=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-317/paper-6
|storemode=property
|title=Community, Conversation and Collaboration: Experiences gained through working on postgraduate online distance education programmes
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-317/paper06.pdf
|volume=Vol-317
|authors=Aisha Walker and Maggie McPherson
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ectel/WalkerM07
}}
==Community, Conversation and Collaboration: Experiences gained through working on postgraduate online distance education programmes==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-317/paper06.pdf
Proceedings of the workshop on What Went Wrong? What Went Right? - 2007
Community, Conversation and Collaboration:
Experiences gained through working on postgraduate
online distance education programmes
Aisha Walker
School of Education, University of Leeds
E.C.Stoner L7, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
Email: S.A.Walker@education.leeds.ac.uk
Maggie McPherson
School of Education, University of Leeds
E.C.Stoner L7, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
Email: m.mcpherson@leeds.ac.uk
Abstract. This paper takes the position that community, collaboration and
conversation are essential elements of the success of the MA ICT and
Education at Leeds. We feel that successful design and delivery of an
e-learning programme not only requires subject matter expertise and/or
technical skills, but that pedagogical, information and communication skills to
manage and facilitate online learning are also needed. The discussion is largely
focussed on the merits of synchronous for the MA ICT in Education
programme offered by the University of Leeds and this is compared to previous
experiences of providing asynchronous communication tools for postgraduate
distance education students.
Introduction
Despite its potential, educational technology is not always used to its full potential
within Higher Education (HE), and as a consequence, Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) as a educational tool remains greatly under-
utilised in this context [1]. Problems and barriers experienced by Distance Education
(DE) students include factors such as: costs and motivators, feedback and teacher
contact, student support and services, alienation and isolation, lack of experience, and
training 2]. Concurring with this view, it seems that support may be one of the most
critical factors for the success of DE [3]. Isolation, which results from the physical
separation, different time schedules and diverse learning paces, is inherent in DE
models, and consequently support for distance learners must not be overlooked when
designing and planning distance programs[3] , i.e. academic, pastoral, subject matter
and technical assistance.
61
Proceedings of the workshop on What Went Wrong? What Went Right? - 2007
2 Walker and McPherson
This paper reports primarily on an established programme, offered as both a full-
time programme to face-to-face (f2f) students based in the University of Leeds and as
a part-time programme for DE learners who may be located anywhere in the world.
Working on this programme will be contrasted with other past experiences of where
lessons were learned.
This paper takes the position that community, collaboration and conversation are
essential elements of the success of the MA ICT and Education at Leeds. This online
programme is built around integral student-student interaction and discussions. To
ensure that this is successful, the tutors invest considerable time and effort into
building relationships and community. Looking at the course statistics and
monitoring for the programme over a period of time, it can be seen that this particular
course has a very low attrition rate, losing very few of its distance students, and those
that do withdraw usually do so because of overwhelming personal circumstances
rather than lack of motivation to study. Furthermore, the average assignment grades
tend to be good with most students receiving marks in the ‘merit’ or ‘distinction’
bands. These two factors – low attrition and high grades – indicate that this is a
thriving programme.
Context of the MA ICT and Education
This is an online programme in which both f2f and distance learners are treated as a
single cohort and are therefore taught and assessed together. The programme consists
of four taught modules and a dissertation. Each module is taught over a twelve-week
period and is formally structured into weekly units. Each unit consists of a set of
notes – text and/or audio, synchronous online seminars and assigned readings and/or
activities. For each module, students write an assignment of 6,000 words. The cohort
includes both UK/EU and international students, thus there is a mixture of students
with English as a first and English as an additional language. In addition to students
registered on the MA ICT and Education, the teaching cohort includes students taking
ICT modules as electives within their own MA programme.
Principles
Pedagogical models for online learning are usually chosen on the premise that the
delivery mode is at least in part based on some sort of learning technology and that
the target audience are to some extent capable of independent learning [4]. We feel,
the successful design and delivery of an e-learning programme does not simply
depend on selecting a tutoring team with subject matter expertise and/or technical
skills, but that tutors require pedagogical, information and communication skills to
manage and facilitate online learning [5].
