Amanda's Blog

For my applied research project, my current question is how might the implementation of a Community of Inquiry framework impact a self-paced high-school online course? This is supported by four sub questions: ·       

•   How might teaching methods be used differently to establish and nourish the three COI presences?
•  How might the self-paced, asynchronous nature alter the COI framework?
•  How might the establishment of a COI impact the emotions of a student?
•  How might the varied age of learners influence the COI?

There are two theoretical frameworks that I am currently interested in researching more about. 

The first framework is Mobile Learning Theory. 

Due to my research being based on an online distributed learning environment, using mobile learning theory as my theoretical framework seems like it would be a good fit. Mobile learning can happen anywhere and at any time and can be broken up into three complexities: pedagogy, infrastructure, and communication (Franklin, 2011). Koole (2011) discusses how mobile learning is described by “the convergence of mobile technologies, human learning capacities, and social interaction” (pg. 25). Both of these definitions have similarities with a Community of Inquiry, and the three presences it is built around. Furthermore, by using this framework, I am already differentiating how my learning environment differs from that of a traditional classroom. 

The second theoretical framework I am interested in exploring is Self-Efficacy Theory. 

Self-efficacy is described as one’s perceived belief on whether they can be successful on a given task (Bandura, 1977). One’s self efficacy is related to their personal experiences, second hand experience, social persuasion, and physiological and emotional factors ( Bandura, 1977). Due to my students having varied experiences, and motivators for signing up for my courses, understanding self-efficacy and its impacts on learning will be helpful in understanding how different teaching methods could be tailored towards students. I am especially interested in the social persuasion, and physiological and emotional factors, as I feel they relate more to my research questions. 

As I continue to read more into these frameworks, I can see how they would relate to my research. I am just not sure if using two frameworks is wise? Having read my questions, is there another framework you think I should check out instead of one of these? 

Thanks, 

Amanda

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191-215. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191

Franklin, T. (2011). MOBILE LEARNING: AT THE TIPPING POINT. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology Copyright  The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 10(261). Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ946635.pdf

Koole, M. L. (2009). Chapter 2: A model for framing mobile learning. In M. Ally (Ed.), Mobile learning: Transforming the delivery of education and training, (pp. 25–47). Edmonton, AB: AU Press

Moving into LRNT 622, we have been tasked with considering how we will share our final research project. 

As an online teacher, working in an asynchronous, self-paced environment, I am interested in what can be done to improve student success, focusing on the introduction of a Community of Inquiry framework. 

My goal is to keep my research relevant to my context, and hopefully be able to apply what I have found to my own courses. I would share my research in 2 stages. 

The first would be locally within my own school and district. This could be done during our school collaboration time, and further explored during a professional development workshop. By hosting a workshop on a ProD Day, any interested educators from outside my school could attend, as well as my school colleagues. 

The second stage would be sharing my research at conference. One conference that I attend yearly is the Digital Learning Symposium, often held in the Spring. Many -K-12 DL and classroom teachers from around BC and further attend this conference. Sharing my research here would allow for my to reach other teachers that work in very similar conditions to myself.

As the call for presenters is already happening for the April 2020 conference, I would most likely be presenting in the Spring of 2021. 

If you know of any other conferences that would be cool to check out, let me know. 

Amanda

Share by www.gotcredit.com (January 15, 2019) retrieved from https://flic.kr/p/QtmTyH

As a current distribute learning teacher, I can personally speak to the challenges that teaching online presents. A Community of Inquiry (COI) allows one to address some of these challenges through the integration and facilitation of three presences: social presence (SP), teaching presence (TP), and cognitive presence (CP). If all three presences are successfully integrated and facilitated, “higher-order learning emerges in a community of inquiry” (Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2005, p. 137). To successfully create and maintain a COI, the course must be designed and facilitated with the three unique presence in mind. 

