I’m pretty sure this Anderson reading was the first one I was ever assigned in my MET studies, so it’s nice to go back and read it nine courses later. The reading resonates more strongly this time as well because Bransford, Brown and Cocking’s How People Learn is a central text in ETEC 533, the other course I am currently taking. My pdf of Anderson tells me that on May 18th, 2013, I’d highlighted “Researchers have attempted to quantify students’ proficiency and comfort with online environments through use of survey instruments that measure learners’ Internet efficacy (Kirby & Boak, 1987)” (Anderson, 2008, p.48), wondering how this Kirby and Boak would have studied the Internet 8 years before it existed.
I had taken a Statistics course that was more distance learning (coincidentally, from Anderson’s Athabasca University the same year he wrote this, 2008), and had done my French teaching qualification through the ETFO, the public teacher’s union in Ontario, before I started MET. MET, however, has made such a thorough and indelible impression of online learning that I now remember little of those experiences.
Under the heading “Learner-Centred”, Anderson distinguishes between “catering to the whims and peculiarities of each particular learner” and “awareness of the unique cognitive structures and understandings that learners bring” (p. 47). Being familiar now with Bransford et al., I have a deeper understanding of their idea of bringing a student’s misconception (especially in science and math) and acknowledging it in the process of correcting it to provide a basis for further learning. One MET example was in this course, where I was unfamiliar with blogging though it was assumed we had all blogged before, and my unfamiliarity sent me into a tailspin of confusion in week 2 when we posted incomprehensible code and I thought I was supposed to engage in discussions about it.
Under “Knowledge-Centred”, Anderson asserts that “Each discipline or field of study contains a world view that provides unique ways of understanding and talking about knowledge” (p. 49). To “discipline or field”, I would add medium, because learning on the Internet also provides different ways of understanding and talking about knowledge when compared to a face-to-face classroom situation, as Anderson mentions. For example, though I heard Constructivism mentioned earlier in Teacher’s College, I’ve become very familiar with its tenets here in MET, and I don’t think I can separate these ideas from the Prezis and Powtoons in which I’ve experienced them.
Assessment-centred learning is very big in the Toronto District School Board, where on any given unit in any given subject, we are supposed to post “Learning Goals” and student co-constructed “Success Criteria” on the board. The learning goals come directly from the curriculum. I think it’s more difficult in online learning than in a physical classroom space for a teacher to just point that out to a student and say “remember what we’re learning; whether you are showing that you know this or not is what determines your grade”.
Community-based learning here online is, of course, much different than in a classroom. Who is challenging the teacher and who is ingratiating (not the terminology we would use among our peers in a classroom!) themselves to the teacher is much more obvious in a classroom, and has a larger role in group dynamics. I wrote in one of my early MET posts that the idea of online community is a bit of an illusion to me; I can’t remember the names of my colleagues — even ones with whom I worked and video- conferenced with last term — in an online course, whereas I still remember most of my classmates in Teacher’s College 7 years ago. I went for beer after class with those people, and learned a bit about their personal lives; I heard the tone in their voices and saw the expressions on their faces as they reacted to those things, and without such interaction, I feel interpersonal relations are pretty shallow, though I’ve certainly interacted with some colleagues in MET who I’m sure I could be friends with in real life if the situation ever presented itself. The upside of this lack of real, personal interaction online is that we focus more on our work!
References:
Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf
Bransford, J., Brown, A. L., Cocking, R. R., & National Research Council (U.S.). (1999). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C: National Academy Press.
Hi Randy,
I do agree that community-centered learning has its own nuances when it occurs online. Seeing group members during a video chat for a group project in interesting and more engaging then email communication but the depth of the relationships is lacking. It seems very transactional in that once the project is done there is minimal communication after. Perhaps in the MET courses they could trial dividing the class into smaller groups and having a video chat to get to know each other in that smaller group. After the video chat everyone could reflection on how they felt more or less connected to their classmates.
Creating a greater sense of community reminds me of a hospital that I previously worked at. Just before I left there were talks about trying to include a photo that appears with your emails, The intention was so that if you were ever to encounter that person in the hallways you would more likely be able to identify them. Similarly, if you were emailing someone whom you did not know at the hospital the email exchange may be a step more personal with a face associated with it rather than just text and having to search for their profile on LinkedIn.
Edwin
Hi Edwin, I just got back from an all-day Google camp for TDSB teachers, and the Keynote speaker was Dean Shareski (@shareski on Twitter), once ISTE teacher of the year, so a lot of what he said related to this course, and one comment in particular, related to this post. He distinguished between “Community” and “Network”, and I think MET relationships fit the latter term more. One of his slides said “The strength of weak ties — replace coffee with content”, so that kind of echoed the last sentence of my post. I like your idea of smaller groups working together more consistently, though, at least as an experiment to compare with the present model.
Hi Randy,
This is a great post about the nuances of community building in our program versus in the classroom. I have had some varied experiences with groups over the course of the MET program, from the “one and done” attitude like Edwin described to building community with a group throughout an entire course through group management apps like Slack. But the face to face connections are indeed the strongest – I had a group project in my very first course where all of our group members ended up being from the Vancouver area. We decided to meet up and I am still friends with one of those group members today. As well, it is notable that the discussion between online communities and face to face communities is very parallel to the conversations that contrast asynchronous and synchronous communications.
Victoria
Hi Victoria, Randy and Edwin,
I was following your interesting discussion around online community vs. network. There is definitely the advantage of in-person meetings and work that build strong connections. However, I think we must also give credit to what happens in virtual spaces.
I used to work as a research assistant during my Master Degree with another student from Calgary. We met for the first time during our graduation. It was such a incredible experience. The conclusion: 1) the connection we had was equally strong, if not stronger than some other people I worked with. However, we collaborated for a year or so, talked over the phone or in web conferences (but never used video).
2) No, we didn’t continue our relationship when the project was over, but I know that if I had a chance to work with her again, I would be very comfortable.
A comment on connections in real time: if the colleagues change with every course we take (just as on-line), how many of them do we meet over and over again and with how many we actually build a relationship? I would say, only a few.
According to Merriam-Webster dictionary: a community is “a group of people who have the same interests, religion, race, etc.”, and in this case, I would say you are an academic community. A network, on the other hand, for me is a more of an informal group of people where we may not necessarily interact directly. If you think about the people that we follow on Twitter (professionally). We may call it a network, but we more learn from each other, than work with each other. I guess we can see both a community and a network in different ways.
Finally, I just want to point out that we often think about a community (as a neighbourhood community we came from) as something more permanent, but communities could be temporal and with very short lifespan, as over 13 week of a course.
Natasha
Thanks for all the comments. Maybe I will meet some MET people for the first time this May at graduation!