Promoting collaborative interactions in a learning management system

Promoting collaborative interactions in a learning management system

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  Promoting collaborative interactions ina learning management system Aleksandra Lazareva
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  3 Context of thestudy • Master’s degree program (online + 2 face-to-face sessions) • Learning management system (LMS) • Group of students (=4) in 2 courses • Online tutors
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  4 Motivation • LMS forcollaborative learning activities (i.e., rigid, controlled by the institution) • The program has been running for 10 years
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  5 Objectives • What arethe successful strategies implemented in the program to support collaborative interactions? • How do students adopt the technological tools (e.g., what affordances are being used most of all, what are the constraints of the environment)?
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  6 Course setup • Tutorposts tasks and deadlines • Students contribute asynchronously • Reports are submitted on the LMS • Weaver
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  7 • Observations ofthe learning activities on the forums • Students, facilitators and tutors gave their informed consent • Interaction analysis (Jordan & Henderson 1995) • The paper describes in detail… Method
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  8 Students structuring their discussions -The thread strategy develops over time - Weaver - Raising group awareness The role of the tutor - Discussion pointers are readily followed - Draw students’ attention to critical aspects rather than remind of the importance of participation Use of technologies - Did not use the built-in collaborative text editor, but chose Google docs - Synchronous chat? What else affected student engagement? Participation grade:“Well. Personally I don’t like to discuss quantitative research. However I have to do the task to get my participation grade”
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  9 • Importance ofthe face-to-face session (Powell et al. 2004; Pinsonneault & Caya 2007) • Asynchronous – beneficial for reflections (Popov et al. 2014) • Sociable learning environments (Kreijns et al. 2003); students tend to be more task-focused when they talk asynchronously (Serçe et al. 2011) • Theory of media synchronicity (Dennis et al. 2008) • Training on the use of the effective use of the tools (Razon et al. 2012) • Promoting awareness in the group Implications
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  10 • Dennis,A. R.,Fuller, R. M., &Valacich, J. S. (2008).Media, tasks, and communication processes.A theory of media synchronicity. MIS Quarterly, 32, 575–600. • Jordan, B. & Henderson,A. (1995).Interaction analysis: Foundation and practice. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4, 39-103. • Kreijns, K., Kirschner, P.A., & Jochems,W. (2003). Identifying the pitfalls for social interaction in computer-supported collaborative learning environments:A review of the research. Computers in Human Behavior, 19, 335–353. • Pinsonneault,A. & Caya, O. (2007).Virtual teams:What we know, what we don’t know. In N. Kock (Ed.), Emerging e-collaboration concepts and applications (pp. 270-289). Hershey, London: Idea Group Publishing. • Popov,V., Noroozi, O., Barrett, J. B., Biemans, H. J.A.,Teasley, S. D., Slof, B., & Mulder, M. (2014). Perceptions and experiences of, and outcomes for, university students in culturally diversified dyads in a computer-supported collaborative learning environment. Computers in Human Behavior, 32, 186–200. • Powell,A., Piccoli, G., & Ives, B. (2004).Virtual teams:A review of current literature and directions for future research. The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, 35(1), 6-36. • Razon, S.,Turner, J., Johnson,T. E.,Arsal, G., & Tenenbaum,G. (2012). Effects of a collaborative annotation method on students’ learning and learning-related motivation and affect. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 350–359. • Serçe, F. C., Swigger, K.,Alpaslan, F. N., Brazile, R., Dafoulas, G., & Lopez,V. (2011).Online collaboration: Collaborative behavior patterns and factors affecting globally distributed team performance. Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 490–503. • Photos:Aleksandra Lazareva & Jesse Sipiläinen References