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Henry James Robinson

My Analysis of Connectivism from EAP, ESOL Perspectives

Saturday, 22 Feb 2020, 16:25
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Edited by Henry James Robinson, Wednesday, 25 Mar 2020, 12:44

Venn diagram-Congnitivism and Connectivism

Connectivism, EAP and ESOL Teaching/Learning

My best way of analysing and critiquing connectivism, whether as a pedagogical principal or as a learning theory is through the lens of my own learning and teaching. First, my teaching.  I am an EAP and an ESOL teacher.   For most of my learners, the content they learn (I am thinking of EAP primarily when I speak of ‘content’) work alongside the challenges they face as non-native speakers of English and grasping the academic culture viewpoint from which I work. Facing those challenges are very relevant and necessary for them because they either wish to study in English or studying in a western academic context or both and the western academic ‘ethos’ is dominant in the world they live in.  And of course, the other ‘world’ they live in is the one that Siemens (2005) and Downes (2005) in which Web 2.0 has given them new access to different forms of communication and ways of forming knowledge. The sociotechnical context for learning and education has changed and is now developing at such a rate due to the internet and other emerging technologies, that a new concept of learning and new approaches to teaching and learning are required.  For the EAP practitioner, this realisation came first in the form of distance learning via email communication with learners. Then the establishment of websites whereby learners could access materials related to a specific course, and now followed by tools for synchronous and asynchronous video communication, VLE, LMS and by open online courses (MOOCs).   I had equated MOOCs much more with constructivist theory (where the learner actively ‘constructs’ meaning from their interactions with others within an environment in which knowledge and learning is exchanged) after first learning about connectivism as a concept, which I felt lacked rigour.  But I see now more clearly its influence in MOOCs I have studied on and I can see its potential by applying each aspect of the theory (from background to foreground) to my own areas of practice.

The three background concepts that have most influence the development of connectivism are:

chaos - knowledge is no longer acquired in a linear manner

complexity and self-organization - chaos complicates pattern recognition and makes it necessary for the learner to self-organise

 the existence of networks - that the learning can form and tap into

With knowledge located in dissipated sources and organised chaotically, the learner’s role is to find and recognize hidden patterns, and to make sense of the seeming chaos.

Likewise, English and the ensuing academic culture that is partly language bound can appear incomprehensible to speakers of other languages and those from a different academic background and tradition.  Different sources, including faculty members will say conflicting things or what they say may be interpreted differently and because language and conventions evolve, which is impossible to predict a connectivism approach can help to understand the Foreign language and western ‘system’ of education.  Perceiving language as a network of networks (e.g. how morphology relates to the syntactic, lexical, and phonological networks etc).  In EAP, there is a need to connect the concept of plagiarism, with citing and referencing and with the concept of academic honesty in research and knowledge sharing.  They need to navigate the array of internet sources of research findings and the importance of networks is nowadays highly emphasised when it comes to conducting their own research.  For language learners, networks are a means of practicing skills such as writing and speaking through the ties they form online.  There are many networks that provide answers to queries about language use and meaning.   

For language learners, Veselá (2013, p7) writes how language content can be divided according to the Siemens’ principles:

  • data (e.g. irregular forms of past tense)
  • information (meaning and use of these forms)
  • knowledge (ability to use these forms in context)
  • meaning (past tense in the context of the English tense system and the possibilities of how to express it)

Whether a foreign language or a foreign academic culture, learners need to decode, understand, and connect new nodes of learning with former ones.

Veselá (2013, p8) does a useful take of the definition of connectivism from an ESOL viewpoint (I've added a column for EAP):

 

 Connectivist Principles

ESOL

EAP

Connectivism is based on the diversity of viewpoints

In language, the diversity can be seen in meanings of a word, a phrase, or a sentence in various contexts, as well as its variants (regional, social...).

