10 dimensions for designing learner support

'Learner support in distance and networked learning environments: ten dimensions for successful design’ (McLoughlin, 2002)

McLoughlin's paper explains scaffolding ("the effective intervention by a peer, adult or competent person in the learning of another person") and gives some of the history and background, particularly Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development. 

The paper compares scaffolding in face-to-face learning with that which might be required in online and distance situations, and argues that the principles of learning support can still apply to these newer teaching and learning contexts.

McLoughlin refers to seven short pieces of advice:

• Provide experience of the knowledge construction process
• Provide experience in and appreciation of multiple perspectives
• Create learning asks that are relevant and authentic
• Encourage ownership and voice in the learning process
• Embed learning in social experience
• Encourage the development of multiple modes of representation
• Encourage self-awareness of the knowledge construction process.

McLoughlin also argues that effective scaffolding is characterised by:

• increasing the learners’ chance of succeeding in a task
• helping them to do something they couldn’t accomplish on their own
• moving them to a ‘new and improved zone of understanding’
• helping them to operate independently.

McLoughlin provides ten design guidelines/dimensions of successful learner support. Each dimension is represented as a continuum with contrasting values at the ends. She points out that it is necessary to combine the individual dimensions in order to create effective instructional scaffolds. 

The dimensions are:

(1) Goal orientation (i.e. the goal of the support; support should be planned, not only when learners are having difficulties)

Highly focused <-----> Unfocused

(2) Adaptability (meet the needs of a diverse range of students)

Fixed <-----> flexible

(3) Accessibility (available when the student needs is - "just-in-time")

High <-----> Low

(4) Alignment (support is aligned with task goals and learning outcomes)

High <-----> Low

(5) Experiential value (learners' experiences allow them to plan, act, reflect and transfer knowledge of skills to new tasks/contexts)

High <-----> Low

(6) Collaboration (emphasis on social constructivism and use of web tools to support collaboration suggest this dimension is already well accepted)

Supported <-----> Unsupported

(7) Constructivism (support knowledge construction (strong scaffold), not memorization (weak scaffold))

Strong <-----> Weak

(8) Learning orientation (scaffolds allow learner to progress from teacher regulation to self-regulation and self-direction)

Teacher regulation <-----> Learner regulation

(9) Multiplicity (various types of scaffolding to support aspects of learning such as metacognition, reflection, articulation and comparison)

One-dimensional <-----> Multi-dimensional

(10) Granularity (high granularity allows learners to select and reconstruct the parts that are meaningful to them in a task)

Low granularity <-----> High granularity

For H807, we were supposed to read the ten dimensions, and pick any two we thought are important and think about why they are relevant to the learning materials that we would like to design. 

I think Alignment is an important dimension. No online course can succeed if it doesn't carefully articulate its goals, and follow these through the activities to appropriately fitting and related assessments (not necessarily only at the end either). It seems that it would follow that you need to also ensure support is aligned to your goals, tasks, activities and intended outcomes. 

Given the wealth of affordances of technologies available for online learners, and the benefits of studying surrounded by a community rather than alone, I would also pick Collaboration as an important dimension. It has clearly been designed in to every aspect of H807, the hyperbole around web 2.0 tools is primarily centered on opportunities for collaboration, and it supports the constructivist theories of learning which are now widely valued.

Reflections

The paper suggests that scaffolds can be created by software, technological tools and web-based functionalities. Previously I conceived scaffolding to be something the might be provided by another person (peer, tutor, etc), or might be provided through the design of course materials (for example, interactive computer-based training with progressively lesser levels of hints or support provided). The idea that technological tools such as collaborative conferencing, document sharing, social forums or web 2.0 tools might offer scaffolds was new to me - but was something that was easy to accept, not least from observation of the provision of such methods throughout H807.

There are implicit value judgements in the ten dimensions, for example, that alignment should be high, adaptability should be flexible, etc, and the desirable ends of the continua (continuums?!!) don't all point in the same direction . It's unlikely you could design scaffolding which 'scored' highly on all ten dimensions, although overlaps exist, for example between Collaboration and Constructivism, and between Goal Orientation and Alignment. I think possibly the most helpful use of the ten dimensions might be in using them as a checklist to review, revise and improve scaffolding once it is designed. 

We were also supposed to answer the question "What are your first thoughts on how you’ll design your materials?". For me, this was an example of a poorly scaffolded activity! I didn't understand the context - was it supposed to relate to our End of Course Assessment designs, to the materials which we design in our jobs (in which case another assumption that H807 students are in e-learning roles), or to our general aspirations? Clearly I want to design the best materials I can, but they will be different in every situation. Having a framework like these ten dimensions in my toolkit is useful, but is a long way from knowing "how I'll design my materials".

