Gordon Smith et al

Gordon Smith, G., Sorensen, C., Gump, A., Heindel, A.J., Caris, M., Martinez, C.D. (2011)

Overcoming student resistance to group work: Online versus face-to-face

Internet and Higher Education, 14, 2,121-128

Group membership.

Diverse employment background, therefore bring variety of knowledge to the group. one student in each skilled at production

Advice to groups

Charter for norms and responsibilities

Advised to have weekly synchronous meetings

Data sources

Survey

1. Previous experience of OL collaboration ( yes/no)
2. Need to know other members skills  and wok habits from the start (LS5)
3. Able to resolve all logistical problems (LS5)
4. I like working in groups (LS5)
5. I think group work is beneficial (LS5)
6. I think collaborating online is great, as there are many synchronous tools available (LS5)

Communication more difficult online ( sometimes tortuous)

More maladaptive groups online

Participation more marked as a problem in the reports from OL groups

Student journals

12 themes

communication, participation, group member attributes, team support, group assessment, group member assessment, personal feelings about working in groups, pressure, feedback, assignment difficulty, task delegation, others.

Discussion

Need to persuade students of the value of group work

Student practices

Peters, V., & Hewitt,J. (2010)

An investigation of student practices in asynchronous computer conferencing courses.

Computers & Education, 54(4), 951-961

Moment by moment participation

‘Little is known about the moment-to-moment behaviours of students as they participate in asynchronous discussions’.

‘Both social presence and transactional distance focus heavily on how students perceive, and interact with, their instructor and classmates.

These constructs have proven to be useful for studying collaborative processes within online environments, but they fail to explain,

on a more fundamental level, what students actually do when they login to a computer conferencing course, and why they do it.’

Aim

to better understand these processes. ‘For example, when students log onto a conference, how do they decide which messages to read? How do they decide which messages to respond to? What are their goals, and what kinds of strategies do they develop to reach those goals? In short, how do students

navigate the complex world of a computer conferencing course?10 Interviews’

Methods

Interviews and a questionnaire; graduate students

Results

Two major themes emerged from the analysis of the transcripts: Overload (strategies-participate frequently, skim messages, focus on a single thread, read messages selectively) and Insecurity. ( strategies for making a positive impression on the instructor, participate early, try to figure out what the instructor wants to hear, focus on your interests, sound knowledgeable)

Conclusions p959

‘This study investigated the online behaviours of students enrolled in graduate-level distance education courses. Analyses of the data

identified a number of practices that students routinely employ when participating in a computer conference. More often than not, these

strategies were aimed at more effectively meeting course participation requirements. In light of the findings, it can be argued that students

are frequently motivated to participate in ways that emphasize workflow efficiency over advancing their understandings about course top-ics. In their interview and questionnaire responses, students did not discuss learning-related challenges, but rather focussed on the practical

challenges of reading large numbers of messages and writing messages that would help them secure a good participation grade. Many

of the strategies developed to accomplish these tasks (e.g., skimming or ignoring messages, writing about what you already know) arguably

serve to subvert learning goals rather than support them. Collectively, the practices identified in this research suggest that students may

not be fully realizing the constructivist affordances of asynchronous online discussions. To encourage students to engage in productive collaborative

exchanges in a computer conference, it may be necessary to restructure the design of CMC courses and software in ways that

focus students’ attention on learning outcomes rather than participation outcomes.

Wosnitza & Volet (2005)

Marold Wosnitza & Simone Volet (2005)

Origin, direction and impact of emotions in social online learning.

Learning and Instruction, 15, 449-464

Notes

· KRO - Concept of emotional arousal can be questioned

· Authors talk in terms of emotions ‘ directed at’ e.g. p456 task directed emotions, but surely using their framework the appraisal would be the causal agent. It is inherent in the description of the student reactions but it is not described in that way. Also talk in terms of emotions as a trigger.