Our approach to teaching the MA ICT and Education is based on beliefs in
situated, socially constructed and mediated learning. We also believe in an active,
constructionist approach to learning in which students learn by making – whether this
be by means of working through modelling programs or writing reviews of papers
62
Proceedings of the workshop on What Went Wrong? What Went Right? - 2007
Community, Conversation and Collaboration: Experiences gained through working on
postgraduate online distance education programmes
that they have read. Other important principles that underpin the programme are the
need to build confidence in the students as academic learners and nurturing a belief in
the value of reflective learning. Thus, we believe that in addition to fostering a
certain level of learner independence, students learn most effectively when they are
able to work collaboratively and scaffold each other through discussion of ideas and
this is encouraged through the programme.
Some of these principles can be difficult to put into practice in online learning
contexts, especially with distance learners who have to do much of their study in
isolation. Consequently, an early aim of the programme delivery has to be the
creation of a supportive and sustainable community that enables social scaffolding
and reduces isolation.
The value of synchronous seminars
As this is a programme in ‘ICT and Education’ that covers topics such as principles
and practice of e-learning, an important secondary aim of the delivery is to enable
students to become familiar with techniques of managing and facilitating online
delivery. One of the main ways in which the programme builds community and
confidence is through the timetabled synchronous computer-mediated communication
(CMC) seminars. Attendance at these is a clear expectation and this gives the
programme momentum. Students need to have read the course material before the
seminar (or, at least, to have skimmed it) in order to participate in the discussion.
The regular synchronous seminars enable students to develop a sense of
community, of genuinely knowing each other. For example, a student who looked at
the CMC for her dissertation [6] found that students believed:
• They had developed friendships with other students through CMC
• CMC created a familiar environment for relationship development
• They knew about some of the daily concerns of their classmates
The seminars tend to begin and end with a period of social conversation and this,
despite being ‘off-task’ in terms of the learning aims, plays a strong role in the
development of community. Figure 1 provides an example of this social talk.
Figure 1: Social conversation
63
Proceedings of the workshop on What Went Wrong? What Went Right? - 2007
4 Walker and McPherson
This relationship-building means that students develop a sense of commitment to
the community of learners and feel that they will be missed or will be ‘letting people
down’ if they do not attend a scheduled seminar. As mentioned earlier, the MA ICT
in Education has a very low attrition rate for a distance programme and we feel this
may well be due to the strength of community built during the synchronous seminars.
Student managed small groups
In order to manage the synchronous discussions effectively, students are split into
small groups for each session. This is a process which has evolved over several years.
In the early years of the programme, all participants were in one chat room together
but some students found it hard to participate because of the size of the group. The
first attempts at small group discussions involved students being allocated to groups
in advance. This was not particularly successful as a way of forming groups because,
although students are committed to the seminars, it is never completely certain than
any specific individual will attend. Furthermore, because each module offers two
seminar times, students may attend different sessions each week. This can make it
difficult for a tutor to plan groups in advance. Now, students are allocated to groups
about ten minutes after the beginning of a session – much as would happen in a face-
to face class. Tutors try to vary the composition of the groups so that students can get
to know different people and also to make sure that there is a mix of males/females
and different language abilities in a group.