In academia, criticality is paramount – being able to dissect various viewpoints in arriving at an educated thesis

Learning is a process of creating connections among the nodes or information resources

 

The connecting of nodes and language networks is described above. In foreign language education it is important to use a variety of information resources

In primary research originality is vital, for that you need to know all that is out there and be up on what’s going on. You need connections for that.

Education may reside in non-human appliances

 

E-learning uses the systems for education that work without human interference. It is necessary to exploit their potential (e.g. multichannel input – sound, picture, motion, feedback etc.).

Non-human appliances enable the researcher to collate, organise and cross-reference all existing data in ways undreamt of just decades ago.

Capacity of potential knowledge is more important than the amount of the actual knowledge

Learning a foreign language is a field in which we can never say that we have learnt it.

Researchers are forever meant to be pushing the boundaries of knowledge through their own practice as researchers, whilst continually challenging what’s seen as existing knowledge

Maintenance of connections is important for continuous learning

Our ability requires continual practice. One must add new nodes and connections, also maintain and update old ones.

As soon as a researcher is out of contact with current streams of research in their field, they become isolated and their own work loses currency

The ability to see connections is the basic skill

 

Mastery of a foreign language is about fluency in the connections in the language networks.

Very often researchers’ conclusions and claims fall short of the benchmarks of accuracy, reliability and validity, replicability etc

Currency and accuracy are the aim of connectivist activities

It is necessary to use the sources of the language in current use.

Seminal work apart, research is advancing so quickly, currency must be proven against the benchmark of the most up to date and authoritative sources

Decision making process is a part of learning

The possibility to choose is an important factor of the foreign language education. The motivation increases when the learner decides not only about the language, he/she will learn, but also about the field in the case of learning a foreign language for specific purposes

An example is that often my students’ first choice is Wikipedia, despite all the encouragement we give them to choose other sources (through studies show Wikipedia is a reliable source it is not authoritative).

 

So despite my early skepticism, having studied on MOOCs for a few years now, I can see how the principals of connectivism are both reflected in MOOCs I’ve studied on and can provide the basis of effective learning. When thinking about our use of technology in education we can use its principles to guide and evaluate the tasks and activities we use.

 

References

George Siemens – Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, Journal of Instructional Technology: https://www.itdl.org/journal/jan_05/article01.ht

Downes, S. (2005). An introduction to connective knowledge [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=33034.

Downes, S. (2005, December 22). An introduction to connective knowledge [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=33034.

Connectivism has been disseminated through a book (George Siemens, 2006b), a series of articles (Downes, 2005, 2006a, 2006b, 2007a, 2008; Siemens, 2004, 2005, 2006a), blog posts at http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/ and http://www.connectivism.ca/, a large number of presentations  at conferences and workshops (see http://www.elearnspace.org/presentations.htm and http://www.downes.ca/me/presentations.htm), and through two instances of multiple open online courses (MOOCs) titled Connectivism and Connective Knowledge, held in 2008 (CCK08 http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2008/10/30/connectivism-course-cck08/)  and 2009 (CCK09 http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/connectivism/?p=198).

Tags: networks, complexity, chaos, elearning, connectivist, eap, esol, language learning, connectivism
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Henry James Robinson

B. F. Skinner a la 21st Century Language Classroom

Friday, 21 Feb 2020, 11:39
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Edited by Henry James Robinson, Wednesday, 25 Mar 2020, 12:45

blooms_taxonomy_for_teachers

PicturesSource: https://www.edgalaxy.com/journal/2019/11/4/a-teachers-guide-to-blooms-taxonomy

This week we were asked to review the work of B.F. Skinner.  I did so from the point of view of the language teacher:

