‘Online learning’/‘Networked learning’?

When you hear the words 'online learning' what kind of images does that conjure up for you? What kind of things does it make you think of? Perhaps correspondence learning, distance learning, remote learning come to mind? You may have read the headline recently ‘Rural schools may be forced into online classes as they struggle to hire teachers’ (RNZ,) suggesting that online learning is a poor second. You may have taken a correspondence course in the late nineties or early two thousands and have this as your mental model of online learning.

I would argue that in fact rather than being cold and remote and a poor second to face to face learning, online learning can be incredibly dynamic, innovative, interpersonal, and even exciting. However, and this is a big however, this takes very intentional learning design, a shift in thinking, and a shift in how we define online learning.

Let’s be clear about what is meant by this. First and foremost, we need to acknowledge that learning is a sociocultural endeavour (Vygotsky, 1978). Students are so inextricably networked in their social lives and in their online lives, it would seem counter-intuitive and perhaps a backwards step to ignore this within their online learning. I firmly believe that learning is not just about the content. If that is the sole focus of teaching, it misses the point. To quote a colleague of mine who I greatly respect ‘jamming through content does not equal greater learning, it just equals content covered’. Deep learning does not happen when we try to cram ideas into our students, and this is doubly true in the online setting. NLEC propose the term ‘Networked Learning’ (NLEC, 2020), this comes from a philosophy of connection. That is connections between learners, between learners and teachers, and between learners and learning resources NLEC (2020, p6). The learning community has to be at the heart of the matter. I really like the way that NLEC (2020, p3, para. 3) set out the points of difference for networked learning.

• An insistence on the importance of human relationships opens up questions about trust, power, identity, belonging, difference, affection, reciprocity, solidarity, commitment and time. 

• An interest in how technologies shape and are shaped by human activity, with a recognition that tools, artefacts and infrastructure are assembled or reconfigured in complex ways, provokes questions about the socio-material, affordances, instruments, access, appropriation, ownership, etc. 

• A commitment to collaborative inquiry and joint action in the face of shared challenges raises questions about knowledge, values and action, learning and doing, meaning-making, negotiation, shared projects and praxis, scale, scope, pace and duration and the capabilities needed to shape a world worth living in.

For those of you who teach for NetNZ, or maybe even have dabbled in Knowledge Building Communities this may be starting sound very familiar. For some of you this may be an aha moment. For me it affirms a pedagogy that has intuitively guided me for the past five years and will form the basis of my teaching inquiry heading into the future.

Within NetNZ community and connections have guide practice. NetNZ describes the advantages of being an e-learner amoungother things as ‘Access to a broad, flexible curriculum, anywhere, anytime; Learn to develop greater ownership of your learning; Connect and learn with students across the country’ (NetNZ, n.d.)

At a recent online teacher’s hui we spent some time unpacking some of these cornerstone ideas. I facilitated a group discussion around the connections and community side of things. It was really heartening to hear the kinds of things that teachers valued despite time restraints of online courses. As a whole teachers felt that developing relationships and connections between their learners to be highly important, ‘a foundation to learning’ and vital to establishing trust, safety and a sense of belonging within learners and in the teacher. The ability for students to share ideas, collaborate and work as a team, was highly valued, to the extent that teachers would devote considerable time to establish this at the start of the year and keep coming back to this each week, despite the time restraint of one or two Zoom calls a week. In general, this centred around people, getting to know students as whole people, allowing room to share on a human level, having a sense of humour, making space for student agency and ownership of the course and much, much, more. 1

Anecdotally students really respond to this kind of approach. My own course is highly collaborative and centres around a networked approach with students working as a community of art historian researchers. They are a team. The ideas are developed communally. Although this takes a lot of getting used to for many who are used to education in New Zealand as being highly individualised and somewhat competitive, this is soon valued by students. I have had students make comments like ‘I felt like I was a part of the class’, ‘I enjoyed being able to bounce my ideas off of fellow students’, 'my ideas were valued', the teacher is interested in all perspectives'. 

It is worth noting that within this approach, although the learners within the community are absolutely central, the teacher is an essential component. They enable and develop the kind of learning environment where students are able to connect. With each other, with their own learning, with the larger concepts in the course. This all takes very strategic and subtle design, which would be worthwhile unpacking on its' own.

1.  The ideas teachers come up with about why connections and community were so important and strategies they used to develop these are too numerous to mention here and will be posted separately.

References

Gerritson J.  (2020, December 07). Rural schools may be forced into online classes as they struggle to hire teachers, originally published by RNZ republished with permission on Stuff.co.nz. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/300176726/rural-schools-may-be-forced-into-online-classes-as-they-struggle-to-hire-teachers

Networked Learning Editorial Collective (NLEC). Networked Learning: Inviting Redefinition. Postdigit Sci Educ (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-020-00167-8

NetNZ. (n.d.). Why NetNZ? Retrieved December 09, 2020, from http://www.netnz.org/why-netnz-2/

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Relecting on my experience of teaching during Covid-19

I've had a bit of time to reflect on the impact of teaching during the age of Covid-19

Positives:
Some students have found this time to be really empowering. They have had the flexibility to organise their learning in a way that suits them and the support that they need to support this - through weekly video meets and also through one to one.

