RSA #4- Collaborative Groud-Rules in Online PLCs

Collaborative learning is primarily mediated by language. Acts of communication or language acts function as social interaction mechanisms building up collaborative learning processes. (Cecez-Kecmanovic, D. & Webb, C.)  Collaborative leaning language is not competitive in nature, and it shares ideas in a way that promotes the task.  Collaborative communication seeks to set goals and reach those goals, with mutual respect.  With this in mind, it behooves an online facilitator to learn and become well versed in modeling and mediating online, social discord.  This is the crux of the resource I found, “Towards a Communicative Model of Collaborative Web-Mediated Learning.”  The authors describe collaborative language as falling under three main headings: subject matter, norms and rules, and personal experiences/desires and feelings. 

Palloff and Pratt, in “Building Online Learning Communities” describe habits of speech that may promote collaboration: dialogue of inquiry, encouraging expansive questioning, promoting feedback and sharing responsibility for facilitation.  Certainly it is evident that there is overlap in these two resources. 

As with any successful communication, a collaborative spirit is valuable.  A group member who is insecure and thus argumentative or competitive may truly stifle group participation, and though a facilitator will not be able to control each group members’ posting and responses to postings in an online community, setting norms that lay the groundwork for collaboration and the start of an online PLC will go a long way in setting guidelines to refer to if a member steps over the boundaries. 

References:

Palloff, R., & Pratt, K. (2007) Building online learning communities; effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco, CA: Wiley Imprint Press.

http://wikieducator.org/images/6/60/ALN_Collaborative_Learning.pdf

RSA#3: Online Presence Counts Towards Student Learning

The National Center for Educational Statistics (2003) reports that in 2000-2001, 52 percent of institutions that had undergraduate programs offered credit-granting distance educations courses at the undergraduate level, and college level, credit-granting distance education courses were offered at the graduate/first-professional level by 52 percent of institutions that had graduate/first-professional programs.  Public two-year institutions had the largest number of enrollments in distance education offerings in 2000-2001, a trend that has continued since then.  (Palloff, Pratt, 2007)

Online learning is commonplace in 2012.  I’m writing this blog for an online course.  One issue that has cropped up in relation to online learning is the issue of presence, which can be defined “as the degree to which a person is perceived as “real” in the online environment.”  (Palloff, Pratt, 2007)  Presence can be built through synchronous learning applications like Adobe Connect.  My current class utilized this tool at the start of class.  This, along with an introduction post complete with pictures, interests, and goal carried we participants into the course.  I believe that presence was achieved through these means.  This idea is an important one to consider as educators move into creating online learning environments for our own students.  An interesting idea to note in relation to this idea is that an introverted person may have a more successful online learning experience than an extrovert.  Given the absence of social presence, the introvert may appreciate the time to reflect and consider ideas deeply before responding, whereas an extrovert may miss the real, face-to-face interactions and not feel as connected to the course.  (Pratt, 1996.)  I began to wonder, when reading through the research, if building a social presence would equal greater learning.  The research certainly indicates that this is true.

The study preformed by Jennifer Richardson, Phd. Entitled “Examining Social Presence in Online Courses” supports the notion that students perceptions of successful social presence does factor into perceived learning by the student.  “Students reporting higher perceived social presence scores also perceived they learned more from the course than students with low perceived social presence scores.” (p. 73, Richardson, J., Swan, K., 2003)

Creating the opportunity for students to build social presence is key to student satisfaction and perceived learning in an online course.  To accomplish this task, an instructor must build time into the course for student introductions, along with synchronous meetings if that is possible.  The time is well served by increased students involvement, shown through greater student presence, satisfaction, and learning.

Palloff, R., Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: effective strategies for the virtual classroom.  SanFrancisco, CA: Wiley Imprint.

Richardson, J., Swan, K. (2003). Examining Social Presence in Online Courses in Relation to Students’ Perceived Learning and Satisfaction.  http://hdl.handle.net/2142/18713

RSA #2-Show Me The Results, And I'll Show You a High Functioning PLC

“We have known for nearly a quarter of a century that self-managed teams are far more productive than any other form of organizing…by joining with others we can accomplish something important that we could not accomplish alone.”  (Wheatley, 1999, pp.152-153)

            The above quote comes from “Learning By Doing”, written in 2010 by DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, and Many, and is used to substantiate the assertion that we should use teams as our basic working structure in schools.  The teams formed are called Professional Learning Communities, or PLCs.  These PLCs are formed to look at what we want students to learn, how we will know that each student learned, how we will respond to students who need extra help learning, and how we can extend and enrich the learning for students who have demonstrated proficiency. 