Strengths

From the point of view of the language teacher, the overall strength of Skinner's (Skinner, 1953) work is as a foundation for making the understanding of both normal and aberrant human behaviour less of a field for the charlatan and the superstitious and giving it a more scientific basis and thus professionalizing the field of Psychology.   We can say that his theories were strong since they still form many of the bases for current practice in language acquisition,  and teaching still used today.  With the work of researchers like Skinner, these areas are seen as more credible if they are based on scientific research and help eliminate 'intuition' and 'experience' accepted knowledge about effective pedagogy.  In other words, Skinner’s concepts of operant conditioning (learning can be aided by the use of rewards and punishments) and classical conditioning (we learn by associating events) were the blueprints for evidence-based applications in behaviorism.  This was a departure from the idea that we learned language chiefly via a language learning node in our brains and encouraged us to think of language acquisition and development as something that can be influenced by teachers and learners. Hence, teachers' application of behaviourist methods involves teacher-centered presenting information, asking questions, providing positive reinforcement for correct answers and repetition. Teachers adopting a behaviorist mindset see curricula as a teaching guideline, where text-based exercises of increasing difficulty are regularly repeated and reviewed.  This is reflected in the work of behaviourists such as Bloom (1956) and Gagné (1965), whose work is also still dominant in education.  

Limitations

As already mentioned above, from the language teacher's perspective, Skinner's theories when applied to pedagogy focuses too much on the 'nurture' side of the nature/nurture debate. It could lead to the conclusion that all behaviour is learned but cognitive and biological elements have been proven to also affect learning.  Hence 'readiness' is also a big factor in learning and reminds us that learning cannot always be 'forced'.  Nature accounts for why adults are not able to acquire language as easily and deeply as children, for example.   Some other limitations are that behaviouism can only be taken so far.  Not all behaviours are observable.  Behaviourism It can never account for all learning or all behaviours in a learning context.  . If we believed that as teachers and acted accordingly, did, it could be deemed immoral -  condoning extreme punishments and treating people like robots. Behaviorism doesn’t clearly Explain how we Learn through Social Interaction and critical thinking is recognised or encouraged.

Predictions / Implications

As hinted above, humans are not robots and Skinner's theories could be interpreted to be going that way if applied in the wrong way. However, could it be that in the future we will be able to hack into the human mind and 'improve' learning a la Skinner - programming humans behave in set ways to certain stimuli?   One thing some would argue can be predicted is that many of the pedagogical practices inspired by Skinner will still be present in 10-20 years' time.   We can predict this based on some of the research we are aware of now. Research by (Murtonena, Gruber, and Lehtinen, 2017), for example, found that behaviourist tradition is still evident in 21st-century learning outcomes studies; 40% of articles studied referred uncritically to the behaviouristic epistemology and only 8% of the articles were critical towards the behaviourist tradition.  




Tags: skinner, conditioning, pedagogy, learning, education language teaching
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Henry James Robinson

Week 3: A theory for eLearning

Friday, 21 Feb 2020, 08:22
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Edited by Henry James Robinson, Wednesday, 25 Mar 2020, 12:48

Graphic representation of students using technology connected via a network of lines.

Strange week, what with the school inspectors coming from Nursultan and international staff still speculating on their futures in the face of your typical post-Soviet need limit even the most basic information to those at the base of the hierarchy, even if it shoots you in your own foot.  This was the week when suddenly local teachers (just to appear to be following policy) wanted in on my classes, even though I had been shouting and screaming for team teaching all year to no avail.   

This week we were asked to read Nichols' (2003), A theory for eLearning, and review his 10 eLearning hypotheses.

It was really interesting reading because it puts the reader in the position of looking back at how much eLearning has developed since those times, whilst at the same time, in many instances, showing us how far we can potentially go, as in some ways, not much has changed.   At the same time, Nichols provides a retrospective on the two decades prior to its writing, with references as far back as the early eighties, when distance learning and more dislocated and email contact with your tutor were such an innovative break from learning only in the four walls of colleges and universities.  We can see how focussed theorists were in those days by how staunchly most of the hypotheses have weathered time since then. For example, the major terms and concepts (pg 2-3) of Online learning; eLearning; Mixed-mode/blended/resource-based learning; Web-based, Web-distributed or Webcapable and Learning Management System (LMS).  