· Multiple sources for emotion

· Interventions (teachers) depend on source and need to be able to recognize the source ( ? link to DP work)

· See individuals as p455 ‘mediating emotions’ (KRO link to frontal)

· How does conflict fit into this and in fact any work from any author about motivation? Although note authors do not talk specifically in terms of motivation

· Authors never found any evidence of positive emotions ‘ directed at’ the technology

· Claim that emoticons are common but do not evidence

· In social learning case study the participation record of others was a key factor of emotional ?arousal( KRO link to task relevance and values)

describe how within a group a group course of action is discussed; is this how emotion links to collaborative?

Concepts

Identifies the following as concepts that have developed around socio-emotional experience in online environments

· Social presence

· Sociability (Kreijns, K., Kirschner, P. A., & Jochems, W. (2002). The sociability of computer-supported collaborative learning environments. Journal of Education Technology and Society, 5(1), 8e22.)

· Social-emotional affordances Volet, S., & Wosnitza, M. (2004). Social affordances and students’ engagement in cross-national online learning: an exploratory study. Journal of Research in International Education, 3(1), 5e29.

· Distributed emotions

however

P450 ‘ mediating role of students’ appraisals of online learning activities and the process of emotion arousal remains less well known.

Emotion

Agrees that the literature on emotions is very diverse but claims that p450 ‘ but only a few of the extant theories form the basis of research on emotions related to learning ‘

Appraisal

Base their approach on appraisal theory

Frijda, N. H. (1986). The emotions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Lazarus, R. S., & Lazarus, B. N. (1994). Passion and reason: Making sense of our emotions. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ellsworth, P. C., & Scherer, K. R. (2003). Appraisal processes in emotion. In R. J. Davidson,

H. Goldsmith, & K. R. Scherer (Eds.), Handbook of the affective sciences (pp. 572e595). New York:

Oxford University Press.

They conceptualise appraisal operating at two levels

The primary level involves an assessment of familiarity, degree of challenge, which are considered alongside relevance to personal goals and interests. More specifically things that are familiar and not too challenging do not arouse much emotion whilst the unfamiliar and challenging lead to anxiety.

(KRO but surely these only relate to the task?, technology rather than the interaction. Also Jones described in more in terms of previous experience)

The secondary level is concerned with evaluating o the appropriateness of the different courses of action available to the learner.

In this way, the emotional valence and the appraisal of action will impact on learning although students will vary as to whether any action taken stems from a positive or a negative valence.

P455 ‘ their arousal ( emotions) is an appraisal process triggered by a perceived potential harm or benefit for the learner in the learning situation’ the reason for the arousal being linked to an attribution process.

Emotion type

Get the following as a source for another approach

Pekrun, R., Goetz, T., Titz, W., & Perry, R. (2002). Academic emotions in students’ self-regulated learning and achievement: a program of qualitative and quantitative research. Educational Psychologist, 37(2), 91e105.

After a review of the various methods available an particularly the timing of data collection, they concluded that a multiple method approach is desirable

Evidence their claims about appraisal based on two case studies

1. Maths class, 8^th graders, thinking aloud and simulated recall

2. University students, online course, transcripts of CMC and questionnaire.

Based on case study 2 p457 ‘ in summary, the analysis of social online learning situations reveals a range of other directed emotions in addition to self, task, and technology directed emotions. Emotions generated in social online environments are not different in nature from those generated in face-to-face ( they didn’t convincingly evidence this claim ( ? rather assumed) therefore (thesis will question this). What is different in online learning is the fact that emotions are expressed via technology ( how? No specific information) and the disclosure of emotions is of necessity voluntary ( thesis will not make this assumption). In contrast face to face situations offer the possibility of detecting emotions through facial expression and bodily language which may not always be voluntary disclosures of emotions’

The impact of emotions on learning and the significance for teacher intervention

P458 A number of studies have shown that ‘ when education based on computer conferencing fails, it is usually because there has not been a responsible teaching presence an appropriate leadership and direction exercised ‘ ( G, A & A, 2000, p96)

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment:

computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2e3), 87e105.