SP refers to the connections that students make with the course, the instructor, and other students. With a strong SP, students should feel as if they can present themselves honestly (Vaughan,Cleveland-Innes, & Garrison, 2013). The ideas given allow for the development and growth of SP as discussed by Vaughan et al. (2013) and Anderson (2018). 

• Hold synchronous sessions. These sessions may be online using video conferencing tools, or in person if your context allows. 
• Introduce yourself sharing a part of your personal life and include a video or image. Encourage students to do the same. 
• Create an FAQ section, and update it as other students ask questions to share with the entire class. 

TP, as discussed by Anderson (2018) is the “central element around which other activities in a community of inquiry manoeuvre” (p. 47) and involves the design, facilitation, and instructions of the course. The following tips will allow teaching presence within a COI as discussed by Anderson (2018) and Bull (2013)

• Utilize the Learning Management System (LMS) and use its tools to monitor students access, progress, and work habits. Use this knowledge to reach out to students who are absent, compare assessment results with student activity, and view if certain sections are being skipped.
• Provide constructive feedback regularly. Allow the students to learn from their own experience offering guidance and encouragement.
• Model effective problem solving through participating in discussions, and sharing your own learning when applicable.

CP is when students are able to push past surface interactions, and engage with the material critically. This requires proper facilitation (TP) and trust within the community (SP) (Vaughan et a., 2013). Tips given will allow for the support and development of CP as discussed by Vaughan et al. (2013).  

• Ask reflective and critical questions of the students that have more than one answer.
• Add questions or forums that encourage debate and critical discussion.
• Have course instruction and expectations accessible and clear. As students will be working in a self paced environment, provide scaffolding to allow them to build towards inquiry.

The tips given here are only a small sample of ways in which one could create and maintain a COI. Since every classroom is unique, there are many other ways one could create a COI. What would you suggest in addition to what I have here? 

References:

Anderson, T. (2018). How Communities of Inquiry Drive Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age. Contact North

Bull, B. (2013). Eight Roles of an Effective Online Teacher. Faculty Focus.

Garrison, D., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2005). Facilitating cognitive presence in online learning: Interaction is not enough. American Journal of Distance Education, 19(3), 133-148.

Vaughan, N. D., Cleveland-Innes, M., & Garrison, D. R. (2013). Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry. Athabasca University Press. Chapter 3: Facilitation (pp. 45-61).

As LRNT 527 comes to an end, we have all been tasked with reflecting on our empathetic design challenge. To start my reflection process, I reviewed my own notes and my past blog posts. This course could be best described as a journey, and like many journeys, I found I had forgotten some of the earlier moments. The journey map that I created in the design phase would have been the most surprising for me. At first I was not sold on the idea, but after completing, it gave me the ability to visualize my thoughts and my time spent reviewing my course differently. 

Moving into the prototype phase, my goal was to add a digital learning resource that allowed for more engagement between the instructor and students, and gave the students a better understanding of the course expectations. Overall, I think my prototype is a good step in that direction, but could be expanded to make it even more clear for my students. Feedback received from peers included incorporating the learning goals and intentions of the DLR for the students to see (D. Hatzigeorgiou, & T. McLeod-Treadwell,  personal communication, August 15, 2019). 

If I were to do this project over again, I would scale back my ideas sooner. I originally went into the prototype thinking I was going to make a few smaller activities. However, the amount of time it took to complete the prototypes that were (in my opinion) good enough for my end user took me much longer than anticipated. One of the reasons for this is because the prototypes were developed with an emphatic approach, which gave me a different perspective on why I was creating them. 

To end this post and 527, we were tasked with answer the below questions

What was the most surprising thing that you learned by participating in the design thinking process and designing and developing your digital learning resource?

How much I wanted to work with other people and discuss my prototype and process. I normally think of myself as fairly independent, but through the different stages I found myself wanting to work and collaborate with others. This is most likely due to the design process being very different than other types of improvements or innovations I have added to my courses. 

What suggestions and improvements did you receive? Did you get any feedback that you did not expect? What feedback needs further investigation?

