Making Connections in Distance Education: Research-based Reflections on Hybrid Classrooms - Jan Elen #eden19
•Transferir como PPTX, PDF•
1 gostou•1,439 visualizações
Presentation shared by author at the 2019 EDEN Annual Conference "Connecting through Educational Technology" held on 16-19 June, 2019 in Bruges, Belgium. Find out more on #eden19 here: http://www.eden-online.org/2019_bruges/
Recomendados
Recomendados
Mais conteúdo relacionado
Mais procurados
Mais procurados (20)
Semelhante a Making Connections in Distance Education: Research-based Reflections on Hybrid Classrooms - Jan Elen #eden19
Semelhante a Making Connections in Distance Education: Research-based Reflections on Hybrid Classrooms - Jan Elen #eden19 (20)
Mais de EDEN Digital Learning Europe
Mais de EDEN Digital Learning Europe (20)
Último
Último (20)
Making Connections in Distance Education: Research-based Reflections on Hybrid Classrooms - Jan Elen #eden19
- 1. Making connections in distance education Research-based reflections on hybrid classrooms Jan Elen June 18, 2019
- 2. Up front • Former doctoral students • Mixed feelings : • No solutions to sell • Only reflections to share • Far from exhaustive • e.g. ‘open’ education
- 3. Overview The challenge A proposed solution Distance education research Reticent : (DE-)research Interested: (DE-)research Conclusions
- 4. The challenge Teacher education program (60 ECTS) becomes educational ‘master’ integral track : 120 ECTS short track (after domain-specific master) : 60 ECTS Brugge Kortrijk Gent Aalst Ant- werpen Brussel Leuven Geel Diepen- beek
- 5. A proposed solution: hybrid classrooms
- 6. Distance Education (DE) research
- 7. Reticent: DE-research Information Kintsch, W. & Van Dyck, T. A. (1978). Toward a model of text comprehension and production. Psychological Review, 85(5), 363-394.
- 8. Reticent: DE-research Information Text structures problem / solution comparison cause / effect Text structure strategies levels signal words Meyer, B. J. F., & Poon, L. W. (2001). Effects of structure strategy training and signaling on recall of text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 141-159.
- 9. Reticent: DE-research Information Mayer, R. E. (2001). Multimedia learning. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- 10. Reticent: DE-research Information Buchem, I., Tur, G., & Hölterhof, T. (2014). Learner Control in Personal Learning Environments: A CrossCultural Study Journal of Literacy and Technology, 15(2), 14-53. learner – shared – system Corbalan, G., Kester, L. & van Merriënboer, J . J. G. (2006). Towards a personalized task selection model with shared instructional control. Instructional Science, 34 (5), 399-422. Gerjets P., Kirschner P. (2009). Learning from Multimedia and Hypermedia. In: Balacheff N., Ludvigsen S., de Jong T., Lazonder A., Barnes S. (eds) Technology-Enhanced Learning (pp. 251-272). Springer, Dordrecht
- 11. Reticent: DE-research Adjunct aids Added / Embedded Pre- Post- Level Ausubel, D. (1978). In defense of advance organizers: A reply to the critics. Review of Educational Research, 48, 251-257. Dornisch M.M. (2012). Adjunct Questions: Effects on Learning. In: Seel N.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer, Boston, MA
- 12. Reticent: DE-research Interaction Anderson, J. R. & Gluck, K. (2001). What role do cognitive architectures play in intelligent tutoring systems? In D. Klahr & S. M. Carver (Eds.) Cognition & Instruction: Twenty-five years of progress, 227–262. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Intelligent tutoring system
- 13. Reticent: DE-research Student learning Learning functions • Preparation • Knowledge manipulation • Higher-order relationships • Learner regulation • Productive actions Shuell, T.J. (1988). The role of the student in learning from instruction. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 13, 276-295.
- 14. Reticent: DE-research Student learning Biggs, J. (1994). Student learning research and theory: Where do we currently stand‘? In G. Gibbs (Ed.), lmproving student learning: Using research to improve student learning (pp. 1-19). England: Oxford Centre for Staff Development.
- 15. Reticent: DE-research Student learning Vermunt, J.D., & Verloop, N. (1999). Congruence and friction between learning and teaching. Learning and Instruction, 9, 257-280.