The process of emotion arousal is triggered by an activity that presents different degrees of challenge or familiarity to the learner and also difference degrees of relevance .

sw

Authors claim that appraisal and emotional arousal processes be used as conceptual tools to illustrate the impact of emotions on the individual students learning process.

The authors provide two case studies that ‘s stress the importance of teachers’ understanding the processes that trigger negative emotions in order to intervene effectively’

But

‘if emotions are not spontaneously disclosed, as is necessary in online learning ( a point the thesis will consider without making prior assumption) , teachers are unable to appreciate their significance on the learning process. Teachers also need to understand the full complexity, as evidenced from empirical work of the impact of student’s emotions on their motivation and further work.

Authors review of method

Considered in terms of a distinction between methods that collect evidence during learning and those that collect after.

(1) survey , specifically of emotions ( Pekrun paper) Emotions bring draw attention to the problematic nature of disclosure particularly when emotional experience is salient. Process of emotional experience is not revealed ( KRO ?process of empathizing with the experience revealed by the DP work ) KRO retrospective and therefore surely involves attribution

(2) observation

(i) Facial expression - FACs – ( details on this method from old notes ). For online it would require video recording ( with the attendant problems of that method)

(ii) Content analysis , inobtrusive, but maybe privacy issues. Inference and interpretation although methodologies have been developed

(3) emotion diary

(4) simulated recall – present some record of the learning process (KRO not available as a continuous record it can be challenging . For group work there are complex issues, particularly ethical

(5) Practitioner records

P454 ‘overall the methods that are applicable to social online learning provide only limited (KRO for thesis one aim is to extend these) access to the complex set of emotions experienced during the learning process.’ Each of these methods has limitations. When used in combination these methods provide a more comprehensive picture of the emotion arousal process and its impact on the learning process ( actually it doesn’t, as described, tell you anything about the learning process)

Bransford et al

Bransford et al ( for position chapter)

Quotes

P217

‘history & principles that animate each tradition’

‘look for conceptual collisions that shape, challenge and extend’

Synergy aims for next decade – bring together three separate strands -

1. Implicit learning & the brain
2. Informal
3. Formal

1. Implict learning and the brain

P210 ‘ refers to information that is required effortlessly (?KRO for CMC style) and sometimes without conscious recollection of the learned information or having acquired it’

P210 ‘ implicated in many types of learning that take place in both formal and informal educational settings’

P211 ‘occurs in many domains. For example it influences social attitudes and stereotypes regarding gender & race’….

‘young children’s imitative learning of tools/artefacts’…

‘media and technology’

‘evolutionary value….. enables organisms to adapt to new environments simply be being in them and observing and interecting with the people and objects encountered there ( Howard & Howard, 2001)

Focus on language learning & learning about people ( social cognition)

3 hypothesis

p211

• implicit learning plays an important role across the lifespan
• research on language has discovered principles of learning that emphasize the importance of patterned variation and the brain’s coding of these patterns and these findings may illuminate other cognitive and social domains.
• Curriculum implications

Interpreting brain data

P212 – things to note

‘valid inferences about brain processes often require a series of converging experiments rather than one or two’

‘learning induced changes in the brain involve biological processes that may have complicated and interacting pathways of regulation just like other biological processes ‘ ( KRO puts into context questions about how meaningful it is to know where brain activation occurs)

p213 - fact

In young children the brain ‘overproduces’ synapses.