Some have struggled with the whole thing, but I feel with those who are struggling it is an amplification of issues/struggles they might have had face to face. It's important to point out that these students have still had support via one to one video calls which has helped them to move forwards a bit. I guess a positive is that it is easier to organise a quick video call after school as I have far fewer meetings and it is really easy and natural at the moment to set up a quick call.

And then there were some students who really surprised me in the way that they flourished during this time. Some of these students had struggled in the traditional face to face environment, but have been on top of their learning every step of the way during covid-19. Every class, every drop in tutorial, every check point - they were there.

The learning is super visible. I thought that I was doing a good job of making the learning accessible to student previously, but really there was a lot that happened face to face that wasn't recorded in any form. I have been super deliberate with the way that I organise the learning sequences and tried to make examples for each thing I am asking students to to do. I have been making far more rewindable clips. If I am asking students to do something I want something that they can go back to again and again for guidance.

It has also been easier for students to ask questions and share with me what they are working on outside of our scheduled times. This has come in a variety of means: google forms to take the temperature of students' mood and needs, padlets to ask questions, padlets to share work. This has also been quite spontaneous - it is very easy for students to ask a quick question about their work using google chat, get a quick reply, and carry on with their work with confidence.

Learning and surprises:
In my online class, everything we do is centered around community and connections. I  have been working on this with my WHS classes online. Juniors and Middle School responded really well to this. Many of them are really missing their friends and missing school in general. They lapped up the chance to share how they were going at home, to show off their work and just connect with other humans.

Senior students were a different kettle of fish. Not all, but a number of them were anxious about interacting in class, which I had not been expecting given that they all know each other and have been to school together for several years. Some wouldn't turn their cameras or microphones on. Sigh. Part of this was just the personalities in the class and part of it was that this was a cohort that started at WHS before we were fully immersed in the learn-create-share pedagogy of Toki Pounamu. It is a little bit telling that they were so apprehensive about sharing.

However, this led me to think about how I could best use the time with them. They are for the most part really diligent, hard working kids. What was successful was to organise my calls with them in a different way. I have started doing the following in our weekly calls: Checking in on how we are doing as humans (maybe a good thing and a tricky/challenging thing), sharing a quick presentation of anything I want the whole class to know about or be focusing on, then in a google doc students book 5-10 minutes to converse with me about their work. Students have really bought into this and taken it really seriously. It is keeping them accountable and giving them timely support. I'm thinking about how I can transfer the learning from this back into the face to face context. Perhaps I could do a google form at the start of the week to see how students are with their work. Then triage who needs to talk to me first and have a couple of periods set up purely for consulting with students about their art.

I'm also thinking that I also need to look at my learning design and devise some subtle, gentle ways to get students to share their work more often, in a way that doesn't make them feel too whakamā. I am trying to develop a visual arts community, not visual arts student silos.


And of course there are things that I am looking forward to when I get back to the classroom .My printmakers have been having a tough time of it for instance without their press. Juniors and middle school classes have been hard work with students having variable and often limited supplies at home.

Shifts and jumps - culturally responsive teaching and developing community

(CC)

When I enrolled in the Mindlab I was pretty confident with digital practice, considered myself to be a connected teacher and felt that I was quite familiar with collaborative pedagogy having explored knowledge building with my online art history class the past 2 years.

 I thought that the Mindlab would be novel, thought-provoking, and a ‘string to my bow, but I didn’t realise what a journey it would be. I have made huge shifts in my thinking in two areas - culturally responsive teaching and what it means to collaborate as a community.

My ambition regarding my professional development will become a reality in 2018.  I have been lucky enough to receive a TeachNZ award. I will complete my Masters I propose to explore how a knowledge building community might enhance student engagement.

A shift in my practice was comprehending what it meant to be a culturally responsive. Though I have a long way to go on this journey I have made huge mental jumps over the year. To begin with, I knew that it was important to be culturally responsive but could not have articulated what this meant or what it might look like in the classroom. Reading about Bishop’s ‘whanau of interest’ model for research was a revelation to me (PTC 12). He emphasises a participatory approach guided by the interests and aspirations of whanau (Bishop, 1998) The implications for my classroom are a more collaborative learner centred program that is informed by my learners' interests and goals. (PTC 2, PTC 8, PTC 9, PTC 10)