Reference:

McLoughlin, C. (2002) ‘Learner support in distance and networked learning environments: ten dimensions for successful design’, Distance Education, vol.23, no.2, pp.149–62.

Musing on Salmon's e-tivities

This post comes at a relatively early stage in my exploration of e-tivities, before I've attempted to design any e-tivities, or had an opportunity to participate in any developed by my H807 colleagues. However, a few thoughts have been bubbling up as I've sat with the readings recently...
..........
E-tivities, or the five-stage framework is highly geared to group learning. There really isn't a place in it for the individual learner. While it may be the case that constructivist and situated learning theories tend to point towards learning in groups, and the web, web2.0 and all that it offers are also highly social, we will still have individual online and distance learners.
..........
I'm wondering how e-tivities relate to child learners. While the five-stage framework has time and space for stumbling through early technical difficulties and early socialisation, I'm wondering whether children's social skills might indicate a natural ceiling within the framework, through which they will not be ready to progress without further maturity. I don't know where that ceiling would or might be, and given the online-savy of many children, perhaps their online social development will take a different trajectory to that traditionally observed in the face-to-face classroom, but it seems reasonable to expect differences in the level of tutor/moderator support required by children and adults, or come to that, generally more and less experienced learners.
..........
I was also wondering how I might apply Salmon's framework to the e-learning I see developed in my job, and I haven't yet been able to make it match. That is despite desperately wanting more (appropriate, tailored, well-designed and purposeful) interactivity, more constructivist activities, to develop students as independent learners, to provide more formative feedback opportunities etc., etc. So, why doesn't it seem to fit? I think it's because so much of the training we develop is focused on learning procedures, for example bringing a generator into service, maintaining a pump, or interacting with a complex human-computer interface to set up highly sophisticated equipment. In cases where it's training in a procedure that's required, I'm not sure that community socialisation, knowledge construction and mutual sharing can help. While all of these might make for deeper learning with greater opportunities for elaborating on personal knowledge, there's also the issue of cost and length of training course. In cases where there is a constraint that you must train x people in y amount of time, it's possible that the extra time required might make e-tivities an unworkable solution - a point which is perhaps supported by Salmon's acknowledgement (see Workshop on E-Tivities, slide 10) that constructivist courses tend to need a longer course length and greater e-moderator input compared to instructivist courses.

E-tivity examples and resources

Struggling a bit with our current task to design an e-tivity (or sequence of e-tivities? - I'm not quite clear) for our tutor group, so I thought I'd take some inspiration from what's out there already...

---

Source: http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/E-tivity

E-tivity 1 (related to Stage 1- Access & Motivation)

Purpose - to be able to access the VLE Asynchronous Discussion tool

Task - to post an initial message introducing yourself to others

Interaction - the e-tutor checks that students can access and provide feedback for motivation.

E-tivity 2 (related to Stage 2 - Online Socialisation)

Purpose - to introduce yourself to others in your group

Task - to post a message introducing a topic of the student's choice via the Conference Room tool

Interaction - contributions from others in the group within a 'threaded' discussion. Participation and summary by e-tutor.

E-tivity 3 (related to Stage 4 - Knowledge Construction)

Purpose - to analyse your preferred methods of learning and to consider alternative processes or models

Task - to post thoughts on a particular piece of reading on learning methods

Interaction - others members of the group provide their own interpretations and thoughts. E-tutor moderate and summarise.

---

Source: https://www.dlsweb.rmit.edu.au/toolbox/elearntrainassess/toolbox/resources/e_space/e_facilitator/advice/sample/sample.htm
A nice little widget (or a text download equivalent) offering several examples of e-tivities at each of Salmon's 5 stages of the e-moderation framework.

---

Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/38734622/e-Tivities-Game-Based-Approach
An example of using email-based games as e-tivities.

---

Source: http://e.foi.hr/engwiki/index.php/Pool_of_e-tivities
Links to examples of e-tivities from language education

---

Resources relating to e-tivities:

• A set of Salmon's slides from a 2001 workshop "Developing your e-moderating skills"
• Dr Gilly Salmon's Successful E-tivities Handout & Reminders
• Example e-tivities, advice for e-moderators, principles of online communication and guidance on preparing e-tivities: http://www.itlc.life.ku.dk/it_paedagogik/elaerings_paedagogik/gilly.aspx

Developing socialisation - a counter view to Salmon's e-tivities

‘The development of socialisation in an on-line learning environment’, Jones, N. and Peachey, P. (2004)

This paper takes a critical view of Salmon’s five-stage model and questions the validity and usefulness of all the stages as they are presently described by Salmon. It is also an example of a small-scale piece of ethnographic research and evaluation.

