T3 Reflecting on Learning in Communities – Networked Collaborative Learning

ONL 191 Topic 3

In my two roles of being a Professional and a PhD Student, an important part of my learning derives from my personal learning network through cooperation, coordination and collaboration with other people. Interacting with an expert by joining a working committee, hanging out or participating in online forums, collaborating on a project, or having a chat over a cup of coffee or tea provides insights and valuable opportunities to benefit from a transference of knowledge that takes place through both formal and informal interactions. A philosophy that I took to heart early in my life was to seek out people who were smarter than me in terms of their knowledge and expertise and to create situations where I could learn from them through interaction, dialogue, and engagement. When I choose University courses I investigate the standing that the instructors have in their field  from looking into what they have been publishing and from how well other students learn from their courses. I see education as an investment - if I am going to spend valuable time in a course, I want it to pay off in terms of learning something that has value.

My experience in the ONL 191 community and participation as a member of Group 12 evolved over time from an initial passive mode of engagement into one of active engagement. In two ways I began as a novice - not having formal teaching experience as an educator and lacking experience in tools oriented towards online education. I quickly became comfortable in Group 12 but found the larger ONL 191 community more daunting to work with - a finding in line with what Brindley and Blaschke discuss in their paper [1] regarding how engagement is "important to the quality of learning." [1]

Learning Community

Before delving deeper into this topic, some definitions are perhaps in order:

PLN - Personal Learning Network

“A Personal Learning Network is a way of describing the group of people that you connect with to learn their ideas, their questions, their reflections, and their references. Your PLN is not limited to online interactions, but it is that online, global interactive part that really makes it special. It is personal because you choose who’s part of that group; you choose if you want to lurk–just check out what people are saying–or if you share; because you choose when to do so, and how to do so.” - Marc-André Laland

Collaboration - Coordination - Cooperation

"Collaboration is working together to create something new in support of a shared vision. The key points are that it is not through individual effort, something new is created, and that the glue is the shared vision. 

Coordination is sharing information and resources so that each party can accomplish their part in support of a mutual objective. It is about teamwork in implementation. Not creating something new. 

Cooperation is important in networks where individuals exchange relevant information and resources in support of each other’s goals, rather than a shared goal. Something new may be achieved as a result, but it arises from the individual, not from a collective team effort."

Jesse Lyn Stoner

I chose these four definitions since I feel they effectively capture the essence of this topic.

Returning to Brindley and Blaschke, characteristics of active learning that contribute towards higher quality are [1]:

• Critical Thinking
• Co-creation of Knowledge and Meaning
• Reflection,
• Transformative Learning

Brindley and Blaschke go on describe a continuum of important learner-learner interactions for online learning [1]:

• Communication - People ‘talking,’ discussing
• Collaboration - People sharing ideas and working together (occasionally sharing resources) in a loose environment
• Cooperation - People doing things together, but each with his or her own purpose
• Community - People striving for a common purpose

Our group set the stage for quality learner-learner interactions by posting introductions in our group forum, discussing our backgrounds and experience in online education, discussing ideas about what we wanted to achieve for our topic projects, having our more experienced members show technologies to us that they felt might be useful from their own past experience, and, as individuals, be willing to try new ideas out while keeping an open mind.

From Me to We - Working Together

In the course webinar breakout sessions several of the people I met mentioned people that were Our group was fortunate in that everyone actively participated in both the group and course activities, which made for a positive experience. I feel that our group did not have any "witness learners" who were only active in our group [1] and not the wider course activities. This active participation of our group members in both the course and group activities makes it much easier to have collaborative discussions within our group.

Topic 3 introduces Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) and the frustrations that group participants often encounter. Capdeferro and  Romero [2] describe nine common sources of frustration as:

• Imbalance in level of commitment, responsibility, and effort
• Unshared goals within the group
• Lack of communication preventing clarification of goals, roles, and other group functions
• Lack of negotiation skills regarding relationship building, amiability, and respect for others
• Inbalance in quality of individual contributions and frustration by the presence of an expert who dominated and impeded collaboration
• Uneven sharing of workload
• Failure to distinguish between contributors and slackers when grading
• Problems in reaching a consensus
• Failure of the instructor to take action when notified of a problem

Garrison proposes a framework consisting of six principles to mitigate group member frustration in online learning [3]:

• Establish a climate that will create a community of inquiry.
• Establish critical reflection and discourse that will support systematic inquiry.
• Sustain community through expression of group cohesion.
• Encourage and support the progression of inquiry through to resolution.
• Evolve   collaborative   relationships   where   students   are   supported   in   assuming   increasing responsibility for their learning. 
• Ensure that there is resolution and metacognitive development

Garrison goes on to add that it is important to think about how individuals are graded in group assignments since this can "undermine true collaboration". [3]

In the case of our Group 12, we addressed most of these issues within the first three weeks of the course and the consensus is that our group is functioning well. I feel that our process of jelling was aided by the fact that we all come from an education background with experience as participants and instructors with course group activities. By avoiding frustrations and building a community within our group members, I feel very positive about the ONL 191 course and the deliverables that we are working on.

As a final thought, many of the collaboration skills and issues discussed in this blog relate to life in general - check out this YouTube video on Escape Rooms to see the similarities 😊

Citations

1. Brindley, J., Blaschke, L. M. & Walti, C. (2009). Creating effective collaborative learning groups in an online environment. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(3). URL: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/675/1271
2. Capdeferro, N. & Romero, M. (2012). Are online learners frustrated with collaborative learning experiences?. The International review of research in open and distance learning, 13(2), 26-44. URL: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1127/2129
3. Garrison, D. (2006). Online collaboration principles. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks. DOI: 10. 10.24059/olj.v10i1.1768. URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242404879_Online_collaboration_principles

Image Credits

https://pixabay.com/illustrations/woman-face-photomontage-faces-1594710/
https://pixabay.com/illustrations/we-me-us-one-individual-separate-2078024/
https://pixabay.com/illustrations/handshake-regard-cooperate-connect-2009195/