Similarly, Milne’s ‘Colouring in the White Spaces’ (2013) opened my eyes to what mainstream education is like for māori learners. Her exploration of how spaces within a school could reflect and value Māori learners struck a particular chord. Milne’s thesis explores spaces reflect the values of the community, classrooms operated according to tikanga, and learning centred around that which was valuable and meaningful to the community. This got me thinking about my own art room and what is communicated through the said and the unsaid. We have a unique opportunity with my multi-level classes to work as a community and share ideas across levels and art fields (PTC 7). Furthermore, I have been reflecting on the rich opportunities and possibilities for more authentic learning experiences that my students will connect with. We are a small rural community with the ocean at our feet, rivers to either side and preceded over by the Southern Alps. Our students have a strong sense of belonging to their local community and the environment. Immersive place-based learning (Greenwood, 2010) could be a powerful way of leveraging engagement with our learners (PTC 2, 3, 8). Our point of difference and our taonga is our local community. This is so possible if we (as a teachers and as a school) are willing to run with it. Our community groups want to connect with our school (PTC 1). For example Hokitika Industrial Heritage Park’s ambition is to pass on their expertise to our young people. This really excites me and I hope that we rise to the challenge,

 Another challenge  in my practice this year was developing a knowledge building community culture within my art history class. Certain students in my class just struggled with the collaborative nature of the course and to even share their ideas with the class. For a variety of reasons (a later start to the school year, a small community with members often absent from the VC for events within their own school community, feeling pressed to cover content in a timely fashion ) we didn’t spend as much time on developing our connections as a community as we have previously. Students largely operated as individuals rather than a team and were very shy of sharing their work with others.I believe that this  lack of connection and trust between learners impacted  on our ability to function as a community of learners. Previously students have really valued the collaborative environment and the creative thinking KBC tends encourage. “My teacher is encouraging and inclusive of all ideas. … our ideas all bounce off each other and we're encouraged to think in more abstract ways, not just gathering 'the right knowledge' ... It's a more creative learning environment.” (art history student, 2016)  (PTC 2) Knowledge Building and community development were a more natural and organic process. I have been guided by my literature review and professional readings (PTC 4, PTC 12) in my reflection on what defines a high functioning knowledge building community and what the roadblocks were in 2017 . Lai (2014) states that a strong sense of trust can be pivotal to a students ability and inclination to build knowledge in the KB community and emphasises the value of developing a collaborative learning culture within a class. Laux, Luse, and Mennecke (2016) also state that for learners to attain success within a collaborative framework, there needs to be a willingness and an ability to do so. Trust and connections within the cohort are essential elements. In 2018 I plan to orientate my students around what is means to be a community and devote our first few weeks to simply building connections and getting to know each other as people.

“Instructor pronouncements in an online discussion are treated as correct and discussion ends” Meyer, K. A. (2014) Students will often happily reply to me, but are reticent about interacting with each other. Lai and Campbell’s case study (2017) also indicated that students needed the space the freedom to ask questions, for epistemic agency to develop. As a teacher I need to position myself as a facilitator rather than expert and final authority. This will involve learning design which creates the space for ‘digital take up time’. To foster a mindset shift from the teacher as expert to teacher as facilitator I need to demonstrate to my students that they are capable of building knowledge “It requires a belief that students can deliberately create knowledge that is useful to their community in further knowledge building ” (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 2006) (PTC 5, 7)

Students also need to see the value in working as a community and understand the guiding principles of KBC. “It seems that when students had a deeper understanding of the knowledge building principles, they became more willing to contribute and improve ideas.” (Lai, 2014). It will be worthwhile to spend time at  beginning of the year orientating students to what knowledge building looks like (PTC 8), what the big ideas are and how we might go about it. This could come in the form of KBC roadmap, impact stories from students about what knowledge building means to them and the difference it made to their learning, or a mixture of the two.

I look forward to developing a more collaborative community focused environment in my classroom (PTC 6, 7).

Naku te rourou nau te rourou ka ora ai te iwi

Bishop, R. (1998). Freeing ourselves from neo-colonial domination in research: A Māori approach to creating knowledge. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11(2), 199–219.

Greenwood, D. A. (2011). Why Place Matters. In Handbook of research in the social foundations of education. New York: Routledge.

Education Council, New Zealand. (n.d.). Practicing teaching criteria and e-learning. Retrieved November 20, 2017, from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/Practising-Teacher-Criteria-and-e-learning

Lai, Kwok-Wing (2014). Designing knowledge building communities in secondary schools.

Laux, D., Luse, A., & Mennecke, B. (2016). Collaboration, connectedness, and community: An examination of the factors influencing student persistence in virtual communities. Computers in Human Behavior, 57, 452–464.

Meyer, K. A. (2014a). Learning theories and student engagement. In Student engagement online: what works and why (pp. 15–36). John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

Milne, D. A. (2013). Colouring in the white spaces. University of Waikato.

Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (2006). Knowledge Building: Theory, Pedagogy, and Technology. In Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences (pp. 97–118). New York: Cambridge University Press.