Monster or Miracle?

In his paper, "Mutual Gains from Team Learning: A Guided Design Classroom Exercise," Paul N. Wilson cites his colleagues as stating that "team-based decision making can be a monster or a miracle." (Wilson, 2004)  During the time that I have spent in education, I have found this statement to be absolutely true.  Groups either tend to fly or flop and teachers either tend to mostly utilize collaborative learning or avoid it like the plague.

I believe this monster-miracle dichotomy is prevalent because of the inherently difficult nature of structuring group learning and the fact that our society has not built an educational system that is conducive to collaborative work.  I also think that technology is chipping away at the difficulty inherent in collaborative work. 

From our readings, I would argue that cooperative learning is a category that also encompasses the other three types of learning we reviewed.  So, guided design, problem-based learning, and situated learning are more detailed variations of cooperative work.  I believe educators struggle to incorporate any version of collaborative work in their classrooms.  

Mostly, I believe this happens because our system, particularly at the K-12 level, is not constructed to allow it.  Whether most admit it or not, society expects our children to be quiet, sit in rows, and learn the material so that they can recite it back accurately on the End-of-Course test and everyone can breathe a data-driven sigh of relief that knowledge has been acquired.  Even the desks are made for one student to hold their own materials.  There are few tables or surfaces conducive to group work in our public school buildings.  "The myth of individual genius and achievement...is deeply ingrained in American culture," (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith) and we have built a system that reflects that desire for individual achievement.

Beyond the system itself, though, is the complicated nature of ensuring that collaborative work is structured to be the miracle a teacher would want it to be.  In the real world, seemingly miraculous achievements (like winning an Olympic medal or growing human organs) actually require hard work and dedication.  If a teacher wants their students to learn effectively in groups, s/he is going to have to take the time to ensure the lesson incorporates all the necessary elements for success (slightly different for whatever variation of collaboration a teacher is implementing, but always incorporating team-building, specific instructions and guides, and reflection for the group and individual).  Beyond the structure, a teacher will have to accept that they are no longer the "sage on the stage" but rather are the "guide on the side."  This is a difficult transition for many teachers, as Hung et al discuss in their comparison of traditional professors to PBL tutors.  (Hung, Bailey & Jonassen, 2003)

All of that being said, there are still plenty of people that utilize collaborative learning in the classroom and see it for the boon to learning that it is.  Particularly once they get past the first few years of trying to survive day-to-day, teachers are able to think about what works best for their students and many turn to collaborative learning.  I think technology has actually made it easier for teachers to utilize this type of learning in their classrooms.  

When I first started teaching, I had one computer in my classroom.  If I wanted to facilitate learning rather than preach it, I had to spend hours of prep culling the resources my students would need to discover and then providing them with materials to create a product.  While creating newspapers, posters, and presentations with scissors and glue using knowledge gained from articles, encyclopedias, or textbooks (all dated) was still much more engaging than listening to me spout, it was not particularly easy for me to set up, and the students weren't getting much of that real-world action that makes collaborative learning so engaging. 

Then, my school went 1:1, and the whole nature of collaborative learning changed.  Once my students had access to up-to-date knowledge of the entire world at their fingertips and the creative power of a MacBook, I rarely ever stood at the front of the room and told them about literature again.  Instead, they were in groups working in a constant cycle of discovering, creating, and presenting.  Of course, it's not that collaborative learning then became easy; it's just that I could spend my time on the more important aspects of managing group interactions and growth rather than creating folders of information for each group to read.  It became more fun, and the success of the group work increased because I could really focus my attention on its structure.  

Because of my own personal experience, I truly believe that collaborative learning is the best approach for students of any age.  I deeply understand how it can be difficult to implement, but I am excited about the prospects as teachers learn to appropriately integrate technology into their organization of collaborative work.    

[Image] General ledger interface: Finished puzzle or pieces scattered about. (2012, October 24). Retrieved from http://www.thgcfo.com/general-ledger-interface/

Hung, W., Bailey, J. H., & Jonassen, D. H. (2003). Exploring the tensions of problem-based learning: Insights from research. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, (95), 13-23.

Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Smith, K. A. (n.d.). Cooperative learning returns to college: What evidence is there that it works.

Wilson , P. N. (2004). Mutual gains from team learning: A guided design classroom exercise. Cardon Research Papers in Agricultural and Resource Economics, 1-18.