Throughout the entire course, I received feedback on blog post and then finally on my prototype. One revision, which was received through feedback, would be to increase the amount of instructions given to the students once they receive the Excel spreadsheet (J, Christie, personal communication, August 11, 2019). It was something that I did not think about, as in my mind the prototype was over. But adding it makes a lot of sense for accessibility and ease of use for my students. 

What are the next steps you would like to take to build upon your digital learning resource?

By building this prototype, my hope is to integrate it into my new course in the fall. Hopefully this will allow me to start building stronger connections with more students, and give all of them another tools to utilize for their own success. Before doing so, there are a few more revisions I would like to make. I would like to develop the Moodle version of my quiz, and add more instructions into my resource as suggested in my feedback. These instructions would be for the how the student could download and access the excel sheet. 

Also, consider how you might utilize the design thinking process for the design and creation of digital learning resources in the future, or for other tasks that you may encounter within your instructional context.

I often collaborate with another colleague at work regarding similar class features. I would utilize a few of the more collaborate stages of the design challenge. There are also a few that are methods I have never used but would be interested in trying, such as Analogous Empathy and Story Share-and-Capture (Stanford University Institute of Design, 2016, p. 12-13). I enjoyed doing it by myself, but I think having more ideas in some of the earlier phases would have been able to open up the topic and ideas a bit more. 

Thank you for reading my blog. Time for a week off before we jump into LRNT 528!

Reference

Stanford University Institute of Design. (2016). Bootcamp Bootleg.  Retrieved from http://dschool-old.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/METHODCARDS-v3-slim.pdf

This week in LRNT 527, we were tasked with moving our design further along into the Define stage. For me to complete the define step, I needed to complete the empathy stage- which was my journey map. I ended up hitting a snag, as I originally had planned to use my new Chemistry 12 course that I had not seen yet. This would have allowed me to utilize the “beginner’s mindset” ( Stanford University Institute of Design [SUID], 2016, p. 6 ) as it would have been my first time moving through this new course and I would have less bias. Unfortunately, the courses were not released in time as planned. Therefore, I needed to go back and use one of my current courses that are running, but will soon be discontinued. 

For my journey map, I put a timer on, and went through the first hour of my current Chemistry 12 course. This included logging in and trying to familiarize myself. After completing my hour in the course, I combined my new experience with my previously gathered observations, to create my journey map. 

 A few of my main takeaways from my own experience is how many videos there are for the student to watch. There was also a lack of engagement with the material, at least for the first hour of the course for me. Most interesting was the confirmation I got that the students are not watching and using the videos in the course. I confirmed this when watching the very first content video on the first page, which explained in detail how to complete a certain task ( Writing complete and net ionic equations). Oddly enough, this is one of the most asked questions I get on the first assignment, and one of the largest areas for mistakes. However, the video in the course clearly explains the steps and show multiple examples. If students are watching the videos they are not retaining the information needed. Another main insight I had, was that there did not need to be more videos for content delivery- and the current ones needed to be broken up a bit. 

Once my journey map was completed, I started in the define stage. For this stage, I used a combination of a Point of view (POV) madlib and the Critical Reading Checklist (CRC) (SUID, 2016). I chose these two methods because I am completing this design challenge alone. Many of the other methods utilize teams and multiple perspectives, but I needed methods that I felt I could be successful at doing individually within our short time frame. 

The POV Mad Lib allowed me to reconsider the needs in more detail of my user. The insight gained from my journey along with past observations highlighted many of my previous suspicions. 

After completing my POV Madlib of I looked at the CRC and answered the questions “What is the point?” “Who says” “what’s new?” and Who cares?”

Of these 4 questions, the most intriguing one to me was what’s new? Having had made improvements to courses before, trying to look at approaching this in a new view is intriguing. Along with the results of the madlib, and the CRC, I adapted my POV to be 

“DL students at WCLT have specific motivations and reasons for taking Chemistry 12; therefore, they need to engage more with the course content and the instructor at the start of the course to better understand the expectations of the course and be able to move through with more success.”