- 16. Reticent: DE-research Distance education • Non-automatic • Non-evident • Non-ad hoc • Difficult Lessons learned • In view of adequately supporting students’ learning there is a need for understanding (what factors affect) learning. • Supporting learning is not self-evident • learning environment needs to be designed • Need for research on learning and supporting learning • Need for design professionalization
- 17. Reticent: DE-research Removing the barrier may result in Less design Less deliberate decisions More teacher-centredness
- 18. Interested: DE-research Attrition Work-life balance Cognitive load Learning as social endeavour Differences expectations Bawa, P. (2016). Retention in online courses: Exploring issues and solutions—A literature review. SAGE Open, 6(1), 1-11.
- 19. Interested: DE-research Attrition Garrison, D. R., & Vaughan, N. D. (2008). Blended Learning in HigherEducation-Framework, Principles and Guidelines. San Francisco, CA: USA. Jossey-Bass Pub., A Wiley Imprint.
- 20. Interested: DE-research Attrition Self-determination theory Ryan, R. M. & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. New York: Guilford Publishing.
- 21. Interested: DE-research Limitations Technology personalisation portability access Design team Support cultural awareness
- 22. Interested: DE-research Socio- constructivism Learning is constructive Learning is cumulative Learning is self-regulated Learning is contextualized For learning, what matters is what the learner does. For learning in an educational setting, what matters is what the learner does AND the alignment of learner activities to educational goals
- 23. Interested: DE-research Instructional disobedience Not using the learning opportunities Instructional conceptions
- 25. Interested: DE-research Learning in educational setting Non self-evident Inherently complex Inherently intimidating Effortful Lessons learned • In view of adequately supporting students’ learning there is a need for understanding (what factors affect) learners • Supporting learners is not self-evident • Need for a multisensorial, orchestrated presence • Need for research on learners and supporting learners • Need for orchestration professionalization
- 26. Conclusions: need for balance Acknowledging complexity: no simple answers Need to consider learning AND learners Safeguard thoughtfulness: design learning environments Embrace learners: orchestrate presence
- 27. Conclusions: a balanced process model Analyse • Learning goals • Learners • Context Design learning environment • Learning tasks • Support (information and scaffolds)
- 28. Compose blend • Learning goals: what type of interaction is needed • Learners: who (for what reasons) requires synchronous, on-line • Learners: who (for what reasons) requires synchronous, F2F • Context: what is possible Orchestrate • Learners • Technical affordances Implement • Designed learning environment • Orchestrated learning environment
- 29. Conclusions: a paradox Research on distance education calls for research on the need for opportunities for physical contact in education • For what learning of what learners is interaction needed and why? • For what learning of what learners is synchronous interaction needed and why? • For what learning of what learners is synchronous multisensorial interaction needed and why? • For what learning of what learners is what combination of synchronous multisensorial interaction needed and why? • Auditory • Visual • Tactile • Olfactory • Taste
- 30. Thank you for your attention and do not stop to dream to travel to the moon
- 31. Have you registered yet? 1. SURF to www.aq-at-eden.com 2. TEST your knowledge of the 28th EDEN Annual Conference 3. VIEW the scores at the Televic Education exhibit space
Notas do Editor
- Hybrid classrooms: mixture of face-to-face and distance students facilitated by technology, of course various implementations
- As you all know travelling in space, or at least trying to travel in space, to go to the moon has resulted in major new insights and new discoveries. Because it is difficult new ways had to be found: how to lift a rocket, how to get the people back how to arrive at the intended spot, how to survive, what clothes, what to eat and son on. My claim basically is that trying to travel in space relates to findings such as in physics as distance education and the research related to it relates to education. With distance education research I conveniently refer to research that either excludes or in any case does not include the synchronous presences of teachers and students, there is a serious barrier. The question of DE research again and again is how –despite that barrier- teaching can be done, it other words how despite that barrier learners can be adequately supported in their efforts to accomplish educational goals. Over the years this has generated very interesting research that calls for some hesitation towards the proposed sollution :hybrid classrooms Something to be proud of. It is interesting to see the heritage but also the future, what directions it may take.
