Benjamin Kehrwald

Understanding social presence in text-based online learning environments

This article reports on key aspects of a theory generative study into social presence in text‐based online learning environments. The focus of the article is the nature of social presence as experienced by online learners in those environments. Employing a collective case study design, the study accessed online learners’ experience‐based heuristic knowledge through a multi‐phase dialogical process which functioned as an extended interview. Among the key findings was (a) a definition of social presence drawn from learners’ experiences; (b) explication of the nature of social presence in online learning environments; (c) suggestions for the creation and sustenance of social presence in those environments; and (d) support for a relational view of social presence which emphasizes human agency in mediated social processes and foreshadows a role for social presence as a critical element of online learning environments.

Being Online: Social Presence as Subjectivity in Online Learning.

This article discusses the relationship between social presence and subjectivity in online learning environments. Drawing from views of subjectivity synthesised by de Sousa and an exploratory study into online social presence (by Kehrwald), the presentation identifies the links between various forms of subjectivity and the operation of social presence. The conclusions highlight the benefits of explicitly associating subjectivity with social presence in online learning and some of the key implications for online learning practice.

Integrating Educational Technologies into Teacher Education: A Case Study.

This article is a case study of an integrated, experiential approach to improving pre-service teachers’ understanding and use of educational technologies in one New Zealand teacher education programme. The study examines the context, design and implementation of a learning activity which integrated student-centred approaches, experiential learning, authenticity and the particular needs of the New Zealand school curriculum to foster pre-service teachers’ learning about educational technologies as both pedagogical tools, and as ‘disruptive’ forces which can promote the re-imagining of existing practices. Evaluation data are used to highlight support for an integrated approach to the use of educational technologies outlined in the case in question.

Analysing the Learning Networks of Pre-Service and Early Career Teachers

This chapter provides a methodological foundation for analysing the learning networks of PSTs and ECTs. It describes the motivations for adopting a design-based research (DBR) methodology, on the basis that such an approach encourages participation and enables iterative design and epistemological fluidity during the course of the research, as well as producing design principles that are transferable beyond the immediate context. A framework for analysing learning networks is distilled from the concepts from previous chapters. Educational data mining and qualitative analysis are considered in this context for evaluating learning networks, including users’ experiences within these networks, and for informing the design-based research process. The chapter sets out the programme of Chapters 7 and 8 to describe a DBR project investigating support for ECTs through a learning network.

Social Presence Reconsidered: Moving Beyond, Going Back, or Killing Social Presence.

Abstract Online education research has long employed the concept of social presence to study interactions in technologically mediated spaces. Yet, a precise shared definition of social presence does not exist. This article traces how the concept of social presence has been developed and appropriated in the online and distance education literature. We do not simply focus on the historical trajectory of the concept but discuss how it is utilized to address the growing complexities of social interactions in parallel to the increasing affordances of new technologies. Our aim is to illustrate that social presence is over extended and widely stretched to correspond with the possibilities of socialization and that it has long lost its depth and breadth, and thus, its analytical strength. We argue that we should focus more on the relative salience of interpersonal relationships if we are to understand the relational aspects of being online.

Presence, Identity, and Learning in Online Learning Communities

Because activity in virtual communities is mediated by information and communications technologies (ICTs), it is important to understand how the operation of virtual communities, including communication, interaction, collaboration, and other social processes, differs from similar processes in non-mediated, face-to-face communities. This chapter examines the interplay among social presence, social identity, and online collaboration in order to analyse how collaborative reflection occurs in online communities. The first part of the chapter provides a background to understanding key social processes at work in online learning communities. The second part explores these social processes by examining a vignette that describes typical online community activity. The chapter concludes by drawing together current conceptions of technology-mediated social processes to identify implications for teachers’ learning in online communities.

Reflective Practice and Teacher Identities

While it is widely accepted that teacher training should engage with teacher identity, the pedagogic approaches teacher educators should use to foster this are less clearly established. An unexpected finding of our study of the Real-Time Coaching for Pre-service Teachers Model is that it positively influenced the identity development of pre-service teachers. As the pre-service teachers experienced the model, we saw them reflect upon and conceptualise their teaching practice in a variety of ways related to their identity as teachers and values as educators.

Affective Learning: Adaptation, Resilience and Efficacy

This chapter presents research findings on participants’ affective learning within, and as a result of, our model of learning for pre-service teachers. The model focuses on enhancing two key features of students’ practice teaching experience: feedback and reflection. Affective learning is loosely defined here as learning related to ‘things felt’ such as motivation, emotion, interest and attention (Picard, 2004). It includes values, attitudes and dispositions, each of which is manifest in the research data reported in the chapter.

Fostering Teaching Practice and Practical Teaching Skills

This chapter presents an analysis of how the pre-service teachers in this study experienced significant improvements in their pedagogic practice and practical teaching skills. The Real-Time Coaching for Pre-service Teachers Model develops a pre-service teacher’s critical orientation towards teaching practice, which they cast over their own practice and that of their fellow students, as well as the teachers encountered during their practicums. The analysis is divided into three sections: theory into practice; the experience of Real-Time Coaching and the community of learners; and identifying gaps in skills.

A Review of the Literature on Coaching in Pre-service Teacher Education

This chapter focuses on previous scholarship on coaching in pre-service teacher education drawing upon 25 studies published between 1996 and 2016 (see Appendix). The chapter canvasses the diversity of coaching models in teacher education and critically considering the roles that training, feedback, reflective practice and skill development play in each model.