Overall, completing the empathy and design phase as confirmed my initial thoughts. It has shown me how slow and heavy the course starts out, which most likely is contributing to the confusion and slow start many students are having. 

From here, we are off to Unit 2, where we start to design and create. Does anyone have any ideas for me to consider when it comes to my design of my digital learning resource? 

Amanda

Reference

Stanford University Institute of Design. (2016). Bootcamp Bootleg.  Retrieved from http://dschool-old.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/METHODCARDS-v3-slim.pd

As LRNT 527 continues to move forward, we are now finishing up Activities 2 and 3, which focus on Empathy and methods on which we can gain it for our end users. This empathy will ultimately be used in creating my digital resource. 

While reading Matthews, Williams, Yanchar and McDonald’s (2017) article on empathy in Distance Learning, I found myself agreeing to many of the statements they were making specifically the key tensions. One of the biggest challenges when considering gaining empathy for my end uses, is the variety seen within the end users themselves as well as different stakeholders. Matthews et al. (2017) discuss how “learners as well as other stakeholders can lead designers to contradictory or conflicting design requirements” (p. 490). Due to the variety of my learners age (16 – 45+), life experiences, educational experiences, and home lives, their needs and wants of vary so significantly, that attempting to empathize with them all would be conflicting.

For my design challenge, I am wanting to create a resource that will allow my learners to become more engaged with the content. I am also interested in giving them more choice, and giving the learner more power in how their learning will take place. 

As well as the variety of end user, I am also facing the challenge of 

• Time- this course is only 9 weeks and activities need to be completed quickly
• Date- we are at the end of the traditional school year, there are less staff around and less students work
•  Workload balance- any additional work added needs to be able to be managed with my current workload. 
• As well as other external pressures and practical barriers expected in public school. 

To further gain empathy for my user, I am choosing to participate in Stanford University Institute of Design’s Bootcamp Bootleg’s Journey Map (2016). One of the reasons I choose to use the Journey map to gain Empathy, was the research ethics guidelines that stated I could not contact someone was under 18, part of a vulnerable population, or I had a position of power over. I could have contact past students who are older than 18, but due to the limit of 3 participants, and time, the experiences shared would not represent my whole student population. 

By using the Journey Map, I plan on going through the start my course as if I was a student, and making notes on areas where I feel disengaged, bored, confused, or where there are options to add other material. I plan on only completing the first 2 – 3 lessons, which would only be about 2-3 days of class for the students. It has been a few years where I have intentionally gone through the course now with the eyes of a student and hopefully I will be able to learn more about the challenges they are facing within it. 

I would love to hear if you have any ideas for me while I am creating my Journey Map. I will update my blog when it is done. 

Amanda

References

Image “Empathy” (CC BY 2.0) by sinclair.sharon28

Matthews, M., Williams, G., Yanchar, S., & McDonald, J. (2017). Empathy in distance learning design practice. Tech Trends, 61(5), 486-493.

Stanford University Institute of Design. (2016). Bootcamp Bootleg.  Retrieved from http://dschool-old.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/METHODCARDS-v3-slim.pdf

Now that we are in full swing of our critical inquiry in LRNT 526, I am going blog more to answer some of my smaller questions I have, and to summarize some of the ideas I found in my readings from the week. From my Individual learning plan that was due last week, I came up with my main question

“How can video-based learning create effective learning communities?”