- First attempts to make a coursetext for distance education, in order to do so we thought we had to know how people do actually read text, learn from texts A first important movement relates to a deeper understanding of how learners process information, especially textual information, It has been made clear that a number of processes are involved in getting from textual information up to understanding that information. A well known approach in this regard is the perspective of Kintsch and Van Dyck who argue that first –based on prior knowledge of the reader- the surface form is registered which is gradually processed into a text base that represents the information in order to be transformed into a situation model that represents the understanding of the student of the information provided. An important implication is that serious attention is to be paid to the textual information in order to increase the probability that learners will actually understand the information as intended.
- This path has been further elaborated, Meyer and colleagues have revealed that texts may have different purposes and that the structure of the text best mirrors that pupose. You have texts for instance that discuss a problem and its solution, texts that compare phenomena, or texts that try to explain cause effect relationships. Meyer and colleagues have demonstrated that through adequately designing your tekst at different levels and by using signal words you may help readers to better understand what you want to say. Similarly, learners who understands these structures and can detect signal words learn more, understand better. Again the implication is that by paying attention to the way in which you present information you can help readers to better understand without a teacher needed to explain everything.
- That the design of information affects understanding is also a major conclusion of the work of numerous research on multimedia. Mayer and colleagues for instance have identified a number of multimedia principles based on research in which students were confronted with multimedia information: that means pictures and words in the absence of a teacher. Very interesting results were generated such as the modality principle that highlights that if you have words and a figure, you can best use audio narration, rather that putting the words next to the figure. Again and again the same message: information can trigger particuler effects, help to understand but a major element is that we can make things easier or worse.
- Technology has changed dramatically and one of the major changes has been the introduction of hypertext and hypermedia. It is difficult to imagine but up to that moment , we are talking the late eighties, we were used to especially linear information, that –while exceptions were of course possbile- the learner was supposed to follow the stream of information as it was linearly presented. With the appearance of hypertext and by extension hypermedia, it became clear that learners got far more control. It soon became clear that that control may pertain to very different aspects of the learning environment: there is control of objects, of tools, of rules, of social base, of tasks. In distance education the question has become how learners can be supported to handle this control in the absence of a teacher. This has resulted in ample research on learner control which revealed the importance of self-regulation and prior knowledge with respect to learner control. It has also resulted in various proposals on what control to give to the learner on what dimensions at what time in the learning process. Does one provide ample learner control, do you go for system control by minimizing the degrees of freedom or provide learner control on non-important aspects of the environment, or do you implement shared control. Distance education research has revealed the importance of learner control and pointed to the need to reflect deeply about this in designing the environment.
- Attention has not been limited to the design of information and the provision of options to students. Deliberate efforts have been done to integrate educational support into the materials. Ausuble has proposed to integrate advanced organizers that elicit relevant prior knowledge and help the learners to understand subsequent information. An important supportive tactic of teachers relates to the use of adjunct questions. Research has focused on the postioning of the questions prior or after the studying and on the level of the questions : more factual questions or questions that address understanding. Again the research points out that deliberate efforts are needed, that design is essential and can be very effective. While adjunct aids research has primarily focused on printed information, the advent of more powerful computer systems has reoriented distance education and has brought interaction to the front.
- It has been a dream for many to elaborate intelligent tutoring systems and the research in this respect has helped us tremendoulsy. Not only has it helped to formalize the domain by raising questions on its most important components and the interrelationships among these components, it also has induced ample discussions on the most optimal student model: what student characteristics do really matter when it comes to learning. And although it remains a struggle it has induced us all to become more explicit and transparant about our thoughts (evidence-based or not) about how learning can be most optimally supported, to think about the pedagogical model. In the absence of teachers how can we model teaching and ensure that goal-oriented and student-specific support is delivered. That Anderson and his group has succeeded in elaborating a full physics course in an ITS based on ACT* theory
- The attention for students and their independent learning has resulted in ample insights. The work of Shuell is illustrative. He identified so called learning functions starting from the question what is needed to in learning from instruction. He then argued that some functions can be temporarily assumed by the teaching instance whereas others have to be assumed by the learners themselves. Thanks to the idea that students have to study on their own we have become more analytical about that process which resulted in a better understanding. Based on that understanding we can now better design the learning environments.
- Equally important has been the work of Biggs, who is not only responsible for the notion of alignment but also for the 3P model that clearly highlights how learning outcomes come about. It helps us to see the major components and make a distinction between what is more or less important.
