Clare Brett

The relationship between class size and online activity patterns in asynchronous computer conferencing environments

This study analyzes the relationship between class size and student online activity patterns in a series of 28 graduate level computer conferencing courses. Quantitative analyses of note production, average note size, note opening and note reading percentages found a significant positive correlation between class size and mean number of notes generated. Significant negative correlations were found between class size and average note size and between class size and percent of notes opened. Analyses of average reading speeds among large classes and small classes revealed that students in large classes were more likely to scan lengthy notes (i.e., notes that contain more than 350 words). Possible explanations for these results are discussed.

Off-Line Factors Contributing to Online Engagement

Abstract Online discourse environments are increasingly popular both in distance education contexts and as adjuncts to face-to-face learning. For many participants such contexts are experienced as positive, community-supported learning opportunities, but this is not the case for everyone. Understanding more about the online and off-line factors that contribute to the online experience is important in order to support equitable online learning. This study has analysed patterns of engagement and disengagement in one particular learning context; that of pre-service, math-anxious elementary candidates enrolled in a two-year pre-service program. Program supports for the self-declared math-anxious participants (n = 20 from a total cohort of 57) included small-group math investigations and participation in an online learning environment. Results show tremendous variability in levels of contribution and that the online context provided most learning support for participants who had had successful social and subject-related experiences in the program. Those with fewer successful face-to-face experiences who espoused an ability-based notion of subject matter, and who felt less able to contribute substantively, participated less online. As well, patterns of participation were established rapidly and were hard to change.

Online Class Size, Note Reading, Note Writing and Collaborative Discourse.

Researchers have long recognized class size as affecting students’ performance in face-to-face contexts. However, few studies have examined the effects of class size on exact reading and writing loads in online graduate-level courses. This mixed-methods study examined relationships among class size, note reading, note writing, and collaborative discourse by analyzing tracking logs from 25 graduate-level online courses (25 instructors and 341 students) and interviews with 10 instructors and 12 graduate students. The quantitative and qualitative data analyses were designed to complement each other. The findings from this study point to class size as a major factor affecting note reading and writing loads in online graduate-level courses. Class size was found positively correlated with total number of notes students and instructors read and wrote, but negatively correlated with the percentage of notes students read, their note size and note grade level score. In larger classes, participants were more likely to experience information overload and students were more selective in reading notes. The data also suggest that the overload effects of large classes can be minimized by dividing students into small groups for discussion purposes. Interviewees felt that the use of small groups in large classes benefited their collaborative discussions. Findings suggested 13 to 15 as an optimal class size. The paper concludes with a list of pedagogical recommendations and suggestions for new multimedia software features to enhance collaborative learning in online classes.

Prompting authentic blogging practice in an online graduate course

Blogging is characterized by an individual exploration of ideas of personal interest through frequent online posts, documenting ideas as they emerge over time. Community emerges as bloggers read and link across blogs, based on shared interests. Blogs have gained acceptance in higher education for a variety of instructional activities, among which, reflective journal writing is popular. In this study, we examine a project in which blogs were implemented within an online graduate course in order to create opportunities for students to reflect on their academic, professional and personal interests, with the goal of establishing consistent blogging that exhibits the timely, frequent and interest-driven practices of blogging practices outside educational contexts. Students enrolled in an online graduate course maintained individual blogs in which they were prompted to write about their interests and experiences as graduate students. Through an analysis of the patterns of prompt use and blog content, as well as data from a post-course survey and an online discussion, we explore how to support student engagement with blogging practice within an educational setting. Findings suggest that frequency of writing, topic resonance with the students own interests, and the timeliness of entries were key factors in scaffolding writing that aligns with blogging practice. By focusing on writing as characterized by authentic blogging practice, this study contributes to an understanding of how to harness the unique communicative elements of the blog in post-secondary settings.

Collaborative Knowledge Building: Preservice Teachers and Elementary Students Talking to Learn

Two target groups, one composed of six preservice teachers and one of six Grade 5/6 students, are videotaped as they meet over a six-month period to conduct their collaborative groupwork. We take a socio-constructivist stance towards knowledge building, and as such, we are interested in how students collaboratively assist one another by pushing for deeper understanding and relating back to what the group already knows. Groups are given strategies to help them develop working norms and discourse structures in an effort to promote inquiry. We argue for a distinction between argument for inquiry and argument for persuasion in order to assess knowledge-building collaboration discourse. Language and social issues are addressed along with the cognitive issues of managing problem finding and problem solving. Analyses suggest that as the Grade 5/6 group learned to discuss and argue ideas explicitly as a means of inquiry they were better able to help each other advance their understanding. The preservice teachers,...

