Again there were a couple of sessions that were well worth listening to, although I’m not sure that I got quite as much from today as yesterday, partly because the speakers all whipped through slides so fast that I wasn’t always able to follow what was going on, but have certainly found things to think about and additional resources to access.
1. Sharan Merriam: Adult learning theory
Sharan picked up on the fact that there are some global shifts occuring at present that are impacting on adult learning: globalisation, instant communication, knowledge age (information doubles every 73 days), and rapid change (half life of knowledge is decreasing, especially in some discipline areas).
She gave an overview of how adult learning theory has changed, from androgogy in the 1980s to self directed learning in the 1990s and now more focus on transformative learning theory, however presented this as a means of building rather than radical changes. Thus:
Androgogy: increased self direction as we age; accumulation of growing reservoir of experience; readiness to learn related to life role and social role; more problem solving orientated and immediate application; more internally motivated (Knowles 1980).
Self directed learning: upwards of 90% of adults engaged in independent learning project; in these adults plan, carry out, evaluate own learning; learner interested in and ability to engage in SDL varies and may depend on the situation; SDL in taking control of own learning.
Transformative learning: is about change – dramatic and fundamental change in way we see ourselves and the world; often begins when important event (disorienting dilemma); results in a change in perspective as result of examining assumptions.
Context of learning. Sharan noted the context of learning was sometimes forgotten as most theories of learning were based on the individual and not the context, but we need to consider where learning takes place (situated cognition) and recognise the importance of community and workplaces as sites of learning (non formal learning – 80% of learning in workplace is informal learning).
Situated cognition was context based, tool dependent (ie used the equipment in the environment) and socially interactive.
Communities of practice (Wenger 1998) were described as groups who share ideas, collective meaning-making, members with different levels of knowledge, learning is key to community of practice, context must allow for informal learning to occur, access to information, and community teaches and learns from its members.
Critical learning theory picked up on shifting focus from individuals to structures of society and shape learning, recognises inequality and asks critical questions re who decides, whose interest, who benefits, how are interests negotiated.
More recent approaches to adult learning include embodied/somatic learning (recognising the wisdom of the body and emotions and not just cognition - when our bodies tell us something – ‘we are feeling creatures thta think, not thinking creatures who feel’); spirituality and learning (connected to learning through meaning making, gives lives coherence, but in order for this aspect to be incorporated, there needs to be a safe and supportive space to allow spiritual connection to occur, use of dialogue and visualisation); and non-Western ways (life long journey not bound by institutions, what counts as knowledge being questioned, involved whole person).
The implications of these more recent theories are the need to make practical and authentic learning, develop critical thinking skills, examine our own assumptions and fostor holistic learning.
2. Curtis J Bonk: The world is open now
This person is the author of the R2D2 model of learning I have written up on my whiteboard (I have now found out this forms the basis of a book, Empowering online learning: 100+ activities for reading, reflecting, displaying and doing, which looks quite interesting). However, the guts of this presentation were based on his new book. He comes from the premise that with the electronic age and increasing availability of mobile devices etc, nearly everyone in the world can access and learn from the internet and other ways that were not conceivable some years back. Some interesting websites that he flicked up were quite good, including:
Terry Anderson’s e-book, Theory and practice on online learning that is available free (http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/)
Academic Earth ( a repository of lectures) (http://www.academicearth.com)
Merlot (an educational network and repository) (http://teachereducation.merlot.org)
3. Patricia Cranton and Edward Taylor: Transformative learning theory
I have to admit to being rather disappointed with this presentation (and I don’t think it was just that I was anticipating this presentation more than anyone else who presented), but rather I suspect they are both better at writing than they are with this type of forum. Ed in particular, mentioned that he did not teach online, although Patricia has been teaching online for around 9 years. Essentially they gave an overview of TL:
Definition – how adults make meaning of experience, an encounter that is discrepant with current beliefs, engages in dialogue with self and others, includes reflection that leads to a revised perspective so the person acts in new and different ways.
We don’t transform students, but we can create circumstances to encourage deep reflection on assumptions, in an environment that is supportive and challenging.
Common program elements (aside from the ones listed above) – purposeful and heuristic process, confronting power and engaging difference, imaginative process – create opportunities to go beyond rational thinking, leading learners to the edge (of comfort zone), fostering critical reflection, modeling (one’s own transformative experiences and questioning own assumptions).
They put forward benefits of TL in an online environment, but I couldn’t see that these were any different to teaching online advantages as normally outlined (more likely to open up, discussions remain accessible, plenty of time to reflect, no one looking at you, immediate links to alternative resources), but that may be because I have found teaching online somewhat transformative anyway.
They noted that when teaching in the online environment it was helpful to use more expressive language (because of the absense of non-verbals); maintain strong teacher presence; encourage interaction between participants; create an informal conversational discussion based environment (to encourage social construction of knowledge).
Strategies for fostering TL online include: engage learners in making decisions about content and process in the course (not sure how I would manage this at an undergraduate level); use provocative materials containing discrepant points of view; ask challenging and thought provoking questions; encourage students to challenge each other in respectful ways; model critical reflection and self-reflection; use arts-based projects and activities.
Patricia uses the cafe/virtual lounge quite a bit throughout the term, and to encourage a more casual atmosphere, says something like, ‘I am sitting here with my cup of tea and biscuit…’ – using the idea that introducing food helps to make connections with people.
4. Randy Garrison & Norm Vaughan: Blended learning in higher education
Again, another presentation based on a book that has been published by the conference organisers, but it does have some interesting models and ways of looking at this issue. They define blended learning as:
- organic and thoughtful integration
- fundamental redesign of course
- strong and weak approaches (this was interesting as the weak approach was where online activities were simply added on vs strong approaches that involved a complete redesign of the course whereby all activities had a specific purpose).
- Blended learning contained synchronous and asynchronous elements, online and on-campus elements.
The authors have put together a Community of Inquiry Framework and indicated there is a growing evidence that community is a key factor in successful online/blended learning. Social presence is more important at the beginning of the term, but towards the end, teaching and cognitive presence tend to take over as this is where meaning on the content occurs.
They emphasise ‘teaching’ presence as opposed to ‘teacher’ presence to incorporate any teaching that students do and to share leadership. However, teachers did need to show timely presence and this was related to student satisfaction and increased perceived learning as well as increased sense of community.
They have formulated 7 principles of blended learning:
- open communication and trust
- critical reflection and discourse
- create sense of community
- support purpose of inquiry
- ensure student sustain collaboration
- ensure enquiry to resolution (not sure what this means, I may have missed this one)
- assessement is congruent.
I’ve just realised I have missed the session on building community online (Rena Palloff & Keith Pratt) – so will need to update this later.