Mastery and Presence

As I read through the articles for unit I, I was struck by the constant balance that educators must find between mastery-based learning and teacher presence.

Koen put this issue quite succinctly when he pondered:

What is the proper way to design a course in the current digital age when Mark Hopkins' log stretches to become the long wire of the Internet?  How can a professor keep the sense of Mark Hopkins in close proximity to his or her student...when professor and student are separated by thousands of miles and, at the same time, schedule the reinforcers necessary for effective education implied by Skinner's observation?  (Koen, 2005)

Both Keller's Personal System of Instruction (PSI) and Postlethwait's Audio Tutorial (AT) system address the concept of mastery well.  In each system, students are allowed to work at their own pace to comprehend material.  The AT system does provide more structure in terms of pacing because of its three components (Independent Study, General Assembly, and Small Assembly).  While a student working through PSI could in theory take as long as they want (barring restrictions placed by a teacher), the AT model suggests that each study session will take place at regular intervals.  If you are a teacher who believes in personalizing instruction and that different people learn at different paces, then one of these systems will likely provide you with the type of learning tool you wish to use.

However, the question of what balance to put on that system of learning then becomes paramount.  Most teachers recognize that learning often requires a structured environment.  There are many distractions in our world, particularly now, and it we allow students to complete work whenever they decide, they may choose to simply not complete the work.  Teacher presence has consistently been a key motivator to encourage students to complete tasks and conquer the roadblocks that sometimes stand in the way of learning.  How do we then ensure that presence exists while still allowing a student to work at their own pace?  How does a teacher balance multiple students at multiple spots in the curriculum and somehow make them all feel equally attended to?

The articles in this unit certainly offered quite a few specific examples for conquering mastery/presence balance concerns.  In all, it seemed that some version of PSI or AT teachings combined with structure provided by a teacher, proctor, or department offered the best way to reach out to students while still allowing them to master material on their own terms.  I personally believe that finding this balance is the key to modern education and wish that more programs would focus their efforts in this direction (rather than funneling massive amounts of money into testing).  Students who are allowed to work at their own pace while knowing there is a support system in place are students who are likely to be successful at learning, and the more successes a student has behind them, the more likely they are to become life-long learners.

I have a personal fondness for this topic because mastery-based learning is one of the key tenets of the online program in which I currently work.  As the program has grown, we have struggled daily with finding the balance between letting students have as much time as they need to complete units (set up in PSI fashion) and providing more structure for them.  I have found that teachers also struggle with discovering how to create a sense of community in an online course when students are working through it at different paces, although because we cap sections, our teachers are still very good at maintaining presence with their students.  I am currently thinking that we may need to add some elements of the AT model to our program in order to help students become better at pacing their learning.


Koen, B. V. (2005). Creating a sense of "presence" in a web-based psi course: The search for mark hopkins' log in a digital world. IEEE Transactions on Education, 48(4), 599-604.

Image courtesy of
   by  michaelgoodin  

The Battle Between Time and Technology

As I read through the commentary of my peers this week, I felt that a concern that seemed to be prevalent was the idea of time and technology.  How long would it take a student to learn Second Life?  How long would it take a teacher to learn and build in Second Life?  And most important of all, in a world where classes are crammed into very tiny segments of time, where does all this learning and implementing of complicated technology fit in?

I think Jerry said it very well in his posting about our tutorials (Tutorial Review):

Most of us recognize the need to provide more than static text in our course materials.  The challenge is that developing robust multimedia requires additional skills and special software.  The presentation ["Engaging Students with Multimedia for Improved Learning"] was provided by a team of experienced multimedia developers.  I would characterize the skills necessary to develop materials at the level illustrated in the tutorial to be “advanced”.

And that really says it all.  When we are all learning the technology on the side as we try to teach the curriculum, how do we groom ourselves to an "advanced" level so that we can teach our students technology skills also - and how do we do that in time to prepare them for the tech-rich environment they will be facing? 

I think the best any of us can do with this challenge is to put our current time into the pieces of technology we believe are going to be most facilitative to learning and save us the most time in future. 

For me so far, I believe that will be a platform similar to Second Life.  I find it to be the most time consuming on the front end but also the one likely to overcome the most challenges in online learning, particularly those described by Vesely, Bloom, and Shelock (2007): diminished social presence; lack of a sense of community; longer time between communications; and uneven participation.  The pros mentioned in Warburton's writing (2009) - persistence of the in-world environment; shared space allowing users to participate simultaneously; virtual embodiment in the form of an avatar; interactions between user and environment; immediacy of action; similarities to the real world - almost exactly align with the other study's cons in online education.