Educational Perspectives on Digital Communications Technologies

This article examines key issues in how new technologies are impacting upon how we teach, learn and collaborate, and uses an educational research project called GRAIL (Graduate Researchers Academic Identity Online) under development to illustrate some fundamental issues in adopting new technologies. A significant challenge to the effective use of new technologies in education is the evolution of social practices around those technologies and the discrepancies between broader social uses of new technologies and how those same technologies can be used in educational contexts. The article describes challenges to design along the dimensions of public/private and individual/collaborative and uses data from a series of project research studies to illustrate the nature of these challenges and possible solutions. The taking up of new technologies in new ways requires the evolution of social practices of use – these practices simultaneously reflect and change our culture, and the evolution of such processes takes time.

Online Learning Journals as an Instructional and Self-Assessment Tool for Epistemological Growth

This study looked at the instructional and assessment effects of using learning journals in three distance asynchronous computer conferencing courses (n=18, n=16, n=17). The instructor used a design-research methodology: each iteration of the course involved modifications to how learning journals were used based on analyses of the responses and results from the preceding course. Modifications included: a) use of orienting questions; b) question content, c) journal assessment and d) amount of scaffolding. Protocols were analyzed with a view to characterizing students’ epistemic cognition from two perspectives: belief mode (rationalist epistemology, self analysis, norms of inquiry to defend competing beliefs) and design mode (knowledge building epistemology, collective responsibility, norms of inquiry to support idea improvement and explanatory coherence). Changes in metacognitive reflection and learning journal activity were related to measures of learning. As a pedagogical tool, learning journals with directed questions (scaffolding) encouraged self-awareness of learning and epistemological reflection. Resume : La presente etude a examine les effets de l’utilisation de journaux d’apprentissage sur l’enseignement et l’evaluation dans trois cours a distance asynchrones en teleconference assistee par ordinateur (n = 18, n = 16, n = 17). L’instructeur a utilise une methodologie de recherche-conception : a chaque prestation du cours, des modifications etaient apportees a la maniere dont les journaux d’apprentissage etaient utilises en se basant sur l’analyse des reponses et les resultats obtenus lors de la prestation precedente. Les modifications concernaient : a) l’utilisation de questions d’orientation; b) le contenu des questions; c) l’evaluation du journal; d) la quantite d’echafaudage. Les protocoles ont ete analyses de maniere a caracteriser la cognition epistemique des etudiants a partir de deux points de vue : le mode « croyance » (epistemologie rationaliste, autoanalyse, normes d’enquete pour defendre les croyances concurrentes) et le mode « conception » (epistemologie de coelaboration des connaissances, responsabilite collective, normes d’enquete pour appuyer l’amelioration des idees et la coherence explicative). Les changements dans la reflexion metacognitive et l’activite des journaux d’apprentissage etaient lies a des mesures de l’apprentissage. En tant qu’outil pedagogique, les journaux d’apprentissage avec questions dirigees (echafaudage) encouragent la prise de conscience de l’apprentissage et la reflexion epistemologique.

Preparation With Web-Based Observational Practice Improves Efficiency of Simulation-Based Mastery Learning.

Introduction Our current understanding of what results in effective simulation-based training is restricted to the physical practice and debriefing stages, with little attention paid to the earliest stage: how learners are prepared for these experiences. This study explored the utility of Web-based observational practice (OP) —featuring combinations of reading materials (RMs), OP, and collaboration— to prepare novice medical students for a simulation-based mastery learning (SBML) workshop in central venous catheterization. Methods Thirty medical students were randomized into the following 3 groups differing in their preparatory materials for a SBML workshop in central venous catheterization: a control group with RMs only, a group with Web-based groups including individual OP, and collaborative OP (COP) groups in addition to RM. Preparation occurred 1 week before the SBML workshop, followed by a retention test 1-week afterward. The impact on the learning efficiency was measured by time to completion (TTC) of the SBML workshop. Web site preparation behavior data were also collected. Results Web-based groups demonstrated significantly lower TTC when compared with the RM group, (P = 0.038, d = 0.74). Although no differences were found between any group performances at retention, the COP group spent significantly more time and produced more elaborate answers, than the OP group on an OP activity during preparation. Discussion When preparing for SBML, Web-based OP is superior to reading materials alone; however, COP may be an important motivational factor to increase learner engagement with instructional materials. Taken together, Web-based preparation and, specifically, OP may be an important consideration in optimizing simulation instructional design.

A Cognitive-Adaptationist Approach to Remediating Reading Problems.

This study explored the effectiveness of using a cognitively based approach to remediating the reading disability of a third‐grade student. In particular, it investigated the effect of helping the student develop an “intentional” approach to his own learning through acquiring insight into his own reading strategies. Both the procedures used and the students progress in reading contrasted with those associated with a conventional diagnostic‐prescriptive approach.