plan several technology features have been worked into the overall pedagogical design. The digital components of the design enables students, school supervisors and tutors to engage in asynchronous reflection. This caters for both individual/cognitive activity and learning in a social context. The video recording, and above all, the editing of the filmed lessons, enable the teacher student to reflect on the lessons in question, extract appropriate sequences and add commentaries to them. Since the videos and commentaries are shared with other participants, a community of practice and inquiry (Wenger, 2010) is gradually built up.

Face-to-face conferences and seminars provide valuable “on-the-spot” comments and sharing of experiences, and in the joint discussions of the experiences of several teacher students, a basis for synthesization of knowledge is made possible. Together with this, the chain of online asynchronous reflective commenting makes it possible for all stakeholders to engage in a learning process that keeps a certain momentum while still opens up for considerations that can be formulated without immediate time pressure.

References:

Bendtsen, M. (2016). Becoming and Being a Language Teacher. Evolving Cognitions in the Transition from Student to Teacher. Diss. ‘Turku: Åbo Akademi University Press.

Brindley, J., Blaschke, L. M., & Walti, C. (2009). Creating effective collaborative learning groups in an online environment. The International Review of Research in Open and distance Learning 10(3).

Bronkhorst, L. H., Koster, B., Meijer, P. C., Woldman, N., & Vermunt, J. D. (2014). Exploring student teachers’ resistance to teacher education pedagogies. Teaching and Teacher Education 40: 73-82.

Gelfuso, A. & Dennis, D. V. (2014). Getting reflection off the page: The challenges of developing support structures for pre-service teacher reflection. Teaching and Teacher Education 38: 1-11.

Wenger, E. (2010). Communities of practice and social learning systems: the career of a concept. In Social learning systems and communities of practice (pp. 179-198). London: Springer.

Online Networked Learning: Lessons learnt and future practice

One of the most important lessons learnt for me personally has been to truly realize the learning power of collaborative work using a range of digital resources. One of the most challenging but also rewarding aspects of the course has been to decide on the mode of co-operation in the PBL activities and the subsequent issue of sharing the results.

What has dawned on me is how important task conception is within the PBL group. During the first couple of themes we went fairly quickly into the more detailed questions and issues without having thought through and discussed the underlying aspects of the type of knowledge that the topic was supposed to probe into. Bouncing on the surface of the issues gave us the illusion that we solved the tasks fairly quickly, but in later topics, when the same features returned in a new and more complex guise, we realized that we had not probed the issues in the best possible manner.

Perhaps this is quite natural, and perhaps it is a necessary part of collaborative learning. Coming together as more or less complete strangers, we gradually, and surprisingly quickly, built a sense of trust between ourselves, but before this trust was in place and had begun to be articulated in the form of probing questions, it was probably too challenging a task to pause and ask critical questions.

Our PBL group, to my mind, found a constructive way of dealing with trust building. Right from the start we had fruitful and quite open discussions about the topics, but then we also arranged further work in pairs, and then in smaller groups. Finally we opted for full collaborative work (Topic 4), and this was a very positive experience. However, we would probably not have been able to do this as well right from the starr.

What role have the various digital tools played in this process? Here I think it is very important to consider the function of various types of tools, and at what point in the process a specific tool is employed. Between us we had a fairly good grasp of tools, and our facilitator and co-facilitator also came up with suggestions. Some, such as Google Doc and AdobeConnect, were basically “given” within the framework of the course. However, we never really analysed the function and the potential of the tools we used, at least not in a systematic way. What consequences this might have had is difficult to speculate about, and to my mind we did choose rather effective tools, but I have a feeling that we would have benefitted from a more thorough discussion of the tools themselves, and more importantly, the properties of the tools in relation to the task we needed to complete.

When conducting such an analysis, it would be appropriate to make a distinction between work process and the product to be presented. To what extent are tools for work processes also suitable for presentation? In other words, for each topic, analyses along the following dimensions would be called for:

• Task analysis
• Input analysis: what kind of content are we dealing with? Scientific/scholarly, opinion, experience-based, etc?
• Own knowledge and experience: What do we know already?
• Processing of content: How do we best organize the input and knowledge provided?
• Output analysis: What are we expected to do? How complex and “open” is the outcome?
• Process analysis
• Input processing and organization
• Individual and collaborative work
• Output format
• Tools analysis
• Tools for processing
• Tools for collaboration
• Tools for presentation

With growing task understanding and familiarity of the respective tools, and with the growing knowledge we had of each other (very important!), it gradually became feasible to work with one and the same tool for both process and product. A good example of this is Prezi, where we collaboratively composed an outline for the last content topic, and then subsequently added content, reviewed each other’s content and eventually agreed on the final product. Prezi is a powerful tool for presentation but I’m not quite sure that it is generally considered as a tool for active collaboration; However, because it is shared it is possible to work both synchronously and asynchronously on content development.

