RSA#5 Building Community in an Online Learning Environment: Communication, Cooperation and Collaboration

By Chris Bohula

February 23, 2011

Online source: http://frank.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed01/19.html

The overriding theme in this reading in Palloff & Pratt (2007, pp157-206) is the importance of collaboration in the online learning environment and strategies to facilitate it.  They go as far to say “Collaborative effort helps the learners achieve a deeper level of knowledge generation…” (p.157).  At the collegiate level, I believe that this “deeper understanding” would be difficult to duplicate in the traditional face to face course without having an on-line component to move the student to the interdependence and discussion created with this collaboration.  As I was reading through this text I was also identifying experiences we have been exposited to already in our coursework at Concordia. Several of these include negotiating guidelines (p159), forming teams (p.165) and collaborative writing (p. 181) to name just a few.  Having experienced these, I see their value and look for ways to incorporate them into my own teaching.

The online resource (Misanchuk & Anderson, 2001) provides strategies to move a group of students from being a “cohort” to a “community.”  They provide definition for a cohort as a general group of students going though a series of classes together but rarely have a strong bond or interdependent working relationship.  However they also define a community as being “one of the ultimate goals” (p. 6) and comprised of close to 9 characteristics including participation and integration.  To make this shift Misanchuk & Anderson suggest interaction at three levels: communication, cooperation, and collaboration. (p. 5)

These reading are very similar in many ways.  In fact, Misanchuk & Anderson cite and earlier work of Palloff & Pratt from 1999 for their basic strategies in creating community.  However the slight difference between the two is in the text collaboration is more widely defined to include communication and cooperation whereas Misanchuk & Anderson have distinct characteristics for each of the three. In Misanchuk & Anderson collaboration is the highest level of “community” preceded by the steps or sublevels, communication and cooperation.  Even with this difference, the ultimate goal and strategies provided by both sources of collaboration within the community are virtually the same.  Just a few of the similar strategies include posting open ended discussion questions, breaking class into groups for assignments, and requiring students to provide constructive responses to classmates assignments and posts.

Resources

Misanchuk, M., & Anderson, T. (2001). Building Community in an Online Learning Environment: Communication, Cooperation and Collaboration. Retrieved from http://frank.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed01/19.html

Palloff, Rena M. and Pratt, Keith. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom (pp. 67-155). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

RSA#4 The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning and Chicago virtual school: We ignite your child’s mind.

RSA#4 The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning  and Chicago virtual school: We ignite your child’s mind.

By Chris Bohula

Online Source 1: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewArticle/607/1182

Online Source 2: http://www.k12.com/cvcs/

This week’s reading in Palloff & Pratt (2007, p67-155) the discussion moves from student considerations of online learning to steps to consider in making the transition from face to face to online learning.  One of the first and largest concerns one should consider is time.  Time and time constraints affect both the teacher and student.  In fact, according to Pallof & Pratt (2007, p 74), a teacher can expect to dedicate 3 times the amount time compared to a regular face to face class. Another major point I believe Pallof & Pratt make is you can’t take a course taught face to face and simply put it online.(2007, p129)  But rather, start from scratch and develop objectives and then use the pedagogy of the online class model to create strategies/activities to reach those objectives.

In K-12 Online Learning: A survey of U.S. School District Administrators Anthony Picciano and Jeff Seaman (Picciano, & Seaman, 2007) explore current examples of online learning.  They present data comparing the statistical occurrences of different types of online learning and the results of a survey administered to school personal regarding online learning.  Although this survey provides information on the types, reasons for use, and beliefs about online learning, it does not provide any empirical data showing its effectiveness.

This week I looked at two online resources.  One, Research and Practice in K-12 Online Learning: A Review of Open Access Literature (C. Cavanaugh, M. , & T. Clark, 2009) was a review of studies from the past two decades on the topic of distance and online learning. It described a shift in literature for comparing distance learning to traditional learning in the 1990’s to more recently defining on-line learning and explaining the benefits.  It also states there is a very limited amount of empirical data and identifies areas for future studies (p. 7). In this respect, it very closely echoes what Picciano & Seaman (2007) presented two years earlier.  The second online resource was the Chicago Virtual Charter School website. This online resource is an actual blended format charter school available free to Chicago Public School children.  This website provides a great deal of information about their online charter school format, experience and expectations.