Hypothesis 1: eLearning is a means of implementing education that can be applied within varying education models (for example, face to face or distance education) and educational philosophies (for example behaviourism and constructivism).
Hypothesis 2: eLearning enables unique forms of education that fits within the existing paradigms of face to face and distance education.
Hypothesis 3: The choice of eLearning tools should reflect rather than determine the pedagogy of a course; how technology is used is more important than which technology is used.
Hypothesis 4: eLearning advances primarily through the successful implementation of pedagogical innovation.
Hypothesis 5: eLearning can be used in two major ways; the presentation of educational content, and the facilitation of education processes.
Hypothesis 6: eLearning tools are best made to operate within a carefully selected and optimally integrated course design model.
Hypothesis 7: eLearning tools and techniques should be used only after consideration has been given to online vs offline trade-offs.
Hypothesis 8: Effective eLearning practice considers the ways in which end-users will engage with the learning opportunities provided to them.
Hypothesis 9: The overall aim of education, that is, the development of the learner in the context of a predetermined curriculum or set of learning objectives, does not change when eLearning is applied.
Hypothesis 10: Only pedagogical advantages will provide a lasting rationale for implementing eLearning approaches.


I fully agree with most of the hypotheses, mainly because I have used eLearning to achieve teaching/learning goals quite extensively and so I have experience of the basic hypotheses - that is is a method rather than an approach in itself and can fit with different approaches - online and face-to-face or 'situated'.  In course H880, we learned in theory and in practice how pedagogy should determine its use, not technology determining the pedagogy.  So, hypothesis 4, that ‘eLearning advances primarily through the successful implementation of pedagogical innovation’ resonates with me because pedagogical innovation is far more interesting to me that technology as, for one,  in my teaching context, technological innovation is limited by institutional (e.g. restrictions on the use of phones in the classroom - unlike in some university contexts in which I've worked) and there are fewer opportunities and resources to use technology (again, unlike in some university contexts in which I've worked).  Therefore, I get more out of developing my approaches to teaching and I find it more interesting anyway as for me, it is the essence of the teaching role - not promoting the latest app or hardware, which might be eye-catching and engaging at first, but whose novelty soon wears off. 

I may take some issue with the 'absolutist' terms in which eLearning is referred to in hypotheses 6 and 9, where a course comprises a pre-selected format and content (I guess that could be argued to be a top-down approach, using a traditional course design method).  Though I am not sure whether the model has ever been ever successfully applied and adopted longterm by any institution, connectivism (e.g. Siemens, 2005 and Downs, 2005) is a more bottom-up approach, with learning more tailored to the individual's personal learning network (PLN).  It constitutes a completely different proposition in terms of course 'design' and of course, it did not emerge until 2 years after the writing of the Nichols (2003) article.  As well as reading the articles below, the reader can learn more about connectivism by studying the section on this learning theory from the FutureLearn course, Learning in the Network Age. 



References
Downes, S. (2006). Learning networks and connective knowledge. Collective intelligence and elearning, 20, 1-26. Chicago
Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: Learning as network-creation. ASTD Learning News, 10(1). Chicago
Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. Chicago


Tags: network age, elearning, online course, connectivism, learning theory, pedagogy, blended learning, distance learning
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Henry James Robinson

Assessing Innovation II: xDelia and How Emotions Affect Financial Decisions

Sunday, 9 Feb 2020, 07:32
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Edited by Henry James Robinson, Wednesday, 25 Mar 2020, 12:46

