First+Draft


 * Hi all - first draft below. I can't seem to get the comments in properly so will put this up in the discussion section of the Napier Site as a word doc. It was completely impossible to get everyone's bits in here, so I've just had to pick one issue and focus in on that to stand a chance of meeting the criticality/analysis criteria. Hope you think it's OK. Anne - it does mean you have another spare essay on 'diversity/interactivity' that you could submit another time ;-) **


 * Getting to Grips with Global Environmental Change Online: A case study of online learning **

Group assignment submission 1 for EDU11100 IBOE’ Edinburgh Napier University 2011/12 Trimester 1’

Draft 1 - 03.11.11

Authors:

Maggie Anderson Keri Facer Anne Williams Helen Manchester

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 2. Overview of the Course 3. Course Structure: Absence of Constructive Alignment? 4. Tutor Experience: Coverage over Understanding = Workload Issues 5. Recommendations

(References to follow later, once all checked)

=1. Introduction=

This report provides an overview and critical analysis of the Global Environmental Challenges online course delivered by Christina Mainka in 2003-4. It focuses in particular on the issue of constructive aligment and tutor experience, and argues that shortcomings in course structure are a direct result of the tutor continuing to conceive themselves as ‘content-provider’ rather than facilitator of learning (Lehmann and Chamberlin (2009).

(63 words) =2. Overview of the Course=

This was a 14 week online course for an international student cohort of 25. The course offered 3 credits in natural science, social science or humanities [KF1]. The course was led by Christina Mainka in 2003/4 as part of the University of Maryland University College programme. Previously delivered face-to-face, university policy had determined that it should now be provided wholly online. This was the last of a series of 10-15 courses that Christina had provided for the university from her base in Europe.

The Global Environmental Change course aimed to offer students a critical insight into key political, scientific, ethical, economic and social issues relating to environmental sustainability. Six topic areas were identified [KF2] and 18 learning outcomes (we shall return to these later).

The course was organised in weekly components, with the activities for each week outlined in the course schedule, and presented in the regular online written announcements. The mode of interaction was primarily text based with no video, audio or non-language based information available. [KF3] Each week, specific readings were assigned, taken from 4 key textbooks. Weekly Thought Conferences were organised for weeks 1-6 and 8-13. The 12 Weekly Thought Conference, moderated by the tutor, consisted of 5-10 online discussions, with specific students assigned roles as ‘posters’ to the discussions or as ‘responders’, and with an open invitation for all ‘to wade in’ towards the end of each week. Reports on each of the 12 Thought Conferences were produced by assigned ‘conference agents’. Students were assessed on their contribution to these discussions according to set criteria, worth 30% of the final mark. Four home assignments due at the end of weeks 2, 5, 9 and 11 were worth 20% of the final mark, with answer keys made available once the assignment was submitted. A classroom based 3 hour mid-term exam at week 7 and a final online exam at week 12 also accounted for 20% and 15% respectively of the final mark; a course paper, submitted on week 12, was worth 15%. All assessment was individual. [KF4]

Students received online advice within the course VLE on what was expected of them in discussions and assignments, along with grading criteria. Social discussion boards were also set up for more informal discussions amongst students (//Chatterbox// and //[Not] just for fun//), and a problems forum was available, in which Christina addressed academic queries. Students had access on the VLE to all relevant course information, details about the tutor, library information, and a webliography where they could share resources they themselves had found useful. The course also included non-assessed activities to encourage further critical analysis, for example, of websites. (434 words) =3. Course Structure: Absence of Constructive Alignment?=

There are a range of issues we might focus productively on in an analysis of this course; in particular, the missed opportunity to use rich digital media to promote diverse modes of action to meet the needs of diverse student groups and the absence of group assessment. Given limited space, however, we have chosen to examine, in particular, the way in which the course structure and activities aligned (or not) with the specified learning objectives. In so doing, we draw in particular on John Bigg’s concept of constructive aligment (Biggs, 2003).

Constructive alignment as a concept draws attention to how the learning environment is set up to support the activities that enable learners to achieve desired learning outcomes (Biggs 2003). It focuses on the relationships between learning outcomes, and the design and timing of learning materials and assignments, and the pedagogies that drive and underpin the approaches taken by the teacher. ‘Constructive alignment’ has two elements: First, the ‘constructive’ refers to the construction of meaning by learners in and through well designed learning activities; second, the ‘alignment’ element refers to the work of the teacher in creating a learning environment to support the designed activities and outcomes (Biggs, 2003).