After reviewing the multiple FAQ pages on Chicago Virtual School website it was easy to see how some of the issues/characteristics of online learning are addressed.  First is the issue of time commitment.  According to the website  a student should expect to spend the same amount of time in the “virtual school” as a regular school and is expected to “attend” at least the state required 180 days per school year.  However, it also states on its general FAQ page, (http://www.k12.com/cvcs/faqs_general/), that a student in the early grades will spend no more than 30% of the time on the computer.  According to C. Cavanaugh, M. Barbour & T. Clark (2009) this would be defined more as distance learning rather than online learning.  In the earlier grades, most of the material seems to be delivered using textbooks and the online component seems to be for practice and assessment.  However, this doesn’t seem to entirely the case because the website references interactions between students online when addressing socialization concerns for this school.  Again, according to the General FAQ webpage, Chicago Virtual School also provides socialization through required weekly meetings in a brick and mortar school building, field trips, and parent relationships that develop among students within close physical locations.  Chicago Virtual School looks to be a good example of how technology can be integrated to create a blended format online education.  Not only does it appear to be blended format by Palloff & Pratt (2007) terms of face to face and online but also a blended format in Cavanaugh, Barbour & Clark (2009) terms of both online and distance learning.

Resources

Cavanaugh, C. S., Barbour, M. K., & Clark, T. (2009). Research and practice in k-12 online learning: a review of open access literature. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(1), Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewArticle/607/1182 doi: 1492-3821

Chicago Virtual Charter School. (2010). Chicago virtual school: We ignite your child’s mind. Retrieved from: http://www.k12.com/cvcs/

Palloff, Rena M. and Pratt, Keith. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom (pp. 67-155). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Picciano, A. G., & Seaman, J. (2007). K-12 online learning: A survey of u.s. school district administrators. United States of America: Sloan-C. Retrieved from http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/pdf/K-12_Online_Learning.pdf 

RSA#3 Engaging and Motivating Students

By Chris Bohula

Online Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvJuzE-g7OM

In the assigned reading text by R. Palloff & K. Pratt (2007) it is very thoroughly discussed the importance in creating a social environment in an online course.  This is done because “The key to the learning process is the interactions among the students themselves…” (R. Palloff & K. Pratt, 2007, p.4).  One of the key elements in creating this social environment is for each individual to create a social presence.  In addition to making the point that social presence should be established, the text also adds strategies and considerations for establishing social presences within the online PLC.

The online resource (COFAonlineUNSW, 2011) I have chosen was provided by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council.  This video and supporting material is designed to explore ways to actively engage and motivate students in an online learning environment.  The video is broken into several different topics focusing on importance of teacher presence, creating a learning community, strategies for motivating students and sustaining participation and engagement.

Both resources (R. Palloff & K. Pratt, 2007 and  COFAonlineUNSW, 2011) share similar views of needing the students and instructor to create a social presence within the online community.  In fact they both agree on the first two weeks to be critical for the instructor to establish their own social presence for the within the group.  They also share the idea the role of the teacher to be a “guide on the side” (COFAonlineUNSW, 2011) rather than the dominating force driving the discussions/community.  The responsiblity of the instructor is also to draw in participants that aren’t contributing as much as expected by both reinforcing positive behavior publicly within the forum and private messages encouraging individuals to participate more through offers of some sort of assistance.  The two differ in that Palloff and Pratt (2007) discuss in further detail concerns of such a group such as psychological and spiritual issues.

References

COFAonlineUNSW. (2011, January 19). Engaging and motivating students [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvJuzE-g7OM

Palloff, Rena M. and Pratt, Keith. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom (pp. 3-65). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.