e-chronicle

1. The learning community

1.1 Participants
The learning community consists of 22 undergraduate students (20 females and 2 males) who are studying in Charles Darwin University (hereafter CDU) via the external mode, i.e. off-campus; out of the 22, 2 are fresh high school leavers, and the rest are mature-aged students pursuing their first degree. The students have chosen to study externally because they are working full- or part-time, and/or they do not reside in Darwin (i.e. inter-state or in remote locations within the Northern Territory).

1.2 Technological environment
The students are enrolled in CUC100 Academic Literacies, one of the three common units that all CDU students commencing a bachelor’s degree, associate degree or advanced diploma must undertake (look up http://learnline.cdu.edu.au/commonunits/index.html for more information on the common units).

The unit fully utilises Learnline (the Blackboard Learning Management System, the equivalence of UTSOnline) as the mode of instruction and communication. The Learnline components include announcements, course content and documents, discussion board, emails, gradebook, and links to unit-related websites and resources. One-on-one communication between tutor and students is mainly via email outside Learnline.

2. The learning activities

The students are given structured, weekly tasks that include readings (from textbook and other sources) with guided questions; and designated weekly forums with question(s) in relation to the theme of the weekly readings, which students are required to post their reflections, thoughts or opinions on the discussion board, and/or respond to the postings of others. The students do not have the ability to create or initiate a discussion forum. They are also required to complete four assignments throughout the semester, which are submitted and collected via gradebook.

3. My role in the learning activities

3.1 Description
My role as a tutor is to facilitate, motivate, and assist the students in this process of self-directed learning. The expectation, as communicated to all tutors, is to maintain regular (at least once a week) contact with students via email; respond to student queries, concerns, etc., in a timely manner; check students’ postings on the discussion board and provide feedback when necessary; mark assignments and provide feedback to students (via gradebook) in a timely manner; and to step in when students choose to be ‘invisible’ by not participating on the discussion board or maintaining in contact, in the hope of reducing attrition and/or failure rate.

3.2 Analysis
Adults learn extensively from belonging to, and participating in, a learning community, and much of that learning depends on interaction with other people within the community (Saunders 1999). Garrison and Anderson (2003, p. 28, cited in Redmond & Lock 2006) list three key elements to a learning community – social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence; at the centre of the three key elements is the educational presence “which promotes deep and meaningful learning”. Consequently, my role is to facilitate and bring about these three elements into learning community. I see my role in this learning community at two levels: (1) to create and maintain a sense of community among the students, and (2) to promote knowledge construction by encouraging students to interact and collaborate online (i.e. discussion board) to make sense of the subject matter content.

3.2.1 Sense of community
McMillan and Chavis (1986, p. 9, cited in Dawson 2006) define a sense of community as “a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together.” This is largely achieved by (1) encouraging students to interact and collaborate on the discussion board, and (2) maintaining one-on-one communication with students via email (outside Learnline). Students need to feel connected to one another, and by creating a social presence through the initial introduction forum, students become real people to one another, know more about each other, and therefore feel less isolated. Students are also encouraged to interact and collaborate cognitively with one another by posting and sharing their thoughts, reflections, and conclusions in the designated weekly forums on the readings and subject matter content, and responding to postings of others. One-on-one email communication with students further enhances the sense of connectedness between individual learner and I. Students are informed from the start that they can email me with any queries or concerns in relation to their studies, and that emails will be responded within 24 hours on weekdays. Consequently, this eases their concern of isolation and anxieties in times of need.

3.2.2 Knowledge construction
As mentioned above, students are encouraged to interact and collaborate cognitively in the designated weekly forums. The forums are monitored about twice a week, and students are encouraged to respond to and build on each other’s contributions. A teaching presence is facilitated through modeling, encouraging and reinforcing contributions, drawing in learner participation (especially the ‘invisible’ [non-participating] ones) and prompting discussion, confirming understanding, diagnosing misperceptions, etc.

4. The community as a vehicle of learning

Woods et al. (2004) list four ways in which web-based courseware (in this case, Learnline) can be used as a vehicle of learning: (1) as a form of knowledge presentation, (2) for assessment purposes, (3) to promote knowledge construction, and (4) to create and maintain a learning community.

4.1 Knowledge presentation
As an information repository tool, the use of Learnline in this learning community provides the ease and convenience to students to obtain all the necessary information (unit information, study guide, readings, announcements, assessment information, links to external websites and resources, etc.) at one location. This is especially important for these external-mode students as it elevates their anxiety of sourcing information in their learning journey.

4.2 Assessment purposes
Using gradebook, students are able to (1) store their work-in-progress assignments, and only submit when they are ready, (2) submit their assignments, (3) retrieve their marked assignments and view the marker’s comments and feedback, and (4) look up their grades throughout the semester to monitor their progress.

