Herding Jello Cats to a Tree
Team 4 (Ben, Alisha, Melissa, Sharmila) chose a free online learning event called Teaching online or hoarding frogs in a wheelbarrow, that upon consideration and research, we categorized as an artifact of a Community of Practice (CoP) given its collaboratively constructed, fluid contents. The learning event is identified as a ‘course’ by its curator, Todd Pottle, Executive Director of the Ontario eLearning Consortium (OELC). It consists of the following eight sections:
- Communication
- Virtual Learning Environment
- Content
- Delivery
- Community
- Support
- Assessment
- Classroom Management
Each section includes suggested practices for elearning, links to resources, and quotes, all intended to inspire and support excellence among professionals in the field of elearning in order to ultimately “inspire and move” participants in online learning events (Pottle, 2022). One might translate this lofty goal as increasing success through engagement, which fortuitously, is a topic dear to my heart, and my applied research project, set in the context of British Columbia’s (BC’s) Kindergarten to Grade Twelve education system. ! I aspire to increase knowledge of engagement in elearning through some of BC’s First Peoples Principles of Learning (FPPL) (“First Peoples Principles of Learning,” n.d.). A CoP commonly develops shared knowledge and resources within a community, often a workplace or organization (Wenger, 2000). In its singular incidence and decontextualized, the learning event selected by our team may seem inaccurately defined as a CoP; however, the OELC is a vibrant organization and community that clearly fits this definition (“Ontario eLearning Consortium, 2022).
Fully online learning programs for BC Grade Ten to Twelve students commonly follow an asynchronous model, embracing the philosophy of, “any time, any place, any pace” (Cavanaugh & Johnston, 2004). The implication of this model is that learners may work substantially in isolation from peers with teacher support only through assessment. For many participants, this leads to disengagement and failure (Gillett-Swan, 2017). Models such as this exclude the integral benefits of relationship-based learning such as that found in the Community of Inquiry (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000) and Fully Online Learning Community (Blayone et al., 2016). The FPPL emphasize a deeply contextualized and interconnected learning experience, and I would propose, support engagement and success in online learning by many definitions.
Please help inform my continued research by sharing your input! Questions for consideration and discussion:
- How would you define “success” in online learning?
- How would you describe engaged participants in online learning (feel free to consider various roles, including learners, facilitators, developers, etc.)?
- What are some key factors that you feel contribute to engagement in online learning?
References
About the Ontario Elearning Consortium: Ontario eLearning Consortium. Ontario eLearning Consortium | Sharing for Success. (2022, March 31). Retrieved April 16, 2022, from https://www.oelc.ca/about-us/
Blayone, T., van Oostveen, R., Barber, W., DiGiuseppe, M., & Childs, E. (2016). New conceptions for digital technology sandboxes: Developing a Fully Online Learning Communities (FOLC) model. Proceedings of EdMedia: World Conference on Educational Media and Technology, 665–673.
Cavanaugh, C., & Johnston, S. (2004). Teaching Any Time, Any Place, Any Pace (pp. 116–134). https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-59140-154-4.ch006
First Peoples Principles of Learning. (n.d.). First Nations Education Steering Committee FNESC. Retrieved June 3, 2021, from http://www.fnesc.ca/first-peoples-principles-of-learning/
Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment:15 Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2),16 87-105. doi:10.1016/s1096-7516(00)00016-6
Gillett-Swan, J. (2017). The challenges of online learning: Supporting and engaging the isolated learner. Journal of Learning Design, 10(1), 20–30.
Wenger, E. (2011). Communities of practice: A brief introduction. https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=wenger+communities+of+practice+a+brief+introduction&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart
Hi Alisha,
Your learning event sounds fabulous, and your chosen issue is so important and timely. My older daughter completed grade five online and it was a very isolating experience for her. As a teacher myself, I was surprised by how little the students were encouraged or guided to connect and engage with each other. While my daughter’s online experience provided an acceptable academic standard, it almost seemed as though the human element of online learning was completely absent. I will be curious to see what your research uncovers in terms of human connection in elearning as a measure of success. Time and time again I return to Weller’s (2020) reminder that learning is a human experience. This resounded with me so powerfully because I witness curriculum, or politics, or technology, and so on become front and centre, and I wonder if by consequence the very personal and human nature of learning gets sidelined. I am curious to see what you discover!
