“While this course focuses on pedagogical approaches to online learning, the main objective is to connect you with others so that together you may explore, investigate, formulate and challenge ideas about online pedagogy in relation to pedagogical frameworks that can be applied to particular educational settings. The design of the course has been strongly influenced by the concept of a dilemma leading to disorientation and then to learning (Mezirow, 1991). The intention is to present learners with a number of educational “dilemmas” or “triggers” (called “themes”) and provide a process for addressing those dilemmas. Learners will engage rigorously with current theories suitable for online learning and teaching in order to make the links between theory and practice. Learners and facilitators will work together to consider, explore, trial, and adapt online pedagogical principles in practice” (from the FET8604 course specification).
Beginning a new online course is somewhat like moving to a new town. With a new online course environment there are new rules to learn, new people to meet, social presence to establish, but also a new literature and language to learn. The intention is that addressing these elements will, inter alia, produce an effective online learning community for the students (Lapadat, 2002; Hung, 2002; Augur et al, 2004).
In the case of this course, the focus is on the pedagogy of online learning and teaching. Learners begin a new course as novices in any particular literature, but often with firm ideas borne out from their own learning and/or practice prior to the course. Online Pedagogy in Practice however, also requires its participants to engage in a particular way of learning, interacting and progressing through the course. This is in the way that students interact collaboratively with each other in the online community, the formation of groups for work on the course themes and assessment, as well as the pedagogical approach to the course work designed by the instructor. The use of disorientation to lead towards transformative learning is the approach designed by the course leader to engage students in a collaborative online learning journey, through the use of collaborative groups. These groups are defined by Smith as “small, interdependent, and heterogenous groups that co-construct knowledge (Vgotsky 1978) through the resolution of ill-structured problems (Jonassen 2000) to achieve consensus and shared classroom authority (Bruffee 1999)” (Smith 2005, 183).
In this reflection, we consider our introduction to, and the early immersion in, the online learning community for FET8604 Online Pedagogy in Practice. One of the reasons to consider our initial thoughts and reactions is to reflect on our journey through the course and to provide a sense of the learning between the start and the end of the course.
The questions that you should consider in your answer include:
- Establishing group presence.
- How do I feel about collaborative work?
- What is my online pedagogy?
- What additional knowledge and experience do I need as an online educator?
Also comment on any other issues relevant to your early course experience.
FET8604 Theme 4 Group Reflections 
4 comments
Comments feed for this article
June 14, 2007 at 4:24 am
clarabanana
I like the analogy of moving to a new town. But for me it’s a small town, and a lot of folk I know have recently moved there. I didn’t know anyone super well, but I knew enough about them to know this could be my kind of town. Plus the mayor of the town was mayor of two other towns I had lived in, so I knew if I ran into any trouble I’d be able to go to the authorities for help. 🙂
How do I feel about collaborative work? I feel grand. 🙂 I actually feel better about participating in collaborative after our small group work. Prior to that I felt it was something that required an awful lot more input than the output warranted. I also worried about establishing an appropriate level of social presence, and not dominating group discussions. In fact, I spent a lot of time comparing the number of times I had posted, to the number of overall posts, trying to make sure that I stayed under the 10% mark.
I now realise that social presence and group work relates to a level of trust that group members will be honest about the collaborative process, and that the group will be something that works for me, not something I work for. As McConell (2005:32) notes, good collaborative groups deliberately address issues like support differences, mutual recognition, actively involve all in decision making, group processes and production. They work in ways that are open and accessible, they want the collaborative project ‘to work’. I think the initial section on theories and design principles helped prepare us for collaborative work, following Salmon’s (2002) 5 stage model, getting us online, socialised, sharing resources and ideas. In tandem with choosing a group that had members I valued and admired, this set me up well for participating fully in group work.
As for my thoughts on online pedagogy, I honestly don’t see how online pedagogy is different from other pedagogy. Instead, I would argue that the strategies to implement that pedagogy might vary. The literature review helped me clarify that the role changes referred to by Oliver (1999) were roles that I would expect educators and learners to assume in a constructivist design anyway, and that the “online” part of pedagogy is “just a medium” (Beaudoin, 1998).
What this course has done is introduced me to new technologies and strategies for implementing a pedagogical approach. For instance, I have now experienced a variety of synchronous forms of communication (like MSN and Elluminate) and asynchronous ones such as wikis and blogs. This has had a huge impact on the way I think about creating learning activities for future classes, and also on my own learning. For instance, I have recently set up my own wiki, “Article Tracker” (password ‘clarity’) to keep track of my readings, thoughts and references for future study.
June 16, 2007 at 1:05 am
dreamoutloud
If beginning a new online subject is somewhat like moving to a new town, then beginning two new online subjects simultaneously is somewhat like moving to two different houses in two adjacent towns and trying to establish yourself in both communities simultaneously.
Knowing that this was the challenge that I’d set myself, I used the two weeks before the semester began to download the materials for both subjects and undertake some forward planning. All was fine until I read the requirements for the pedagogical event for this subject. My heart sank. As an instructional designer, how on earth was I going to come up with an event that was related to one of the designated themes and would engage an audience? I sat and wondered whether I had chosen the right subject to study. I reviewed the descriptions for other subjects, knowing that it wasn’t too late to transfer. Yet, time and again I was drawn back to this subject. The assessment deadlines complemented those of my other subject, the literature review appealed to me, and the final paper appealed to me enormously. If only I could work out what I could do for the pedagogical event… And then, finally, it came to me, and I heaved a sigh of relief and prepared to settle in to this community.
