e-chronicle

My view on the nature of a learning community

Learning, as defined by Miller and Findlay (1996), is “the process of acquiring knowledge, attitudes, or skills from study, instruction, or experience” (p.167). Duffy and Cunningham (1996, p. 171, cited in Redmond & Lock 2006) went a step further to describe learning as “an active process of constructing rather than acquiring knowledge”, and that “instruction is a process of supporting that construction”. So in order for learning to be meaningful, it should be “active, constructive, intentional, authentic and cooperative” (Jonassen, Peck & Wilson 1999, p. 7, cited in Redmond & Lock 2006).

There is a wide array of definitions of “community”, and the following best sums it up: “(a community consists of) a specific group of people, often living in a defined geographical area, who share a common culture, values and norms, are arranged in a social structure according to relationships which the community has developed over a period of time. Members of a community gain their personal and social identity by sharing common beliefs, values and norms which have been developed by the community in the past and may be modified in the future. They exhibit some awareness of their identity as a group, and share common needs and a commitment to meeting them” (NSW Health n.d.). Hence, in this context, a learning community is a group of individuals who come together with common, agreed learning objective(s), for the purpose of knowledge/attitudes/skills construction and acquisition, and function and interact within agreed social parameters over a period of time. Because such learning is taking place in social contexts, involving group members to interact with one another, consideration has to be given to the significance of the group dynamics, and the implications of social psychology for the learning practice (Saunders 1999).

The nature and focus of the learning community

CUC100 Academic Literacies is one of the three common units that all Charles Darwin University (CDU) students commencing a bachelor’s degree, associate degree or advanced diploma must undertake (for more information on the three common units, look up the website at http://learnline.cdu.edu.au/commonunits/index.html). The main aims of CUC100 Academic Literacies are:

• to enable students to develop skills in reading, writing, and critical evaluation.
• to strengthen students information literacy in regard to their ability to identify, access, evaluate, organise and communicate information.
• to ensure that students are able to make use of commonly required computer skills, such as word processing, internet, email and Learnline, and creating visual presentations and spreadsheets
• to help students appreciate different ways of knowing, particularly the critical evaluation favoured by western academia.
• in recognising these different ways of knowing, provide students with the opportunity to learn in a variety of modes in a variety of ways.
• to provide students with the opportunity to become familiar with university culture, particularly the culture of Charles Darwin University.

  (Prichard 2007)

Learnline (Blackboard Academic Suite; equivalent to UTSOnline) is CDU’s online learning system. Specifically, Learnline is used in CUC100 Academic Literacies as a tool for:

• Information about the unit
• Learning materials and resources
• Links to the readings
• Announcements
• Discussions
• Sharing ideas and emailing
• Assignment submission
• Accessing grades.

CUC100 Academic Literacies consists of four components: Reading and Thinking Critically, Communicating, Computing, and Researching. The focus here is on a group of external students in the Communicating component, of which I am one of the tutors. External students are those who choose to study off-campus for various reasons (e.g. personal, geographical, etc.). They work through the learning resources on their own and at their own pace, with the option of interaction with other students online (via Learnline and email). The course materials provide them with completely self-contained weekly tasks/activities that match the on-campus tutorials, and they have the advantage of being able to fast track through them where they are confident with the skills.

How I recognise the e-community as a learning community

The external students are divided into groups of about 20 each, and a Communicating tutor is assigned to each group. Each group is given a space in Learnline, with Discussion Board (with weekly forums), and the functions of email and file exchanges. We have here a group of external students and the tutor coming together with a set of learning objectives to achieve, to meet and interact with each other at a common (cyber)space. So we have an educational telecollaboration (i.e. online collaboration learning) that involves members in different locations using Internet tools and resources to work and learn together, and it is curriculum-based, teacher-designed and teacher-coordinated (Harris 1999, p. 55, cited in Redmond & Lock 2006). This is an educational experience involving a social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence (Garrison & Anderson 2003, cited in Redmond & Lock 2006).

Why might it be of value to my experiences as a learning community?

We have learned from social psychology that 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). It will be interesting, from the point of view as a tutor/facilitator, to observe and investigate the social learning theory, social comparison theory, social judgement theory, social penetration theory, self-monitoring and group dynamics at play within this learning community, and to compare that with my own social learning experience in EMT1 as a student. Hopefully, this in-depth observation, investigation, and experience will help me to be an effective participant (be it as a learner, teacher/facilitator, or both) of a learning community in the future, and create a keen awareness of what makes a good e-learning environment as an e-learning designer.

My expectations as a learner/participant in this community

Saunders (1999) reviewed the various research and studies in relation to the theories mentioned above, and highlighted (1) the significance of these theories for the social psychology of adult learning, and (2) the implications of these theories for adult education practices. I will be take heed of the latter as a tutor in the learning community, and put them into practice where applicable, so to create a more conducive social learning environment. I shall expect the learners to respond positively to these practices, as outlined in the former. In the event if some learners do not respond well, or fail to actively participate in the learning community nor engage in meaningful, constructivist learning, the contributing factors should be sought out and resolved for future reference. So the bottom line is, I expect members of the learning community to engage in meaningful learning by actively constructing knowledge through online collaboration learning, and I am there to provide that support in the process.

References

Miller, E & Findlay, M (eds) 1996, Australian thesaurus of education descriptors, 2nd edn, Australian Council for Educational Research, Camberwell, p.167.

NSW Health n.d., Health Promotion Glossary, NSW Department of Health, accessed 25 March 2008, <http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/public-health/health-promotion/abouthp/glossary.html>

Prichard, N 2007, CUC100 Academic Literacies, Charles Darwin University, accessed 25 March 2008, <http://learnline.cdu.edu.au/commonunits/units/cuc100.html>

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

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