An analysis of the small groups, in comparison with sessions where the class had
not been split found, however, that the tutor was less likely to intervene in small
groups than in a large class [7]. In fact, when the class had not been split, the tutor
had a tendency to dominate the conversation. Furthermore, in smaller groups, ‘quiet’
students were far more likely to participate. It should be noted there that there are
many reasons why a student might be ‘quiet’ in a CMC discussion – natural
inclination, poor internet connection, lack of typing skills, low confidence in language
or knowledge and disability. The way that small groups appear to support ‘quiet’
students is therefore important in terms of inclusion. A student who evaluated the
MA for her dissertation [8] found that students made these comments about small
group discussions:
• “…more friendly and everyone was able to offer something to the conversation”
• “I felt more confident to offer suggestions in a smaller group”
• “It wasn’t as intimidating”
• “I have more chances to participate fully”
However, it cannot be assumed that students will automatically engage in
productive learning conversations. It seems that children’s classroom dialogue was
most effective when it involved ‘exploratory talk’ and we apply this principle to the
adult students on the MA programme [9]. For this kind of talk to occur, ideas need to
offered, challenged, justified, clarified and developed. Three main aspects of CMC
facilitation that would support high-quality discussion have been identified [10]:
• Management – this includes maintaining the focus of the discussion and keeping
participants on task. Where necessary it also includes discouraging potentially
64
Proceedings of the workshop on What Went Wrong? What Went Right? - 2007
Community, Conversation and Collaboration: Experiences gained through working on
postgraduate online distance education programmes
disruptive behaviour such as ‘shouting’ (excessive use of capitals) or overlong
turns.
• Community Building - this entails the creation and maintenance of a ‘safe space’
for discussion. This function includes welcoming participants as they join the
discussion, validating group members for useful contributions and drawing in
‘quieter’ members.
• Argumentation – this is the set of skills needed for encouraging ‘exploratory talk’
which have been described as ‘challenges’ (inviting people to justify their
viewpoints), ‘checks’ (asking for clarification) and ‘counters’ (encouraging or
developing counter-arguments) [11].
Most literature about CMC in education assumes that facilitation is the
responsibility of the tutor. However, on the MA ICT and Education we believe that
facilitation of the discussion is a collective responsibility although, of course, the tutor
maintains an overview of the discussions and intervenes if necessary. To develop
this process of collective facilitation, students are made aware of the qualities of
‘exploratory talk’ at an early stage in the programme and participate in a role play
exercise in which each student takes on one aspect of facilitation. Students are
challenged by the need to focus a specific facilitation role whilst contributing to the
discussion but it is effective in raising their awareness of facilitation. An early form
of this exercise with several roles has been previously tested [10] but in its current
form we focus on the three aspects listed above.
Once students have become aware of the skills necessary for effective discussion,
each of the breakout groups is led by one individual who takes the role of ‘manager’.
This person has primary responsibility for the facilitation of their particular group
during that session. Although there is a nominated leader, it is emphasised that
effective facilitation is a collaborative process. Other students will take responsibility
of ‘rapporteur’ to summarise the group discussion – either in a short plenary or
afterwards in an asynchronous conference for all class members to read. An example
of this rapporteur role can be seen in Figure 2 where one of the students has taken on
the task of summarising the group discussion about the role of an e-moderator in the
plenary room to be shared with the other breakout groups in that particular session.
!
! "
# $ % & IDFLOLWDWRU!'
&
!
Figure 2: Example of reporting summary of group discussions to plenary
65
Proceedings of the workshop on What Went Wrong? What Went Right? - 2007
6 Walker and McPherson
Tools and spaces
At the moment, the MA ICT in Education is delivered through FirstClass™. This
environment has a desktop client which means that it is extremely easy to create new
‘conferences’ (asynchronous discussion spaces) for both tutors and students. In
addition to conferences, chat rooms and folders, the FirstClass tools include shared
documents which students can use for asynchronous collaborative writing. These
documents are used for sharing resources, writing summaries and developing ideas.
In the synchronous chat rooms FirstClass allows participants to choose their own
fonts and text colours and to paste pictures into the discussion. There is also a facility
for audio contributions but this is rarely used as only one person can speak at a time.
Text CMC also allows participants to review the discussion after the event; this is far
more difficult with FirstClass audio chat. Text colours and fonts, however, have
become an important element in the group ‘norming’ [12] in which students establish
their own identities within the group. Students become quite attached to their own
fonts and colours as Figure 3 shows. This figure also shows a strong culture of
playfulness within the group – a sign that participants feel safe and comfortable
together.