- Numerous people have used the inventory learning styles of Jan Vermunt, a questionnaire to detect learning approaches of students. It has all started at the open university in the Netherlands and in a distance education setting. An important role is attached to regulation of learning which has helped us to better understand the level of external regulation. See the earlier point about learner control. Vermunt and Verloop demonstrated that an overload of external regulation as well as the absence of external regulation might be detrimental and result in destructive friction. They call for tuning external regulation to the individual needs in order to bring about constructive friction. Again research on distance education has alerted us to important considerations to be made in the design of learning environments.
- So distance eduation is interesting because it is non-automatic, it is not evident, you have to think how teaching with sychronous presence can be done, and it cannot be done at hoc, you have to think ahead. Yes, distance education is difficult but exactly because it is difficult we have learned numerous things as I hope I have illustrated. We also learned a few important although in retrospect perhaps obvious lessons. A first is that in view of adequately supporting students’ learning we need a thorough understaning of what learning entails as well as of the factors that affect it: factors at the side of the learner but also factors at the side of the environment. The second lesson is that teaching or supporting learning is far from self-evident; hence we have to think in advance and we have to design the learning environment, we also learned that there a need for more learning and supporting learning as well as a need for becoming more professional in the design of learning environments.
- Now why am it reticent about introducing hybrid classrooms, because as it happens so often with new technologies implement, it may result in poorer teaching. Removing the barrier may reduce the clear need for designing learning environments, for more ad hoc and less deliberate decisions for more focus on the sending body, for more teacher-centredness. It may suggest again that teaching is something done by teachers as such because they know how to do it, that is is about providing verbal information that it is about talking and listening. See what we have all seen with the first distance courses that used video; rather than thinking about how to use the video to support student learning, the video’s were talking heads providing simply information. I know I do exaggerate. Is everything ok then?
- There are several reasons for being interested in the solution of hybrid classrooms In distance education there is a very serious problem of attrition. That only 2.3% of those registering in a coursera-course actually complete the course is illustrative. Experiences with MOOCs show that completion rates about 30% are good. I guess that with a dropout of 70% in the new educational master, I would get a call from my vice-chancellor. This is not a new phenomena, I still remember that in 1986 when I just started to work a bit in this area, my very first conference related to how drop-out could be controlled for, how it could be handled and avoided. Different reasons have been given for the high drop-out rate. Wok-life balance has been pointed at, courses not matching the expectations of students, tremendous load of having to do everything on your own including the planning and the self-motivating element.
- It does not come as a surprise that authors have pointed to the importance of presence. Presence pertains to a feeling of belonging, of being there, it is a perception not a regular state or a fixed variable. That makes it extremely difficult for researhcers. Garrison and Vaughan argue that in view of getting real educational experiences there is a need for being there, for presence. It helps if you know who is also in the course, that you can talk to, it helps if you are cognitively engaged, that you can work on what you want to work on, that you get the tools to actually work with and it helps that there is some teaching presence some immediacy in the structuring. Especially the social presence is fascinating, it makes us think why this is so important.
- Dorp-out rates are an indicator of motivation. The initial choice of registering in a course, in a program is not followed up by the choice among behavioral alternatives to continue to work on the course. Self-determination theory may help us to understand. From that perspective it is argued that there a three basic psychological needs, the need for compentence, for autonomy and for relatedness. We do not want to be alone we want to give and receive, we want to interact socially. A pure distance education course may score low on the fulfillment of that basic need and hence result in low motivation. But in addition to attrition there are other problems as well
- While it all sounds nice there are of course also limitations in what can be offered. Wit h respect to technology personalisation remains a challenge, the same is true for portability of results and access. As far as support is concerned most of our research is seriously flawed and biased. In a recent study one of my students showed that the instruments generally used to register students’ approaches to learning simply do not work in the republic of Congo as they do not fit local cultures. And while designing is essential and needed design teams have limitations. Designing is a teamwork given the multiple disciplines that have to work together but not always all needed expertise is readily available.
- Gradually we have become aware that learning is a socio-constructive process, it always is constructive, cumulative, self-regulated and contextualized. That reveals a least two important insights, the first is that what matters for learning is what the learner does, but in an educational setting we offer a very specific context, of course what the learner does remains at the core but in addition it is clear that this is not sufficient as the learner has not to learn something but exactly those things that are aimed at in the setting. Therefore in addition to the importance of what the learner does, it is also important that the learner activities are in alignment to the educational goals. That is very very often not the case.