4.3 Promote knowledge construction
The discussion board provides the platform for asynchronous group discussion to take place over a period of time (Dawley 2007). All the students (including the shy ones) can participate, and all voices can be heard, which can lead to higher rate of interaction and engagement (Lin 2008). Students are given the time and space to reflect and edit their work before posting in the respective forums. Students can learn from one another in these forums through social comparison, peer influence, self-disclosure, feedback, modeling, etc. Because students are aware of the permanent and public nature of their postings, they are more than likely to produce thoughtful and responsible comments (Song et al. 2007). Knowledge gained from such discussions is useful when they can use or apply it in their assignments (Lin 2008). Students also have the flexibility and convenience to participate in the discussions whenever and wherever it suits them, without having to re-arrange each other’s schedule; this enables them to balance work and study, and to learn at their own pace.

On its own, the discussion board is not fully functional as an interactive and collaborative tool. The asynchronous nature does not provide immediate feedback either from their peers or me, and students may find themselves having to log on time and again to check the discussion board. Those who have used the discussion board will know that it can be difficult to follow the various threads of discussions as one can only view one posting at a time. Students may also be skeptical of the content of their peers’ postings in the forums due to their perception of the level of expertise of their peers (Song et al. 2004). As students are not able to start their own forums, they may feel disempowered in their learning journey.

4.4 Create and maintain a learning community
Using the discussion board as a tool within Learnline to facilitate interaction and collaboration among the students is not ideal. Dawson (2006) demonstrated in his study the significant relationship between learner frequency of communication and sense of community – students communicating more with peers and instructors indicate a higher level of sense of community, and a higher level of satisfaction with the course of study. The fact that these are external-mode students places a greater need for learner-learner and learner-tutor communication interactions. Although the discussion board provides the space for students to interact and collaborate (to some degree) by contributing to the forums and responding to their peers’ contributions, it is not fully interactive. And because the forums are all subject matter content-related, and students are not able to start their own forums, there is insufficient social presence for them to build trust and relationships with one another (apart from the initial introduction forum). Furthermore, Learnline does not afford the space for students to interact with each other in private (apart from the public space in the discussion board), which does not help in enhancing the sense of community. The only form of one-on-one communication is between individual students and me via email outside Learnline; this helps in making students feel connected and less isolated, but it puts pressure on me in having to respond to the emails in the shortest time possible.

5. Interpretation of my experiences

Rovai (2002) concluded in his study that there is significant positive relationship between cognitive learning and sense of community. He deduced that the sense of community is strong when (1) there is learner-learner and learner-instructor connectedness, with engagement in two-way communications to reduce social and psychological distance, (2) there is commonality of learning expectations and goals, and (3) learners trust and help each other (Rovai 2002, p. 322).

Learnline has its merits as an information repository tool, but it has its limitation in the functions of interactivity and collaboration, thereby inhibiting a strong sense of community. This is especially significant as Learnline is the only online environment in which these external-mode students can ‘meet’. As discussed and analysed above, one can only do so much to promote and enhance connectedness and sense of community given the constricted parameter and boundary of Learnline and email. Every technological tool has its limitations, strengths and weaknesses. Learnline on its own will not be able, and cannot be expected, to provide a complete learning experience. Other technological tools (e.g. Ning, Facebook, Skype, etc.) would certainly help in complementing Learnline, in providing the time and space for asynchronous and synchronous interaction and collaboration. Having said that, at the end of the day, the onus falls on the students to want to connect and participate in the learning community.

References

Dawley, L 2007, The tools for successful online teaching, Information Science Publishing, Hershey.

Dawson, S 2006, ‘A study of the relationship between student communication interaction and sense of community’, The Internet and Higher Education, vol. 9, pp. 153–162.

Lin, Q 2008, ‘Student satisfactions in four mixed courses in elementary teacher education program’, The Internet and Higher Education, vol. 11, pp. 53–59.

Redmond, P & Lock, JV 2006, ‘A flexible framework for online collaborative learning’, The Internet and Higher Education, vol. 9, pp. 267–276.

Rovai, AP 2002, ‘Sense of community, perceived cognitive learning, and persistence in asynchronous learning networks’, The Internet and Higher Education, vol. 5, pp. 319–332.

Saunders, S 1999, ‘Social psychology of adult learning’, in J Athanasou (ed.), Adult educational psychology, Sydney Social Press, Katoomba, pp. 25–71.

Song, L, Singleton, ES, Hill, JR & Koh, MH 2004, ‘Improving online learning: student perceptions of useful and challenging characteristics’, The Internet and Higher Education, vol. 7, pp. 59–70.

Woods, R, Baker, JD & Hopper, D 2004, ‘Hybrid structures: faculty use and perception of web-based courseware as a supplement to face-to-face instruction’, The Internet and Higher Education, vol. 7, pp. 281–297.