Figure 3: Colours and playfulness
When students log onto FirstClass they see a desktop which offers a range of
communication spaces. Some of these are module specific but others are available to
all students on the programme including elective students. The cross-programme
conferences are either informational (such as ‘General Resources’, ‘Assignment
Bank’) or social (‘Coffee Room’, ‘Student Common Room’). Some are available to
tutors whilst others are only for students. An aim of the cross-programme
conferences is to contribute to a sense, for the students, of belonging to the
programme and hence to the university. We agree with the assertion made by
Galusha [2] that DE students can indeed feel disconnected from the institution and
from other students. This can result in missing out on the sharing of ideas and
66
Proceedings of the workshop on What Went Wrong? What Went Right? - 2007
Community, Conversation and Collaboration: Experiences gained through working on
postgraduate online distance education programmes
resources that is common amongst face-to-face students. The programme has
therefore included spaces which are essentially non-academic in nature to bring the
whole cohort together in a social context. For example, recent discussions in the
‘Coffee-room’ – a space shared by students and tutors, have included job vacancies,
conferences and recommendations for books or programs. Most of these have been
initiated and continued by students. This clearly contrasts with a previous experience
of providing an asynchronous Virtual Social Space [3] which was not accompanied
by the regular synchronous weekly meetings, and direct contact between students was
limited. Students expected this space to be popular, dynamic and changing, but due to
the nature of the cohort visits were sparse and finding anybody online was unlikely:
“The VSS as a social space is akin to sitting alone in a bar with no atmosphere
drinking diet Tango and, just before you leave, jot a cryptic message to say that you
have been there on a post it note and stick it on the fruit machine. - a bit sad really.”
The three spaces that are designated as student-only are the ‘Student Common
Room’ and the ‘Assignment Bank’ and ‘External Examiner’. The ‘Student Common
Room’ was originally created at the request of students and was called ‘Moaning
about Assignments’ (the students asked for a place in which they could moan about
the assignments). At the beginning of this year, the room was renamed ‘Student
Common Room’ because the course co-ordinator felt squeamish about having a space
called ‘Moaning about Assignments’ and was worried that it encouraged moaning.
Interestingly, however, the room was well-used under its previous title but since being
renamed has seen little activity. This is because with the previous title, the space had
a clear purpose whereas students do not see a difference between ‘Coffee Room’ and
‘Student Common Room’ and do not see the point of the latter.
The ‘Assignment Bank’ is a space where students can upload their own completed
and marked assignments for other students to read. This space was created in
response to several student comments about how useful it would be to see models of
successful assignments. Assignments are uploaded to the bank entirely by choice and
students are free to decide how much or little they reveal about grade and feedback.
Interestingly, this space also contains some questions and discussion about the
assignments that have been contributed. It should be noted that all the assignments
for this programme involve reflection on individual experience which, we hope,
makes it difficult for students’ to plagiarise each other’s work. Student grade
averages on this programme tend to be high and this may be due in part to the
personal and reflective nature of the assignments and also to the level of support that
students give to each other. Some students form study partnerships or groups to
encourage and help each other through assignments or dissertations.
Much literature about communities and learning draws on Lave and Wenger’s
concept of ‘Communities of Practice’ [13]. The way in which this idea is used to
refer to any groups of learners is critiqued [14] and suggests that it may be appropriate
to look at learning and community firstly in terms of the ‘social semiotic spaces’ in
which learners meet and create meaning. These spaces may, in time, develop into
‘affinity spaces’ in which learners develop relationships. The social and playful
interactions in the synchronous seminars and the way that students are using the
‘Coffee Room’ and ‘Assignment Bank’ (and, indeed, the early ‘Moaning about
67
Proceedings of the workshop on What Went Wrong? What Went Right? - 2007
8 Walker and McPherson
Assignments’ conference) show that affinity spaces have developed within the MA
ICT and Education.
Conclusions
The University of Leeds MA ICT and Education programme is a successful course
with a strong sense of community. This is developed through frequent, scheduled
synchronous seminars managed by students. This collaborative facilitation of the
seminars gives students a strong sense of ownership of their discussion spaces.