There are three issues that we wish to discuss in relation to the issue of constructive alignment in this course: first, the number and complexity of learning outcomes; second, the relationship between learning environment, activities and desired outcomes; third, the lack of reflection of sophisticated learning activities in the actual learning outcomes.

In relation to the number of learning outcomes specified, Biggs and Tang(2007) suggest that five or six learning outcomes are the optimum number, to enable successful alignment to teaching and learning objectives and to assessment tasks. In the ‘Global Environmental Change’ course, however, there are eighteen learning outcomes. This is an ambitious number for a relatively short course (14 weeks). These out omes, moreoever, are rarely referred to in the course materials or activities. Like many courses (Krathwohl, 2002), this course has an emphasis on learning objectives that fall into the lower reaches of Bloom’s taxonomy (Bloom, 1956). Of the 18 learning objectives 10 are largely focused on attainment of knowledge, described by verbs such as ‘understand, attain, describe and recognise’. However, there are also some higher order objectives in which the course tutor uses verbs such as ‘discuss, apply, evaluate and propose (alternatives)’.

In relation to alignment between outcomes and prescribed activities, the course tutor does make an effort to ensure that activities and assessment were aligned. The tutor suggests [KF5] that the home assignments and reading activities were designed to make sure students had read and attained ‘basic’ scientific knowledge and therefore assessment measures had correct answers (provided in an answer key) thereby assessing the learners’ ‘declarative’ knowledge (Lehmann and Chamberlin, 2009). The thought questions were assessed on ‘level of understanding and engagement with fellow students and the issues.’ [KF6] The tutor looked for links made to resources, and well reasoned arguments, testing whether learners were able to apply their knowledge. From the evidence available [KF7] the thought questions were a mix of question types – some of which have particular answers (scientifically correct answers) and others that encouraged interpretation and application of ideas. The midterm examination tested factual and basic knowledge plus some thought questions that assessed critical thought and understanding. In the final examination learners were presented with five new thought questions and assessed according to the ‘depth of their understanding’. In sum the assignments and activities do appear to reflect the emphasis in the course objectives on knowledge acquisition alongside the application and critical interpretation of this knowledge.

Notwithstanding this limited alignment, however, we would suggest that the learning activities designed by the tutor had the potential to support much richer and more complex learning outcomes than those that she had in fact defined. We suggest that there was, in fact, a missed opportunity to recognise in the assessment and learning outcomes the ‘//constructive’// pedagogic element of the learning activities that the tutor had designed:

The thought questions students were presented with each week, for example, included some that use case study and real life examples and scenarios, encouraging learners to apply their learning and new knowledge [KF8]. In these discussions, different roles are assigned to students each week (see Course structure summary). Through requiring students to play these different roles, the discussions offer the learners an opportunity to show and apply their understanding, and analyse, synthesise and evaluate it, exemplifying the potential for online discussions to prompt deep level thinking as they allow time for editing and critical thinking and there is a capacity to go back to content and review it (Wickersham and Dooley, 2006; Hara, Bonk, Angeli, 2000).

Student participation in a range of additional spaces in the VLE also, we suggest, promotes more complex learning opportunities. Students, for example, also encouraged to add to the webliography section which is a shared space where students can upload web references that they’ve found useful and want to share. These sorts of strategies potentially encourage students to share and reflect upon their own learning therefore developing meta-cognitive knowledge. However, these meta-cognitive elements are not mentioned in the course objectives.

In conclusion, we would argue that the proliferation of learning outcomes seems, we would suggest, to have obscured the fact that the course was actually designed to promote much richer learning experiences than these predominantly knowledge-based outcomes would suggest. The emphasis on knowledge-based learning outcomes also meant that there was little opportunity to really build on these more complex meta-cognitive activities through, for example, activity types such as group assessed activity. This may, we argue, be related to our selected key issue, namely, the tutor’s conception of her role which we will discuss next.

(957 words) =4. Tutor Experience: Coverage over Understanding = Workload Issues=

Lehmann and Chamberlin (2009) offer a checklist to enable the successful design of an online course. The checklist includes clarification of learning outcomes, chunking work, definitions of interactivity, shift from didacticism to facilitation and differentiation. Garrison and Anderson (2003) point out that online teaching involves the tutor developing ‘teaching presence’ as well as social and cognitive presence. Teaching presence is defined as ‘the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes.’ (Anderson et al, 2001, p 5). (Anderson et al, 2001).