- I an earlier contribution we have pointed to this issue under the header of ‘instructional disobedience. Over and over again we can observe that students do not use the opportunities that are provided, they do not make the exercises, rather than following the sequences suggested they seem to game the system, they ignore the adjunct questions or hardly read the objectives we have inserted as a metacognitive tool. One may wonder why they do so and there is still a lot of doubt but at least on plausible way of thinking is that students have ideas about education, about learning and about teaching that do not necessarily match those that guided the design of the learning environment. Research also makes it very clear that for students it is very difficult to understand what the goal is of the environment, what it is to learn what is aimed. If they would fully understand they probably would not need the to learn it anymore. Interactions, repeated attempts to clarify the goals and to encourage students to engage in relevant activities might be needed.
- Another reason why hybrid classroom might be interesting is because they may be better attuned to how we live and learn. Research starts to reveal the embodied nature of cognition, how we think is contextualized not only in socio-cultural contexts but also in our own body. The reason why a decimal system was developed and why it spreads all over the world is most probably because we have ten fingers. That gives us a good framework to look for numerical relations as we may look for aspects in reality that mirror our own body. Starting from that insight it is easy to see that a lot of our learning environments are empoverished, they do not use the full potential of our sensory systems. In a lot of case, e.g. with multimedia materials we restrict the useful senses to ears and eyes, perhaps fingers if we consider the typing to select a new page. Furthermore these senses are used in a rather restricted way, we read, watch, perhaps write but large movements have not to be made and if you follow a how to cook MOOC your taste is probably not fully exploited. Also here hybrid classrooms may extend a bit the use of our senses.
- We have become aware that learning in an educational setting is far from easy, it is not self-evident, inherently complex as you have to find your way through various types of tasks, information, tools, support and is intimidating. There is an ‘external’ agent determininig whether what you do will be considered to be appropriate learning. And it takes a lot of efforts. From this we learned that in order to teach adequately, in order to adequately support student’s learning there is a urgent need to better understand not only learning but the enacters of learning, the learners as well as the factors that influence them. And it seems that some kind of well-directed, i.e. orchestrated presence that is probably multisensorial is an essential element in the support of leaners. Of course we do not know enough and hence more research is needed on learners and how to support them as persons, the same is true for professionalisation. If orchestration of presence through multisensorial interaction is important we will have to become more professional about that professionalization.
- Lets then try to come to conclusions. First things first, as Shulman already highlighted, education is the most complicated matter so simple answers won’t do. Beware of those claiming that they will resolve educational issues with simple measures. And second our reflections result in acknowledging that we have to consider both learning and learners. It is to be mentioned that neither of them is sufficient in its own right. Let us safeguard thoughtfulness by engaging in clear efforts to design learning environments, but let us also embrace learners by orchestrating presencse through interaction This may result in a bit a new approach ni the design and development of learning environments
- As common let’s start with analysing the goals and the context but aslo the learners. That analysis of learnes cannot be limited to their prior knowledge in a particular domain, it will have to be extended to their motivation and to their ideas abuot what is valuable in education and how they think learning can be supported. We then may design the environemnt by on the one hand select tasks that increase the probability that learners will engage adequate learning activities and elaborate support in the form of information and scaffolds that they may need need succesfully execute the learning tasks.
- We then might compose the most optimal blend by especially considering the nature of the interactions that are needed. It might be that some goals (e.g. language communication goals require a particular type of interaction,. In composing the blend the analysis of the learners may play an equally important role: what learners (and for what reasons) require synchronous interaction and for whom (and what reasons) need that interaction be F2F, what learners need to be able to smell each other, to touch it other. Finally in composing the blend some realism is indicated, not everything is possible: eye contact may be important but can the system afford to offer it. Considering the needed blend we can then orchestrate the interactions we can try to maximize presence with the context of technical affordances. We will then implement not only a designed learnng environments that actually teaches and hence supports learning, we also provide an orchestrated learning environmnent that enables the learners to engage in what is required as their needs, conceptions and aspirations are fully considered.
- Let me end by sharing what I think to be an interesting paradox i.e. the research on distance education seems to call for more research on under what circumstances an opportunity for physical contact is indicated. Thuis results in questions such as …
- Thank you for your attention