Emotions and Finance

I chose to look at xDelia as another example I could use to test my judgment of how innovative a tool or project was.  xDelia is an open science project looking into how emotions affect financial decisions, with a mission to improve decision making so that future financial crises might be averted.   I am quite sure that this is a reference not only to individual, small scale decision making but also on the scale of the 2008 crisis, created by the poor decision making of the world's banks.  It is worth noting that some very brief research informs me that emotions are a psychophysiological process and that I found some research from the mid to late 20th century on the psychological factors in financial decision making, e.g. Slovic (1972).  We see studies of emotional factors in finance decisions appearing much more in the last two decades, e.g. Lund (2016) including of course by writers on the xDelia team (Peffer et al, e.g. 2012).  I judge the project to be innovative because it draws on open research and a contemporary research area (emotions and financial decision-making) and because of the multi-disciplinary nature of it (financial trading, quantitative finance, psychology of finance, learning technology design and evaluation, experimental psychology, neuroeconomics, experimental economics, physioeconomics, psychophysiology, sensor engineering, game development, and financial capability). The use of gaming is relatively new as a research technique and very likely the methods have been developed especially for this project. 



References
Lund, M. (2016) ‘Emotion often drives our financial decisions, even when logic should’, The Enterprise. Salt Lake City: Enterprise Business Newspaper Inc., 46(15), p. 15. Available at: http://search.proquest.com/docview/1843259448/.


Peffer et al. (2012) xDelia final report: emotion-centred financial decision making and learning. Open University, CIMNE.


Slovic, P. (1972). Psychological study of human judgment: Implications for investment decision making. The Journal of Finance, 27(4), 779-799.

Tags: innovation, emotions and finance, xdelia, open research, open data, open science
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Henry James Robinson

Assessing Innovation

Sunday, 9 Feb 2020, 07:22
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Edited by Henry James Robinson, Wednesday, 25 Mar 2020, 12:55

OER bookshelf

Image: Opensource.com CC BY-SA 2.0
This week, we were asked to again practice our research skills by using them to assess how innovative a project was and how successful OER (open educational resources) had been as an innovation since its introduction.   Our task was structured around the following questions:


1.    How would you judge OpenLearn in terms of your definition of innovation?

I would judge OpenLearn to be very innovative because it incorporates many, if not all, of the features of OL, OEP, and OER in one. These include all that was envisaged since the article McAndrew and Farrow (2013) was published and those envisaged by early writers on open learning mentioned in the section entitled 'OER as the Supporter of Educational Theory', even as far back as the beginning of the previous century.  The OU was one of the pioneers of OL in practice and the OpenLearn has around for more than 20 years and OpenLearn in its current form has already been active for 14 years.   An illustration we get from the article is the use of digital badges, once looked upon as the 'future of learning' (Duncan, 2011, cited in the article).  Duncan, however, argues that 'the badge system cannot work without an open educational infrastructure'  (McAndrew and Farrow, 2013, p71).  OpenLearn provides that. 


2.    What key challenges facing the OER movement can be dealt with more quickly than others?
The article suggests that certain persistent challenges exist - copyright, technology, access.  But I think what they recognise the reality that technology, granting more and more access is advancing very quickly and that the copyright issues have been addressed significantly by Creative Commons (though there is an ongoing problem of 'theft' of ostensibly protected open resources materials).  The evidence suggests, according to the authors, that of the challenges listed on page 68, the first 3 have been addressed the quickest, to some extent, whilst solutions to the others remain in question.  


3.    How do open educational resources challenge conventional assumptions about paying for higher education modules?  
The assumption is that higher education modules are high quality, delivered by experts and that they provide essential revenue for the institutions that produce and purchase the materials and resources the modules are based on and can therefore only be made available for its registered users.  That way they can pay for the use of the resources and for their products and for the faculty to deliver them.  It seems counter-intuitive that they make these modules available free of charge.  The institutions do, however, can valuable 'PR', publicity and promotion from doing it; they also provide fee-paying services within these free programmes.  All this, along with support from the government to expand education provision go a long way to making these enterprises worthwhile.  The challenge is that the academic cultural environment has not yet fully accepted this way of working, as mention on the section entitled 'Research and Scholarship' - the implications of this non-acceptance of open publishing go beyond whether faculty produce and publish in the traditional way, but touch on the whole idea of the purpose of HEIs. 