Technology is everywhere and overwhelming, to the point that with the amount of time we have in a day, it's almost impossible to become expert at any of it.  Many people are just able to say that they know a little bit about a lot of things.  As educators, it may be in our best interest to hone in on the tool that can accomplish the most and put in the time to make it as successful as it needs to be to truly deliver our content. 

The Potential of a Second Life

Despite the excited predictions of some commentators, it is not inevitable that education will rapidly transfer to the virtual.  To achieve a move on this scale still requires us to address how to manage best our virtual identities, improve our digital and cultural literacies, understand more fully the links between immersion, empathy, and learning, and develop design skills that can be used productively to exploit virtual spaces. (Warburton)

I left the readings about Second Life (SL) this week feeling very much like there is exciting work to be done.  It seems quite apparent from these readings, previous course readings and discussion about community in online learning, and my own personal knowledge of what works in education that multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) are the future of online education. 

There seems to be agreement in the education community that there are pedagogically sound reasons for investing in a MUVE similar to SL, if not SL itself.  Warburton cites the following reasons:

• extended or rich interactions
• visualisation and contextualisation
• exposure to authentic content and culture
• individual and collective identity play
• immersion
• simulation
• community presence
• content production
  

Where the articles seem to fall off the bandwagon is in the viability of using SL in the classroom now.  There are many reasons for why SL may prove more of a burden than a blessing currently: technical savvy of teachers and students; difficulty establishing social relationships in a foreign culture; the need to incorporate a 2D platform in addition to SL to convey basic information; length of time to build and participate in SL; cost; and the ability to cross platforms with avatar and content. (Warburton)

Keeping all of this in mind, however, I still left the week's lesson feeling the need to discover everything I can about SL and similar systems.  It is hard to read Petrakou's article or watch a video presentation like the one shared by Phillips and Robertson without becoming excited about what a MUVE can do for students.  Being able to hold conversations and make connections with students across the world or fly into a cell to get an up-close look at its parts are scenarios too tempting for educators to ignore.

I believe this is why the last lines of Warburton's article sound a lot like a call to action.  Education is a slow-moving system, and if educators want to be able to take charge of the potential in MUVEs, we are going to be the ones that have to best manage our virtual identities and cultivate our digital literacies and design skills.  Our students will not be able to benefit from these technologies until we teach ourselves to be comfortable with them and work through their barriers. 

The Presence of Online Teaching

The most important lessons I've gathered in the past five weeks relate to the concept of community in online learning.  As in the regular classroom, if one cannot establish a rapport with one's students on one level or another, it will be more difficult for learning to occur.

Along those lines, the tutorial that I found to be the most helpful was the shortest - but the most packed with ideas for establishing a presence.  Professor Curt Bonk's specific ideas for what to do to establish community in an online environment struck a cord with me.  I found them to be reminiscent of Harry Wong, my guru for advice as a beginning teacher in the physical classroom.  

"Accomplishments, identity, rituals, mission...all these things work together so that you can create a place..." (Bonk)

I loved how Bonk shared concrete methods to help a teacher move toward this highly elusive goal.  I am particularly excited to try the mentoring and awards pieces in my own online teaching, as I believe those two things in particular will resonate with high school students.

Additionally, I felt that Stephanie Trunzo's "Pedagogical Facebook and Twitter" raised some important insights for me as an online teacher.  In my past teaching experiences, I have expected the students to come to me.  The county provides and/or advocates certain platforms for my teaching, and while they are very similar to the spaces that students use already, they often are not as functional, attractive, or "real" as the ones that are prevalent in popular media.  One of the images in Trunzo's presentation included a student comment:

"With all the successful social mechanism models available on the web today, I still find myself amazed that an institution like NCSU uses such a poor tool [Vista] for on-line student interaction." (Trunzo)

What does it mean to a student when they come to school and are expected to participate in a copy of something they are already doing better in their personal time?  And what might it mean to students in terms of establishing community for me to meet them on their own terms rather than making them use my space - especially when those spaces can achieve the same learning goals?  While I know there are many other considerations that go into these decisions (especially for me teaching at a high school level), I was very intrigued by the overall theme and some of the questions raised for me by Trunzo's presentation.

 The other tutorial that made a real impression on me was "Creating Community with Second Life," but that is a topic for another posting...