Relationship-building is also supported by a discussion tool which allows
individuality and playfulness. Students are allowed social spaces which are not used
by tutors in which they can and do talk about their work. However, community
interactions also occur within spaces shared with tutors. Social interactions cross
module boundaries showing that students experience the programme and its members
as a coherent whole.
It should be recognised, however that the building of relationships and affinity
requires effort on the part of tutors. The use of student managed small groups also
needs tutors who are willing to ‘sit on their hands’ and allow students to take
responsibility for facilitation. Although it may appear that the tutor is not doing much
in the seminars in fact, the tutor needs to keep a close eye on several simultaneous
groups in order to ensure that the collective facilitation is working effectively. If it is
not, then the tutor has to intervene sensitively to support high-quality discussion
without undermining the student facilitator.
References
[1] Economist Global Executive (2003) “Lessons from Afar”, Economist Education Outlook.
May 8th. Available online at: http://www.economist.com/globalExecutive/Education/
executive/printerFriendly.cfm?story_id=1762562 [last accessed on 04/01/2007].
[2] Galusha, J.M. (1997) Barriers to Learning in Distance Education, Interpersonal Computing
and Technology: An Electronic Journal for the 21st Century, 5(3), 6-14. Available online
at: http://168.144.129.112/Articles/Barriers%20to%20Learning%20in%20Distance%20
Education.rtf [Last accessed 12 July 2007].
[3] McPherson, M.A. and Nunes, J.M. (2004a) “The Failure of a Virtual Social Space (VSS)
Designed to Create a Learning Community: Lessons Learned”. The British Journal of
Educational Technology (BJET). 35(3)305-321.
[4] McPherson, M.A. and Nunes, J.M.; (2004b) “The Role of Tutors as an Integral Part of
Online Learning Support”. European Journal of Open and Distance Learning, Available
online at: http://www.eurodl.org/.
[5] McPherson, M.A. and Nunes, J.M. (2002) “Supporting Educational Management through
Action Research”. International Journal of Educational Management, 16(6) 300-308.
[6] Tsiaga, A. (2006) The Role of CMC in Enhancing Interpersonal Relationships and Studies
Abroad. Critical Study submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of MA ICT in
Education. Leeds, UK: University of Leeds.
68
Proceedings of the workshop on What Went Wrong? What Went Right? - 2007
Community, Conversation and Collaboration: Experiences gained through working on
postgraduate online distance education programmes
[7] Walker, S A (2006) “Researching Semiotic Social Spaces in Adult Online Learning”. In
Proceedings of the 36th Annual SCUTREA Conference, 4-6 July 2006, Trinity and All
Saints College, Leeds.
[8] Chen, L. (2004) Students’ Attitudes towards Web-based Distance Learning Course: The
Case of MA ICT in Education at Leeds. Critical Study submitted in fulfilment of the
requirements of MA ICT in Education. Leeds, UK: University of Leeds.
[9] Mercer, N., Wegerif, R. and Dawes, L. (1999) “Children’s Talk and the Development of
Reasoning in the Classroom”. British Educational Research Journal, 25(1) 95-111.
[10] Pilkington R M and Walker S A (2003) “Facilitating Debate in Networked Learning:
Reflecting on Online Synchronous Discussion in Higher Education”. Instructional
Science 31, 41-63.
[11] Veerman A.L., Andriessen J.E.B. and Kanselaar G (2000) “Learning through Synchronous
Electronic Discussion” Computers and Education 34, 269-290.
[12] Tuckman, B. W. (1965) Developmental Sequences in Small Groups. Psychological
Bulletin 63(6): 348–399.
[13] Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[14] Gee J. P. (2005) “Semiotic Social Spaces and Affinity Spaces: From The Age of Mythology
to Today’s Schools”. In D. Barton and K. Tusting (eds.) Beyond Communities of Practice:
Language Power and Social Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
69