I found this to be a good way to revise the real significance to education change OER represents and the meaning of its related terms such as OEP (open educational practice), Open Science, Open data etc. OER has gone a long way since its inception with projects started by Rice University, Carnegie Mellon and MIT (Connexions, Open Learning Initiative, and OpenCourseWare respectively, though Connexions has changed its name and is soon to retire).


I noticed I am becoming more proficient at researching. I am using keyword searches and my resources such as the OU library service, EBSCOhost, and Google scholar more efficiently and I am getting my ideas down faster in writing.  These are all benefits of my study with the OU.  I should continue to manage my time efficiently so I can continue to get the most out of my studies, as I have not even begun to make the most of the resources available to us to supplement what I discover myself and to improve my tech skills. 




Tags: assessing innovation, oer, open educational resources, open educational practice, oep
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Henry James Robinson

Response 'Minds on Fire: Open Education...and Learning 2.0' (Brown and Adler, 2008)

Thursday, 6 Feb 2020, 15:08
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Edited by Henry James Robinson, Wednesday, 25 Mar 2020, 12:57

This is a ladybug larvae, a preset for the electron microscope the Bugscope Project uses. "We find the grossest stuff for the kids to see, because they like it," said Scott Robinson, Bugscope team member.

Picture Source: Keating, A (2014) ‘Bugscope Project lets students drive an electron microscope from class’ The Daily Illini – student newspaper online. Available at:  https://dailyillini.com/news/2014/04/28/bugscope-project-lets-students-drive-an-electron-microscope-from-class/

One of the last acts we were asked to perform in our first week of the H817 course was to review the article Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0 by authors Brown and Adler (2008).  The message of the article should have a strong resonance with anyone who is or who wants to become an open practitioner in their field, to inspire constructive learning and be part of a constructive learning community.  They point out that this represents a paradigm shift in our concept of learning on two fronts:  firstly from the Cartesian view of learning which sees learning as the gathering knowledge that is transferred from teacher to student (rather, knowledge can also be something that learners construct themselves in collaboration with each other as well as the teacher-guide).  Also, it represents a short-circuiting of the long process of first mastering a field of knowledge ("learning about") before one "learns to be” and becomes part of a community of practice.  As Brown and Adler (2008) write, since the advent of Web 1.0,  distributed virtual communities of practice have appeared, allowing participants to 'work together in a common space and peripherally participate' in each other's learning as well as benefiting from the help of '[an instructors' comments on and critiques of other students' projects'.  

They give several examples such as the now very well-established open-source communities, where anyone can become a software developer and the online "open source" encyclopedia, Wikipedia (Brown and Adler, 2008).  
Our task was to test the robustness of these innovations to survive and adapt in the 21st century by asking whether the project still running; whether further papers have been written since 2008 and whether the project we choose has been adopted by users other than those in the original institution where it was developed.  


I chose the project, bugscope, which was begun by the Beckman Institute of the University of Illinois in 1999 with the idea of providing K-12 classrooms worldwide with remote online access to scanning electron microscope (SEM) via a web interface so that they can examine close up the bug specimens that they discover in their localities and send to the lab.  There have been many such projects aimed at K-12 students since.  Of course, my choice is driven by the area I work in now - K-12 academic English.  The subject (Biology) is not my specialism, but it is of many of my students and working alongside Biologists in a school, I can share all this information with them and both they and I can use it in the classroom (English for Specific Academic Purposes). 


A citizen science-type project, it was always intended to be adopted by users other than those in the institution where it was developed, and it has since conducted hundreds of sessions with schools around the world (1000 it appears at the last count).  The programme is still running and there were several articles were written about it up until 2011 and since then, quite a few articles have referred to bugscope as a good example of scientific outreach of its kind.  For example: Korb and Thakkar (2011); Robinson, Conway, Wallace, Ray, and Thakkar (2011); Manoharan (2017); Hedden and Zhao (2018). 