‘the process of synaptic overproduction takes place at different rates in different part of the brain ( Huttenlocher & Dabholkar, 1997)’

Ideas

Kuhls ( language development specialist) ideas on ‘neural commitment’

e.g. p213 ‘ early neural commitment to phonetic units of a specific language supports the learning of more complex patterns, such as the words of a language. However, neural commitment to learned patterns also constrains future learning because neural networks dedicated to native language patterns are incompatible with non-native patterns’

i.e. interpretation ‘ critical period depends on experience as much as process’ – ‘ maturation may ‘open’ the period during which learning can occur, but learning itself may play a powerful part in closing the period’ ( KRO provides a fairly powerful explanation of the interaction between biology and the environment’)

p214

‘broadening the discussion the neural commitment concept can be thought of as a neural instantiation of important dimensions of expertise in any domain’ i.e. expertise a s filter to ‘ focus attention, structure perception, thought and emotions so that we work more efficiently’

frees up attention, perception, emotion for creative endeavour

raises a fundamental question ‘ how can the brain form neural commitments whilst maximising our ability to stay open to adaptive change?’

Focus on language learning & learning about people ( social cognition)

See previous hypothesis under this title

Focus in particular

Language learning

· Acquisition of language

· Second language learning

( KRO adds text based asynchronous online learning)

human interaction

· live – Kuhn seems to be advantaged in language learning ? why ? evolutionary preparadness.

· mediated

Implicit learning & its connection with imitation

p215

‘Children’s implicit learning from other people a case of imitative learning’ ( this a section heading and is quoted as it is quite explicit about the connection between implicit learning & imitation.

‘ubiquitous nature of imitation amongst humans across the lifespan’ ( eg Metzoff, 2005)

‘monkeys do not imitate. So imitative behaviour involves more than the presence of mirror units and neuroscientists are trying to determine the special, perhaps uniquely human abilities that support our proclivity for learning by observation ‘ ( review by Meltzoff & Decety, 2003)

‘one possibility is that even the simple act of Imitation is connected with perspective taking and therefore is a more social & collaborative activity than first appears ‘( Meltzoff, 2005)

2. Informal learning

(KRO links to communities of practice)

• During a lifetime over 90% of learning occurs outside of school
• There are divergent views on the value of informal learning and the quality of thinking involved
• This strand describes research from a wide range of settings were informal learning takes place eg dairy workers, Lebanese tailors.

two main settings

1. designed e.g. museums

2. emergent, often self organised e.g. playgrounds

( KRO how does CMC, online, social networks, digital native etc fit ? is it a mixture of the two?)

Historical perspective

P217

‘Traditionally mostly outside mainstream educational psychology’

two main strands

1. Anthropology 1900-1950, Mead ‘her version of the social actor ……. In constant need for guidance from others’

2. Sociological ethnography Becker, 1950s, full expression 160s, 1970s

e.g. becoming a marihuana user, 1953.

‘Becker argued against an exclusively skill based notion of learning, that has been characteristic of both behaviorism ( physical skills) and cognitivism ( mental skills). Becker’s critical addition was to show that learning also involved the development of particular meanings for a skill, which were learned among other community makers’

bearing in mind that marihurana is not necessarily nic –

‘Becker argues that becoming a marihurana user requires that one learns to experience the sensations of smoking as pleasurable, through the appropriation of a set of socially transmitted meanings of experience.’

The historical account just reviewed

Foreshadows Guided participation ( Rogoff, Matsusov & White)

Resonates with guiding and participating (Mead)

Locates the development of identity as a dimension of learning (e.g. Becker & Casper, 1956) – central to the understanding of informal learning n.b. Becker’s work – school is a lousy place to learn.

Contributions of this strand (2)

1. Context of learning

P219

‘ although studies of informal learning have been used to cast a critical eye on the traditional practices of schooling and to provide ideas for formulating alternative educational practices, the focal attention to context as a theoretical construct among informal learning researchers has led to a more general reinterpretation of school as a context, namely that it is one’ and just one so to look at some contrasts

p220

formal ( eg school) - apparatus of school ‘ intentional teaching, designed and sequenced curricula, regular individualised assessments

informal

1. apprenticeship – legitimate peripheral participation ( Lave and Wenger)
2. intent participation – Rogoff et al – ‘ learning happens through keen observation and listening, in anticipation of participation ……. ( children) observe and listen with intent concentration and initiative, and their collaborative participation is expected when they are ready to help in shared endeavours’ (Rogoff, 2003, p176)

‘understanding learning in this way attends to how individuals can learn without explicit teaching but through participation in a community’s ongoing activities’

2. learning as change - what changes?