            These lofty goals are attainable, and models for their effectiveness can be found scattered throughout the country.  One such school system where PLCs have taken root and shown fruit is the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) in North Carolina.  The concept was introduced in the 1960s to lessen teacher isolation and strengthen instructional practices.  Since, it has continued to evolve, with a survey on 2008-2009 showing “a strong level of support for the PLC concept (71% to 89% of survey respondents agreed or strongly agreed with statements pertaining to each of the six core PLC theme).” (Jackl, 2009)  This school district has taken a research based idea, stuck with it to refine the practice (for more than forty years), and seen the fruits of that stick-with-it-ness.  Seventy-six percent of teachers surveyed found that time spent in their PLC was helping their students learn more; this from the 2008-2009 survey. 

            This district is following the PLC model outlined in the DuFour literature.  The author is cited many times in the WCPSS study, and the main considerations for PLSs, as outlined in “Learning By Doing”, are evident.  These include setting SMART goals, teams norming their working structures, remedial and enrichment learning initiatives being devised, and common formative assessments being implemented. 

            Given the focus, time, structure and support the WCPSS has devoted to full implementation of PLCs, I’d say they are on the leading edged of this work.  I feel significantly behind the curve!  It’s 2012 and I’ve only learned what a PLC is in the last month.  Chicago Public Schools are not currently implementing PLCs formally, though I infer that there are some high performing and motivated schools where they are viable, whether called PLC or called by some other name.  It seems clear that the concept of teachers setting norms and regular meeting times to work on attainable and measurable goals will increase student performance.  The idea of reciprocal accountability keeps surfacing in my mind when I think of Chicago’s initiative to implement best practices.  I’ll conclude this post with this quote- We believe it is insincere for any district or school leader to stress the importance of collaboration and then fail to provide time for it. (Dufour, Dufour, Aeker, & Many, pp. 124)

RSA#1-Link to OnLine Research

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1176586?uid=3739656&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=47699019054607

The above link will take you to the research study I talked about in my blog post about online learning communities.

RSA#1-OnLIne PLC Considerations

When examining the Professional Learning Communities (PLC) three factors are important: development, implementation, and sustaining (of learning) must be focused on.  By building a solid foundation for learning outcomes, communicating the learning outcomes to students, and then offering avenues for that learning to take place, students may advance through the PLC successfully.  However, successful learning will only occur if the students are actively participating, or feeling connected to the community.  What happens when an individual is not being successful in the learning community?  In a traditional school setting, the student may be surrounded by an army of helpful and concerned adults who offer support.  In high-functioning schools, this is what occurs.  DuFour, Dufour, Eaker, and Karhanek state, in Raising the Bar and Closing the Gap: Whatever it Takes (2010) describe nine different schools where students receive additional time and support for learning.  In each school, systems and were put into place that allowed for remediation. 

The research study “Beyond Student Perceptions: Issues of Interaction, Presence, and Performance in an Online Course” by Anthony G. Picciano looks at the perception that face to face, traditional classroom courses allow greater student involvement.  The idea of presence in a course may dissipate without real life interaction, and some students could feel isolated and separate from classmates and course content with an online course.  The study performed looked at the number of posts in relation to students’ success in the course.  The study found that a correlation does exist between the number of interactions on the course discussion boards; higher participation showed greater success.

Implications of the two ideas point to the following idea for online learning communities sustaining the success of each participant.  A struggling student will receive extra time and support in a traditional school setting.  I assert that an online learning community could offer these same supports (extra tutoring and targeted practice) through the online community.  Either face to face or online, experts and those knowledgeable to help may both interact with a student who needs extra time.  I wonder if the online atmosphere would offer more flexibility and ease to individual’s schedules and time constraints.

References:

DuFour, R., Dufour, R., Eaker, R., & Many, T. (2010) Learning by doing. (2^nd Ed.) Bloomington, In: Solution Tree Press.

Picciano, A., (2002). Beyond students perceptions: issues of interaction, presence, and performance in an online course. JALN, Volume 6, July 2002.