Successful realisation of such an approach to course design, and e-moderation, however, requires not simply the following of a ‘checklist’ but a change in identity on the part of course tutors from a face to face to online role. Research suggests, however, that tutors often find online teaching time consuming and over whelming (Connolly, Jones and Jones, 2007; Anderson et al, 2001).

This seems to have been the case in this 14 week course. During this period, the tutor posted 338 often lengthy messages. This detailed, content based contribution combined with her selection of 18, mainly knowledge based learning outcomes, suggests that her identity remained closely locked into the identity of ‘enthusiastic content expert’. Such an identity, in an online environment, however, we would suggest, has led to a proliferation of learning outcomes and to missed opportunities to develop peer-to-peer activity supportive of rich meta-cognitive critical thinking. It has also led to an unmanageable workload for the tutor.

In conclusion, this course, we would argue, has suffered from the failure to reimagine the tutor identity as facilitator rather than content provider. As Gardener (1993) suggests ‘the greatest enemy of understanding is coverage... if you are determined to cover a lot of things, you are guaranteeing that most kids will not understand, because they haven’t had time to go into things in depth, to figure out what the requisite learning is..”. This leads to what Biggs and Tang (2007) call a curriculum ‘a mile wide and an inch deep".

(342) =5. Recommendations=

On the basis of our analysis, we would argue that the limitations of the course structure in terms of constructive alignment, are fundamentally tied up with questions of tutor identity. Simply diversifying online activities or reducing learning outcomes will not resolve this issue alone; rather, a fundamental rethink of the role of the tutor is required. On the basis of our analysis of constructive alignment and tutor role, we would suggest that the course could therefore be significantly enhanced by:


 * The tutor reconceptualising her own role as facilitator of higher level learning rather than enthusiastic content communicator
 * Clarifying at the outset and to students, her role as facilitator of learning, not individual advisor
 * Focusing a limited number of learning outcomes in a coherent fashion around the development of higher-order skills
 * Developing learning activities that explicitly encourage reflection upon such higher order skills, through encouraging in particular group activities and multi-modal contributions that encourage reflection over time rather than instant responses

(164 words)

ENDS

TOTAL: 1960 (not including references)

Previous Recommendations from everyone’s contributions.
 * Reviewing the course structure – aligning the learning outcomes with the learning materials and assessment
 * Consider widening the methods of contribution to the course – these appear to be all individual and written – is there a possibility of verbal input via podcasts etc?
 * Changing the weekly activities to have some variety of activities, not the same format for 13 weeks
 * Get some additional help for the setting up / monitoring of the activities, or review tutor expectations of personal inputs/ responses
 * Build in some group work, allowing for more intimate interactions and collaboration, rather than within the group of 25
 * Need to align the course objectives more carefully with the learning activities and the assignments and clearly signpost this for learners
 * Need to reduce/ synthesise the number of course objectives
 * Need to take meta-cognitive activity and outcomes into account in the course objectives document
 * Need for tutors to consider their moderation role before the course begins eg how much moderation do you expect to do/ how often and what kind (eg support, content, task oreintated) - and need to make this clear to the participants somewhere within the inductio n materials (ie managing learner expectations)
 * A tutor should consider the relationship between pedagogical and philosophical perspectives and their role as an e-moderator, particularly in terms of the degree of input required from the tutor, the nature of the input (is it content, task orientated and/or IT support), their perception of the e-moderator role, and manage learner expectations in what they expect from a moderator
 * A course that includes a wide variety of media and activity types, may be accessible to a wider range of individuals; as such, using merely online discussions may be limited
 * Co-operative work including groupwork may provide a means to assessment, but there should be a rubic or clear criteria outlined to define what is being assessed and this must relate to the course learning outcomes


 * References – TO ADD**

[KF1] Anne – is this right? I thought it was 6 and I thought they all had science credits? [KF2] Anne – could you include these in brackets here? [KF3] Is this right? I can’t see much that isn’t text. [KF4] Is that right? [KF5] Where? Need ref? - Helen [KF6] Where? Need ref? - Helen [KF7] Where – need ref? [KF8] Insert a screen shot here?