The digital tools that we encountered and used in this course have certainly helped us along, and have in some cases (online collaboration, joint construction of text) been fundamental to the whole endeavour, but they would not have helped unless some vital pedagogical and group dynamic features had been present. The problem-based approach to learning has been one of those vital features. By directing us to a certain work flow we were forced to slow down our decision-making process. This most likely led to more mature considerations and decisions not only on content but also on design.

All in all, I think what I bring with me from this course is the fascinating creative potential that can be unleashed when certain factors are present:

• a common sense of direction and goal
• an openness to learning with and from each other
• a process orientation without losing sight of the goal
• the inherent fun in experimenting with digital tools in a serious, professional and supportive environment

Learning in online communities - some thoughts on face-to-face interaction

One of the insights afforded by ONL171 is the importance of social presence in communities of practice and inquiry (Weller & Anderson, 2013; see also Lave & Wenger, 1991). This is not least important in online environments since the absence of face-to-face interaction in the form of physical meetings (seminars, lectures, workshops, etc) is replaced, if at all, by online synchronous meetings such as webinars and tweetchats. In the following I will discuss the notion of social presence in online courses from a social systems view on learning (Wenger, 2010).

Let me first give you a brief in-road.

The ONL PBL group to which I belong, Group 1, has been successful in many ways: all participants are fully active, we have created a bond of trust between us, and our group is capable of bringing the issues under consideration forward in a fruitful manner. As you say, one thing leads to another, and one strand presented by one of the participants is followed up and developed by the others, thereby leading to a more allround consideration of the issue than would probably otherwise have been possible if the same deliberations had taken place in solitude. This, then, would be an example of learning in a community of practice (Wenger, 2010).

However, what does not happen to the same extent in our online meetings as would probably have been the case if we had met face-to-face, is the social small talk. During the first few weeks we all came online at least ten minutes before the scheduled time to start, but that was not primarily in order to chit chat, but to make sure that mircophones, sound levels and cameras were working properly.

As the weeks have passed, we have become very good at these technical issues and now nobody struggles with them. This means that most of the participants go online just a couple of minutes before the meeting is due to start. We are all very happy to see each other every time we meet, but there just is no space for this small talk. Likewise, when the meeting is over, we all look forward to the next one, but we end the meeting immediately and thus leave the common space.

In campus-based courses participants usually (though not everyone, of course!) arrive a little time before the seminar begins. After the first few meetings, when everyone has got to know each other a bit, there is usually quite a bit of talk before the seminar starts. Even after a few meetings participants arrive in good time for the seminar. This of course may have a purely practical explanation: since most people will have to do some travelling to get to the institution, however short it may be, there is still that uncertainty about exact timing and you don’t want to be late.

Also, campus-based seminars are usually so long that you need to have a break when the participants can go and get a coffee or just relax a bit - and talk. You sit and talk, you walk and talk, you queue and talk. And after the seminar, when the group disperses, you talk on the way out.

The question now is: How important is this kind of talk in relation to social presence? In our PBL group we have not had all these opportunities for small talk typically offered by campus courses, nor have we sought them. We could have discussed it, and someone could have suggested that we go online say ten minutes before the meeting starts just to for the social aspects, or that we stay on after the meeting to round things up a bit and catch up with life. Our PBL meetings are not long enough to warrant a break, and if we had had breaks, we would probably have left the computer to relax; we would not have stayed on to talk. But we haven’t done that, and yet, a clear sense of community has emerged in these few weeks.

This begs the question of one of the often-raised objections to online courses, the absense of face-to-face social interaction that is supposed to be so important for sustainability and sense of community (REF). Maybe there are other aspects that are more important? During our discussions about our experiences of the course and of our online journey, certain features have emerged:

• curiosity
• opennes to learning
• supporting climate with respect for each other’s contributions
• a gradual increase in sharing a common goal

We seem to have established a “regime of competence” (Wenger, 2010) without really being explicitly aware of each other’s competences. With this I mean that we function as a community of practice, and as a system for learning, and that we do this in spite of the fact that we have not been brought together because of our individual competences, but rather randomly, possibly with an idea from the course organizers to make sure that each group has participants from more than one country.

So, what have been the catalyst for this successful online community? At present, I really cannot say for sure. There were frustrations initially, both owing to technology and to the perceived absence of structrue to the course. However, one thing I think has been of importance is our facilitator, who has been very careful to scaffold us, but not to control or lead. He has trusted us, he has allowed us to try things out and to evaluate them, to retrace our steps and try again.

In addition to this important factor, I suggest that our synchronous online face-to-face meetings have been crucial in establishing social presence. Social media in general puts considerable emphasis on personal and even private expression. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and all the other platforms offer endless possibilites, both constructive and destructive. What most of these encounters have in common, however, is that they are asynchronous. People very seldom meet in synchronous, transient meetings online for personal reasons. I don’t count in here such forms as FaceTime or the prototypical use of Skype. These are for maintaining bi-directional relationships between friends and colleagues, but their primary use is not to build communities of learning.