In retrospect, the early weeks of this subject were perhaps the hardest for me. The strategy I had settled on to balance studying two subjects simultaneously was to focus more effort on the other subject during the early part of the semester, thus buying myself time to focus more on this subject later in the semester when collaborative work was required. Based on my experience with previous subjects I was confident of my ability to establish social presence within a collaborative group, regardless of the extent to which I participated in discussions prior to the collaborative group forming. I was also determined to limit the number of posts I made to a level that was sustainable, and to stop myself from feeling pressured to log on frequently and contribute to every conversation as I had in a previous subject, responses that I now recognise as being common amongst learners (Burge, 1994; Wiesenberg & Hutton, 1996; Bartolic-Zlomoslic & Bates, 1999; Mason & Weller, 2000; Gabriel, 2004; Murphy & Coleman, 2004).
These decisions, however, put me at odds with the social constructivist philosophy that clearly underpins the course, whereby discussion with peers is highly valued as a learning activity. My situation mirrored that described by Anderson (2004) who noted that for many students, the attraction of distance education and online courses is the temporal freedom it offers to move through a course at their own pace, but that this freedom is significantly curtailed by the requirement to participate in a community of learners. For me, a psychological tug-of-war ensued in which I swung between feeling liberated, guilty and resentful.
As a person with a deep-seated disinterest in philosophy, Journal Activity 1.1, which invited me to articulate my current understanding of online pedagogy, likewise caused me to inwardly sigh. For me, the idea of online learning having its own pedagogy is problematic. I struggle to understand why I should settle upon a single pedagogy to apply to online learning rather than draw upon a range of different pedagogies according to the nature of the learners and the desired learning outcomes.
For all of these reasons, the early part of the course was for me fraught with internal conflict, and I drew significant comfort from immersing myself in researching and writing my literature review.
June 16, 2007 at 8:40 pm
truet
You should read my comments to the first post before you read this comment – it provides context.
Moving to a new town? This is an accurate description of my EXPECTATION but the REALITY was more like moving to a new planet and being one of the few Earthlings there!! On April 10th I wrote this journal entry:
“I’m generally I social learner – I love to hear what others have to say & I often need to say what I think to truly figure out what it is that I think. In my first online course I logged on every day so I could see what others were thinking – it was fascinating & motivating. I posted regularly & responded to other learners’ posts regularly & I learnt.
I began this course the same way – enthusiastically logging on every day in the very early stages. In just a week I noticed that my fellow learners had so much more knowledge than me. I found that I couldn’t understand many posts, partially understood some & fully understood just a few. I kept reading but my contributions were minimal & in some cases I posted because I felt obliged.
Half way through week 5 I started skipping posts & logged on only to check whether there were any “jobs” to do. I felt that I was not ready to be part of this learning community – that I needed to develop a sounder knowledge base & join the course again later in my studies.
After reading Gulati (2004) I could see some important things for my learning. First, this social learner can’t learn the way I normally do. My classmates are on a different level from me so I have to establish my own base from which to learn (constructivism) & so I probably need to be a more autonomous learner than I would prefer to be. I probably won’t enjoy my study so much & I may not be as motivated as I normally would be BUT this couse is conducted from a constructivist perspective so I will be able to be part of the learning community – it will just be different from the usual.
Not sure what this means for the teamwork component of the course (EEEEEK) & not sure how some of my classmates will feel about my level of lurking BUT what a lesson to be learning (for a lifelong learner & an educator)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Well, obviously I didn’t dropout as I considered at this point. Gulati (2004) was pivotal. It helped me identify what was happening to me and develop a strategy for “learning survival” under these circumstances. I think that this was a true transformation in Mezirow’s (1991) sense. I wasn’t able to follow through with my strategy – the course design did not allow it but working through my discomfort gave me some confidence that I could somehow take some value from the course.
I can relate to Clara’s comment on the final post – “Ultimately, this course, for me, has not been about coming to grips with the literature, but about coming to grips with the experience and possibilities of online learning”. This was partly its role for me, not that I had any idea of this at week five.
Sandra
June 18, 2007 at 5:22 pm
cassandrastar
Reflecting on my early course experience, it was very much a new group of people to meet and experience. While some of the group had been in a previous course, it had operated very much independently, without a sense of community or bonds forming in that group.
Early in the course, Shirley asked what our online pedagogy was. Similar to Clara, my perspective was that online learning and teaching was not necessarily different in its underlying principles than quality learning and teaching in other contexts. While the space may be different, and the methods of operationalising the strategies might be different, the principles remain the same. What I hoped to explore was how to effectively put into practice these principles in a context that I was quite new to.
I began immersing myself in the course materials and assessment requirements about a month before the course began – I had contacted Shirley early because I knew I would be taking four weeks leave after a month of the course. Therefore my main concern in the first part of the course was to be sure to establish a social presence and adequately connect with my fellow classmates to enable me to re-enter the course at the beginning of the group section of the course. Thus, I was anxious to log in, check for posts, and interact every day in the first weeks of the course, much more than I normally would be. I didn’t find this level of interaction overwhelming, but rather saw it as necessary to successful engagement with the course under the circumstances.
There are some common themes between my early course experiences and those of the other group members. Sharon’s strategy to balance the workload of her two courses required her to limit her number of posts, while still establishing her social presence. On the other hand, Clara was concerned not to dominate the group discussion with her level of posting and interaction. In Sandra’s reflection she reveals that the other learners and the facilitation style in the online community led to a “learning survival strategy” that had her retreating from posting and logging in halfway through Week 5. In Sandra’s case, disengagement was a requirement to enable a successful learning process. Clearly, we were all enacting conscious strategies of engagement and interaction with the online learning community that we saw as essential to guaranteeing our learning survival, they were just different strategies for different sets of dilemmas.
As you’ll see below, we all faced challenges in engaging and completing the course for different reasons, but at different times in the life of the course.