Thanks again,
Amber
References
Weller, M. (2020). 25 Years of Ed Tech. Athabasca University Press. https://read.aupress.ca/projects/25-years-of-ed-tech
Hi Alisha, as you imply it’s tricky to categorize digital spaces like the OELC online site. What makes it an “artifact” or, alternatively, a lively collaboration space? It will be interesting to hear more about how and why it constitutes, or is part of, a CoP. I.e., what are the indicators, and/or what could be done to improve it? This will be particularly interesting given your focus on engagement in online teaching and learning in your studies, since engagement and participation are core components of community. When exploring the first of your three questions, it might be helpful first to make some (even provisional) definition of success before getting into the specifics of teaching and learning modalities; this helps prevent answering the question before it’s even asked. –> Amber, I appreciate your comment (from Weller) about learning as a human experience. This is a good reminder that I think should permeate our research in education and technology.
You had me at “ultimately “inspire and move” participants in online learning events’ (Pottle, 2022 as cited by Hadley 2022). I am looking at the use of extended realities (XR) in teaching Television News students how to shoot and edit.
Part of my curiosity is could XR inspire and motivate students? Ensuring content resonates well with students is one of my answers to your question about defining success in online learning. I feel like adding another layer (XR) to learning could improve engagement. “but the layering of perspectives and experiences to augment and enrich reality”(Bacon, Fitzgerald, Hedberg et al 2012).
I am exploring learning by doing “Also, the core argument of the learning theory of constructionism is that people learn best when they are making (constructing) something because of the powerful interaction between thinking and action during making (Barlex and Steeg 2018) as cited by Niiranen, 2019). I believe learning by doing can contribute to more engagement with online learning.
Thank you for your thought provoking post.
Hi Alisha,
I’m so glad to hear about your learning technology you are investigating. There are so many things to consider when we look at the success of online learning, and communities of practice is a really interesting platform to help us understand this. I find communities of any sort lend an advantageous environment to ‘learning’ as we know it, but wether or not that spills over to the online environment is an interesting experiment for sure! Looking forward to hearing your conclusions about your experience!
Alisha
Thank you for writing such an insightful blog. I love your questions and I’m happy to share my thoughts based on my recent team experience working on TikTok as a collaborative learning experience.
1. How would you define “success” in online learning?
For many years, I thought success in online learning was the completion of a course through shared perspectives and lessons learned. However, my recent experience working on our project team led me to pursuing a new passion for online collaborative experiences for the purpose of learning. First, our TikTok project team developed a social presence within our online interactions that contributed to a successful knowledge construct experience in the completion of our presentation. As part of our social presence, our team shared life stories outside of our assignment that deepen our relationship. I learned greatly from not only the different shared perspectives, but through our online collaboration filled with creativity, openness, trust, and fun. We also agreed that the final grade was not important, and our focus was on creating a team experience that would be fun, creative, supportive, and didn’t I mention fun?!
How would you describe engaged participants in online learning (feel free to consider various roles, including learners, facilitators, developers, etc.)?
Dron & Anderson (2014) described well what I consider important in engagement: “learners working collaboratively deliberately support one another’s learning, negotiate the division of tasks, and help one another to learn by using and/or developing group processes in more or less formal ways to produce some common or individual outputs” (p. 45). This perpective described well my recent team experience. For instance, our TikTok team was fully engaged on writing our final blog synchronously through Google Docs after dividing up sections, sharing thoughts on the creative piece, and helping each other from our strengths. It was a first and enriching experience for everyone to write a document simultaneously Also, facilitation during our virtual Zoom team meetings was a big part of our successful collaboration and engagement, and it was a shared responsibility similar to Schaefer et al. (2009), through a supportive inquiry process for stimulating the co-creation process, along with balancing the socio-emotional interactions through encouraging tone and respect for individuals’ opinions, experiences, and contributions.
2. What are some key factors that you feel contribute to engagement in online learning?
Trust, creating meaningful work, support, encouragement, collaboration, social presence, the role of the facilitator, are just a few factors I can think of that I feel contributed to engagement in online learning based on my experience with my TikTok project team.
I hope my responses will help with your continuous studies.
– Stephanie