I found little using the Open University library. I found more by using key words searching Google and Google Scholar. The search 'K-12 Open Science' revealed this very useful source: Open Science Network.

The Unversity of Illinois also started the project Chickscope.  Its web site does not appear to have been updated since 1998 and it uses online MRI images rather than functioning remote-controlled hardware as its resource. 


Of course, there are many projects that have been taken up like this one, aimed at increasing the 'openness, integrity, and reproducibility of research' (Center for Open Science, 2020) in many different fields.   A blog may be a good place to learn about the projects that exist.  




Brown, S.J., & Adler, R. P. (2008). Open education, the long tail, and learning 2.0. Educause review, 43(1), 16-20. Online. Available at: 

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2008/1/minds-on-fire-open-education-the-long-tail-and-learning-20

Hedden, B., & Zhao, X. (2018, August). A Comprehensive Study on Bugs in Actor Systems. In Proceedings of the 47th International Conference on Parallel Processing (pp. 1-9).
Korb, M. A., & Thakkar, U. (2011). Facilitating scientific investigations and training data scientists. Science, 333(6042), 534-535.
Manoharan, H. P. (2017). Simulation of Web-Based APIs for the Remote Operation of Bugscope.

Robinson, S., Conway, C., Wallace, C., Ray, A. M., & Thakkar, U. (2011). Bugscope: Online K–12 Microscopy Outreach. Microscopy Today, 19(2), 46-50.
States News Service (2011) "Science honors electron 'bugscope' project with spore award." Gale OneFile: News, https://link-gale-com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/apps/doc/A262839679/STND?u=tou&sid=STND&xid=1460b297. Accessed 6 Feb. 2020.

Tags: open science, minds on fire, brown and adler (2008)
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Henry James Robinson

How I'll record my reflections

Tuesday, 4 Feb 2020, 15:24
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Edited by Henry James Robinson, Wednesday, 25 Mar 2020, 12:50

This post will be much, much longer than the ones that succeed it because it lays out my approach to recording my day to day experiences on my H817 course.  For the time being, I'll be following my interpretation of Gibb's (1988) reflective cycle approach.  The model is pictured at the bottom of this post.

Step 1 Description

This week I started my new course called Openness and innovation in eLearning, which is a module that can lead to the PGCert, Diploma or Masters in Online and Distance Education.  The course is populated mainly by educational and training professionals and technologists who want to develop their confidence using different technologies in whatever area they work in.  It’s worth remembering this because this blog mainly comes from my own viewpoint, basically as a teacher of English whilst participants come from varied backgrounds, are mainly motivated by professional development but also by purely personal self-development, which could be applied later in their work or studies.

Straight away this week we were into the content side of the course, learning (or re-learning) the power of critical reflection, from my viewpoint for students and teachers. To this end, we revised the general concept, e.g. Park (2003) whose research was in education and specifically the use of journals and we looked at a general model for reflection (Gibbs, 1988).  One of my fellow students, Jennifer Mattschey pointed out how Kolb has written a lot on this subject.  I found an image of Kolbs cycle on Pinterest. 

It is worth keeping a copy of the reflection questions from the UoE website, that was very kindly drawn to our attention by Coral Condeco-Dunachie on our course: 

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Description

•         What happened?

•         When and where did it happen?

•         Who was present?

•         What did you and the other people do?

•         What was the outcome of the situation?

•         Why were you there?

•         What did you want to happen?

 

Feelings

•         What were you feeling during the situation?

•         What were you feeling before and after the situation?

•         What do you think other people were feeling about the situation?

•         What do you think other people feel about the situation now?

•         What were you thinking during the situation?

•         What do you think about the situation now?

Evaluation

•         What was good and bad about the experience?

•         What went well?

•         What didn’t go so well?

•         What did you and other people contribute to the situation (positively or negatively)?

Analysis

•         Why did things go well?

