The role of the instructor is to create an environment for learning to flourish. Everything else can take care of itself.
The classroom gives instructors a false sense of security that your presence controls all of the variables. I firmly believe that the instructor’s role is not to present material to be consumed but to create a space that supports curiosity, experimentation, and discovery. For my course, I see the activities as an invitation for the student to engage—or not—in discovering their own creative abilities through learning.
Reflection is significantly more insightful to me than surveys or traditional forms of assessment.
This was the first semester in which students were required to write weekly. Students collectively wrote 803 blog posts and more than 180,000 words over the semester and it provide what felt like seemingly endless opportunities to get to know my students in a manner in which I don’t feel I would have been able to in discussion board, surveys, essays, or even the classroom. I consider myself to be a learner-focused instructor and reflection writing, particularly on one’s own domain, put the learner in charge of, as well as at the center of, the learning experience. It forces them to not see learning as content, but learning as a process in which they are included. And, almost like an unexpected gift, students receive a comprehensive narrative of the learning through their blogs at the end of the semester, which they can be proud and take with them. As an instructor, it’s also given me a new vantage point in which to better understand how well an assignment is going as students are not afraid to give you honest feedback when they feel confused or stressed.
Data cannot replace assessment or feedback.
With 803 blog posts and 180,000 words of blog posts comes an opportunity to play with a large data set. While using LIWC gave me a new way to approach the blog posts, it did not and cannot provide a way in which I could comfortably assess what the student was doing. I purposely made an effort to not look at data from individuals but rather always as a collective course. In this regard, I was able to gather a broad view of how the course was going without letting it impact my grading. I have a deep concern about education technology being perceived as a method for grading work at scale rather than a methodology to get better insight into your students. While I’m interested to see what the future holds in grading large forms of texts, I’m doubtful that it can be as rewarding to the student as good human-to-human feedback.
With this in mind, I believe there are limitations to my analysis of data as an aggregate rather than on an individual level. For the sake of research, I believe there is much to be learned from following individual learners. As an instructor, this was not an approach I was willing to pursue with my own class, but I do believe that the methodologies used with both the course structure and reflection writing are replicable and should be further researcher at the learner level. Further, in its current state, I would recommendation this method as a way to triangulate your conclusions but not as a central method for approaching the research. Content analysis was wonderful for giving me ways in which to support my hypotheses.
Production-Centered is at the heart of my Connected Learning.
Computers have made it accessible for anyone to express themselves through writing, design, music, and countless art forms. I believe it is when students are producing something that’s meaningful to them, whether that is a project or a paper, and it’s supported by caring people, learning takes place. Time and time again, I was proud of the work that student’s produced, particularly when they were incredibly passionate about the activity. Because this does not require the formal classroom, I believe creation, tinkering, and production has not been widely adopted enough in education. As efforts such as the Maker Movement continues to grow and these technologies become more wildly adopted, I believe you will see a stronger shift towards progressive educational tactics that will focus heavily production and project-based learning and a shift away from assessment driven behavioral forms of education. There is also bound to be an evolution in online learning away from replicating classroom practices and towards collaborative production. As tools such as Google Hangouts, Google Drive, and others become more widely adopted at the institution level, educators will take more advantage of the ability to collaborate seamlessly across disparate locations.
I’m not convinced I built a connected learning course.
While I used the Connected Learning framework as a model to build and analyze my course, I feel strong in acknowledging that I’ve fallen short in created a Connected Learning course in many respects. The Connected Learning framework does not focus on the formal education system and sees itself more as a complement. I believe this has a lot to do with formal educations commitment towards grouping students by age and ability, whereas Connected Learning focuses on intergenerational opportunities for learning; something this course desperately lacks. Further, Connected Learning sees itself as a mechanism for “building more diverse entry points and pathways to opportunity as an avenue to (a) broader reform and equity agenda by leveraging the affordances of new media” (Ito, et al., 2013). As much as I want to believe that putting my course even in an open, networkable fashion means anybody can learn on it, the course was still heavily designed with a biasness towards a very specific, affluent educated person. While I believe there are ways in which the course can become closer to a Connected Learning course, I believe most courses that have been designed for higher learning fail to meet the question of equity and are not effectively designed for any learner. My course is only marginally applicable to anybody outside of the public relations discipline and could be rewritten to include broader goals. However, Connected Learning has been a fantastic framework in which to approach designing an online course. It’s given me justifications to explore territories, such as a web-based design tool, which I never would have assigned otherwise. It also forced me to consider social—the whole—first rather than one learner. Most importantly, it has given me a common language in which to articulate my ideal approach to online learning.
Rather, I am convinced that it is closer to networked learning.
I do believe I’ve built a strong and robust networked learning course which allows students to utilize their own digital spaces and identities and connects them through technology to the larger learning network. In some ways, the course mimics what some of the early connectivism courses such as CCK08 and DS106 pioneered with idea that online learning, particularly within the context of higher education, doesn’t have to take place inside one closed system. Rather, you can use the tools of the web, blogs, social media, and RSS, to empower the learner into choosing their learning environment.
Action research has given me the opportunity to systemically approach my own professional development.
As someone who is early on in their academic career, the chance to teach the first online course for the Gaylord College was an opportunity of a lifetime. Action research gave me an approach to properly prepare, implement, revise, and evaluate an important moment for my community. As an educator, I’ve grown ten fold in my ability to intelligently articulate how I believe learning best occurs online. Though I’m admittedly still a novice researcher, I’ve also came to find a passion in making meaning of data in efforts to explore large questions. I’m excited to begin the next iterations of this course and how its evolves over time as I begin to explore new ways for students to learn such as giving students more autonomy in choice of assignments and in the order of completion. As a professional, I’m excited to be a resource for other faculty members in my community who wish to explore a similar networked model to online learning. Further, I welcome any and all questions, comments, and critiques on the study that has been presented before you and invite you to see the latest iteration of PR Pubs and experience in real time the student’s learning as it unfolds at http://prpubs.us.