For this inquiry, effective learning being described best by Anderson (2008) as being “community-centred, knowledge-centred, learner-centred, and assessment-centred” (p.47). Thinking about how I can improve the learning in my own environment, the community aspect is the piece that is missing the most. As discussed by Wendt and Rockinson-Szapkiw (2015), building community is easier to do through face to face collaboration, than it is with online collaboration. Their findings support my initial instincts that it takes more planning and facilitation to reach the same amount of community.  It is my hope that through my inquiry, I will be able to find how to utilize video-based learning to bridge the gap. One of the ways I had thought would be helpful would be to make the videos more interactive. However, as shown by Reiss (2008) more traditional and less interactive videos were the more effective for learning and retaining information. This showed that sometimes less is more, and the interactive additions may seem like a good idea, but may just fall under the category of adding tech just because it is available.  Reiss (2008) also discussed that when watching and learning from videos, you become more emotionally involved, as opposed to logically. This was an interesting concept for me, and sometime that I want to look further into. If videos are able to target the more emotional portion of our brain, would that be more effective, or less effective for learning?

As this is still very early into my inquiry, I still have lots of ideas to flush out. If you have any questions or ideas for me to consider I would love to hear from you.

Thanks,
Amanda

References

Anderson, T. (2008). Chapter 2: Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson (Ed.), The theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed., pp. 45-74). Edmonton, AB: AU Press.

Wendt, J. L., & Rockinson-Szapkiw, A. J. (2015). The Effect of Online Collaboration on Adolescent Since of Community in Eighth-Grade Physical Science. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 24(5), 671-683. doi: 10.1007/s10956-015-9556-6

Reiss, D. (2008). Video-based multimedia designs: A research study testing learning effectiveness. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology / La revue canadienne de l’apprentissage et de la technologie, 33(3). doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.21432/T2FG64

As part of Team Ted-Ed, I spent this week participating in our selected 8 lessons from the Thinking and Learning section. At the start of this course, I was still unsure on what topic I would choose to focus on. Throughout participating in this weeks videos and reflection, I have decided to choose to focus on the effectiveness of the technology.

The different lessons we choose were all based around different Ted Talks, or Ted Animations. They all followed the same lesson format:WATCH, THINK, THINK DEEPER, and DISCUSS. The WATCH section contained the videos that not only varied in style but also in length from a few minutes to 12 minutes. The THINK section contained question posed by the creator or others who adapted the original lesson. The questions were either multiple choice, with the option of video hints when needed, or written responses. The THINK DEEPER section included additional resources and information to continue to build on the topic. This section was very different amongst the lessons. Some of them included only included other similar Ted-Ed lessons, while other linked you to external blog post, and further online quizzes and resources. Lastly, there as the DISCUSS section. This is where there was both open discussion (where anyone could pose a question) and guided discussion led by the creator.

Considering my topic of the effectiveness of the technology, I am interested in considering the effectiveness of each of Ted-Ed’s steps as well as the steps as a whole. As Anderson (2008a) discusses, a good online learning experience should be similar to all quality learning experiences and “will be knowledge-, community-, assessment-, and learner-centered” (p. 68).  Asking what is the purpose of each step, and what would need to be done for it to be effective? For example, what is the effectiveness of creating open discussions and collaborations within the DISCUSS section? As a teacher who currently works in a self-paced, continuous enrollment, online school, discussions and collaborations amongst students is difficult to achieve. Anderson (2008b) describes this as being a “lonely way to learn” (p. 222), and discusses how important social presence is to the learners’ educational experience. There is potential of adding more social presence into my own classroom by utilizing Ted-Ed’s establish discussion forums, if they are successful.

Moving forward, please feel free to share your thoughts on the effectiveness of Ted-Ed Lessons on engaging learning. Are you someone who prefers the traditional Ted style lectures, or the animations? Why? If it is not being graded, would you answer multiple choice questions and/or written questions? Even though all frameworks contribute to learning, which one are you most drawn to when learning new content: knowledge- centred, learner-centred, community-centred, or assessment-centred?

Thanks,

Amanda

References

Anderson, T. (2008a). Chapter 2: Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson (Ed.), The theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed., pp. 45-74). Edmonton, AB: AU Press.

Anderson, T. (2008b). Chapter 9: Social Software to Support Distance Education Learners. In T. Anderson (Ed.), The theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed., pp. 221-244). Edmonton, AB: AU Press.