In conclusion, there is then a lot to be said for the visual encounter, and based on this current experience, synchronous online face-to-face meetings can be just as effective as physical meetings face-to-face, at least for builidng communities of inquiry.

“Remaining on a learning edge takes a delicate balancing act between honoring the history of the practice and shaking free from it.” (Wenger, 2010:3)

References:

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press.

Weller, M. & Anderson, T (2013). Digital resilience in higher education. European Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning 16(1):53-66.

Wenger, E. (2010). Comunities of practice and social learning systems. the career of a concept, In Social learning systems and communities of practice (p. 179-198).

Establishing digital and pedagogical openness

This is a very late contribution to ONL171 and Topic 2 on Open learning - Sharing and openness

I would like to discuss the notions of openness in higher education and that of scholarship of teaching. Weller & Anderson (2013) discuss issues of resilience and openness in higher education. Resilience is taken from ecology (see Walker, Holling, Carpenter, & Kinzig, 2004) and, very simply put, helps us to understand how an organism adapts to various forces of change. Weller and Anderson argue that higher education institutions can be seen as "organisms" in this sense and that the same basic assumptions can apply. There is no doubt that digital technology affects higher education on both an institutional and on an individual level. 

Here I would like to connect to Boyer’s 1990 classification of scholarly activity, referenced in Weller & Anderson (2013): 

• discovery
• integration
• application
• teaching

Of these four types of activity, discovery, integration and application can be seen as forming one cluster, focusing on research and innovation, and the fourth one stands somewhat alone. As Weller and Anderson point out, Boyer's classification from 1990 was no doubt meant as a way of enhancing the teaching component, but research suggests that scholars who want to pursue a pedagogical career in higher education institutions are not rewarded to the same extent as those who pursue a more scholarly career path. Kreber (2002) puts this down to a lack of rigor in definitions of such concepts as teaching excellence and scholarship of teaching. One of the key factors suggested by Kreber to define scholarship of teaching is the idea of openness and sharing.

Being an appointed pedagogical ambassador for Stockholm University this year, I can see that I have excellent opportunities for engaging with these issues and there have also been several opportunities for me. Together with a colleague at the Department of Romance studies and Classics I have constructed a questionnaire on how our teachers perceive their needs when it comes to pedagogical development in a digital age. Several respondents say that they would like to be able to interact with their students more, and they are also looking for ways in which to increase student activity in general.

At a workshop held recently with one of the subject divisions in my own department it became rather clear that further information about possible ways of interacting with students is needed, together with sustained discussions about pedagogical issues. It also struck me at this workshop that before a more probing pedagogical discussion can take place, we need a shared minimum of knowledge and insight into the vast area of digital resources. At present there is no such joint space in which to share knowledge and discuss ideas in our subject field. One way in which we are going to remedy this is by establishing a Google+ group. I’m very excited about this and look forward to seeing how it develops.

I hope that this can help to establish a resilient community of learning able to deal with some of the challenges of the digital world in language teacher education.  

  

References

Boyer, E. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate. Jossey-Bass.

Kreber, C. (2002). Teaching Excellence, Teaching Expertise, and the Scholarship of Teaching. Innovative Higher Educaiton, 27(1), 5-23.

Walker, B., Holling, C., Carpenter, S., & Kinzig, A. (2004). Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability in Social–ecological Systems. Ecology and Society, 9(2). Hämtat från http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5/

Weller, M., & Anderson, T. (2013). Digital resilience in higher education. European Journal of Open, distance and e-Learning, 16(1), 53-66. Hämtat från http://www.eurodl.org/?p=current&article=559

First post: Open networked learning and scholarship of teaching

So, I'm making my debut as a blogger! Being a language teacher educator, I encourage my students to use various interactive resources in their teaching and I have also included blog posts, or rather reflective log entries, as a way for the students to engage with the course content. But I myself have never blogged.

In 2017 I have the honour and privilege of being one of eight pedagogical ambassadors at Stockholm University. My project within this endeavour deals with mobile learning as a means of enhancing professional development in language teacher education, and to try to find ways of bridging the gap between the theory and practice of teaching. As part of this I'm taking the course Open Networked Learning (ONL). The course has only just started, but already fascinating paths of enquiry are opening up, and I'm very excited. The next few months will be intense and challenging and, most likely, very rewarding.

The first theme that we tackled in the group of ambassadors was scholarship of teaching. To what extent can work related to pedagogical development be understood in terms similar to research in our academic disciplines? In addition to being an excellent and expert teacher, that is knowing your field and being able to reflect on and develop your teaching practices in a systematic way, it also "extends to the integration, application, and transmission of knowledge" (Kreber, 2002). Taking part in the ONL is an excellent way of achieving this.

Reference:
Kreber, Caroline (2002). Teaching Excellence, Teaching Expertise, and the Scholarship of Teaching. Innovative Higher Education, 27(1): 5-23.