•         Why didn’t it go well?

•         What sense can I make of the situation?

•         What knowledge – my own or others (for example academic literature) can help me understand the situation?

 

Conclusions

•         What did I learn from this situation?

•         How could this have been a more positive situation for everyone involved?

•         What skills do I need to develop for me to handle a situation like this better?

•         What else could I have done?

Action plan

•         If I had to do the same thing again, what would I do differently?

•         How will I develop the required skills I need?

•         How can I make sure that I can act differently next time?

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Step 2 Feelings

I agree with my course colleagues that it is worth trying both the Kolb and Gibbs models for reflective writing in our learning journals whether we use our blogs or some other medium. I’ve headed this section of my blog ‘Step 1 description’ because I decided to use the Gibbs model (below) for this post. Hence, the headings for the remainder of the post. Also, that I should use a shortened version of the Gibbs model, which I think also makes sense, as my aim is 3 posts per week, which a cursory look at the research on maintaining a balance between widening your audience and burning out seems to suggest. 

On my feelings about the course as a whole, I was apprehensive about what new challenges the course would bring, but I gained a lot of confidence from the successful start of my journey to the masters (I completed my first module last August), so the only thing that really concerns me is the workload.  I now know how much you have to put in to get the most out of it and to really feel up with the rest of the ‘team’, some of whom may be studying full time, without work commitments. I won’t try to follow them all or in too much depth this the first time, but generally, I will use them as a guide in all my future posts. At this stage, I’m going to speed up because one of my feelings in this first week is if I don’t speed up, I’m going to get left behind, and that I feel the pressure of making a good first impression and impact. I am sure many others are feeling the same about the situation and the course workload and wondering how to cope, whilst others will have few qualms except whether they can get by focussing on the crucial assignments, which is not my approach.  I want to get the most from the course according to the learning outcomes but working more economically than previously. My worry is if I can do that. I will reflect more on that after a week, not now.

Step 3 Evaluation

To begin to conclude, what has been good so far is getting to know people, but I am still going through the introductions, one or two people have responded to me online.  I have learned the basics of blogging – a major aim of mine and key as one aspect of openness. That and my coping with the tech has gone well. Any bad experiences?  No.  I am happy with the contribution of people I have already mentioned, and the course tutor, whose skills and experience are clear. In addition, some others who are obviously up for working collaboratively. It’s very early to evaluate the course but I can again see the workload is going to be huge and I haven’t cope with that so well so far.  I must force myself to work smarter and be less verbose in everything I do in writing

Analysis

Analysing this middle part of the week, my experience and familiarity with working online and my hardworking character have helped.  My tendency to overdo things has put stress on me. 

Conclusions

I’ve learned most about myself and what I will need to manage about myself and commitments to survive what will be a breakout or break down year for me as it is likely I will change jobs, location and relationships.  I can’t say it could have been a more positive situation because it is still in the learning curve and I reserve judgment.  I’ve stated I need to develop my time and prioritising skills to handle a situation like this better?

Action plan

Looking forward to the remainder of this and to next week, I must bear all these things in mind and act on them – cut down on the YouTube and movies and up the gym and sleep.  If friends etc come to stay, they need to buy into all this and II need to chat with them about that sooner rather than later!

 Gibbs Reflective Cycle

Image: Mulder (2018)




Gibbs, G. (1988). Learning by Doing: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Methods. Oxford: Oxford Further Education Unit.

Mulder, P. (2018). Gibbs Reflective Cycle by Graham Gibbs. Retrieved 01 February 2020 from ToolsHero: https://www.toolshero.com/management/gibbs-reflective-cycle-graham-gibbs/

Park, C. (2003). Engaging students in the learning process: The learning journal. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 27(2), pp.183-199.


Tags: gibbs (1988), reflective cycle, learning journal, blog writing, learning experience
Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by Alan Clarke, Tuesday, 4 Feb 2020, 23:48)
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