Cognitivists – mental constructs

Informal learning

Forms of participation in ongoing cultural activities

Changes in identity

Tool mediated embodied skills

therefore

p221

‘suggest reframing in terms of context rather than informal/formal e.g. transitions are a context and we need ‘ a better understanding of what people bring to, take from, and adapt across different contexts may also have implications’

3. Designs for formal learning and beyond.

This section starts off by highlighting two important achievements so far

1. development of standards ( national & international)
2. learning from the cognitivists – expertise & noticing. (Noticing comes from what it takes to be an expert ). ‘If people fail to notice subtle examples that create disequilibrium, they do not experience the need to attempt to change their views’

how to teach expertise

it requires

• knowledge organisaiton
• identify enduring ideas
• important things to know and be able to do
• ideas worth mentioning
• connections

but it needs to be adaptive ( see innovation section) and effective it needs to be alert to considering implementation alongside the background of the teacher’s knowledge which may have moved from explicit to tacit. It also raises questions for assessment – eg how to assess adaptive expertise.

Considering expertise further raises the question of how to balance efficiency and innovation

to encourage efficiency. Cognitive psychology has been useful here in that scripts, schema, procedures are all ideas that are translatable into classroom practice.

to encourage innovation . p226 need to ‘help people resist assimilation’ e.g. be able to restructure out thinking in social situations’ Need to engage in knowledge building as well as knowledge telling ( Scardamelia & Bereiter, 1991) and encourage disconfirmation as well as knowledge building ( Karmiloff- Smith & Inhelder, 1774/1975)

Future synergies

Methodological

? Synergy between methodology i.e. neuroscience, ethnographic analysis of social interactions & classroom based approaches eg activity theory.

Theoretical

P227

‘researchers from all three of the strands are begining to explore the implications of the idea that people – from infancy to adulthood – seem to naturally pay attention to other people and learn from them’

Examples from each strand

S1 and imitation – ‘human children are socially attuned from birth ‘ in particular to faces, voices. Infants observe and imitate

Stimultated research as follows

A focus on higher order questions such as empathy, the neural basis of empathy and of competition and collaboration ( Decety et al , 2004)

S2 p227 ‘ groups where people know each other function differently from groups of relative strangers’

Collaboration leads to bettwr problem solving and groups outperform individuals

‘quality of conversations and nature of shared engagement mediates how much is learnt’

researching how to stimulate more and better collaborations.

S3 social cognitions ( scripts) . Stimulated talk about humaine learning ‘ let students learn about content whilst also learning about people’

Sharing research tools

P228

An example is Learnlab at the Pittsburg Centre.

‘Seven ‘ highly instrumented courses’ ……. Each available for use in real classrooms’ state of art ( technologically and pedagogically)

Searching for conceptual collisions.

(cf 3Cs of DSE212)

ps read this section again if using this resource in a different context.

There are pros and cons of trying to align conceptual collisions. Some examples of collisions are

• Preconceptions ( including expertise) & commitments ( including neural)
• Meaning and understanding
• metacognition . how does reflection play out across the three strands.

One way forward is to anchor collisions around phenomena

• We learn from experience; previous experience can involve different kinds of learning eg implicit, informal, formal all contribute.
• We need to think in terms of implicit and informal learning occurring alongside formal (curriculuar learning) sometimes simultaneously e.g. learning about the self, others, morality ( fishing trip example) i.e. multiple levels of simulutaneous learning. Does this clash (collide) with the idea that attention needs to be explicitly focused?
• Common to all three strands is the influence of social interactions therefore provide opportunity for a wide variety of distributed expertise. Think in terms of motivation coming from being able to contribute.