The paper describes a number of iterations of an e-moderating course, developed to support teachers/lecturers new to computer-mediated communication. The course adopted a constructivist approach, with social dialogue as an essential feature of the pedagogy.

At Stage 1 (of Salmon's framework) a face-to-face induction workshop was held. This allowed familiarisation with the VLE and for students to experience initial message posting and sharing. 

Each time the course was presented, a relatively high level of informal interactivity was observed at Stage 1, which was followed by a significant drop at Stage 2. It then slightly increased at Stage 3, as would be expected of Salmon's framework. This suggests that there was not strong evidence of the formation of an effective online community during Stage 2, and that the intended socialization which underpins an effective community did not emerge. The authors argue that this is because effective socialization in fact emerged during Stage 1 due to the effective design of induction sessions. Given this success, Salmon's recommendations for Stage 2 e-tivity design may need to focus more on maintaining motivation than on socialization.

Take away thoughts

• Stephenson and Coomey (2001) - promoting dialogue, and the consequent development of learning communities are important factors contributing to success of online courses.
• "Social factors as well as intellectual factors are important in e-learning"
• Development ins elearning have "not provided practicing educators with the wherewithal to reconstitute and embed constructivst ideas within their personal philosophies and teaching practices" (Bonk, 2003).
• "... for effective learning, the skills of the moderator are more important than the features of the software tools being used..." (Alexander and Boud, 2001).
• There are contrasting views on whether the socialization stage of a course can/should be carried out entirely online (advocated by Salmon, 2000), or partly face-to-face (advocated by Mason, 2002, who argues that this is one of the 'most important' features of successful online courses.

References:

Jones, N. and Peachey, P. (2004) ‘The development of socialisation in an on-line learning environment’, paper given at the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting in 2004 [online] http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/viewarticle.cfm?volID=3&IssueID=12&ArticleID=14 (Accessed 10 February 2011).

Alexander and Boud (2001), Bonk (2003), Mason (2002) all cited by Jones and Peachey (2004).

E-tivities - integrated into a campus-university module

‘The integration and implementation of a range of “e-tivities” to enhance students’ interaction and learning’, Pavey, J. and Garland, S.W. (2004)

This is a case study of a UK sport science course that used Salmon’s framework to enhance student interaction.

The authors used Salmon’s five-stage framework to develop their e-tivities, and suggest a template which can be used to map the particular aspects of an activity against each of Salmon’s five stages:

Stage in Salmon's model	Activity
1. Access and motivations	Instructions given in face to face session. E-tivity objectives set. Encouraged to familiarise selves with the technology.
2. Online socialization	Familiarization task. Information information exchange encouraged.
3. Information exchange	Discussion board introduced - allocated tasks using synchronous and asynchronous discussion.
4. Knowledge construction	Online information gathering, quizzes and discussions - the main part of the e-tivities.
5. Development	Ongoing discussion boards with tutor moderation as required.

The e-tivities developed for this course were delivered through the Blackboard VLE, which was also new to the students/course at the time. Plenty of familiarisation and orientation time was therefore built in to the programme before students were required to engage in the course-specific learning e-tivities. Four e-tivities were developed:

• formative quizzes - based on a range of online resources and readings, and which provided automated marking and feedback (e.g. drag and drop labelling of anatomical diagrams) 
• interactive web pages and animations - animations of complex processes, helps students to understand concepts 
• topic discussions - using asynchronous discussion board. 
• an online 'lecture' - 90 minute online tutorial using synchronous discussion with students participating in small groups at a number of shared PCs.

Take-away thoughts

• "Students have ample time to read other students' comments, do research and formulate a detailed response" (Clark, 2001)
• "Providing guidelines for online activity should be rated as an important criterion for keeping online discussions 'on-topic'." (Beaudin, 1999)
• Examples of such guidelines for communication are given, and include that groups nominate a spokesperson, that messages should only be posted when invited, that all messages must be directly relevant, and that participation is mandatory.
• Importance of sufficient time to become comfortable with the technology, and that this is carried out separately to the main activities - "this approach supports the work of Salmon (2000) who found that students need to feel competent about how to use a VLE before they are comfortable with exchanging ideas and information".
• The tutor can sometimes serve best by staying silent (Rohfeld and Hiemstra, 1995) as the effort of learning is passed to the students, individually and as a community. This approach has been demonstrated to be effective in increasing critical thinking and active learning (Hughes & Daykin, 2002)
• Tutoring skills include knowing when to stay silent, weaving and summarizing ideas, asking the right questions (not necessarily giving answers), providing consistent support, and introducing and integrating activities into the module.

Reflections

• 83% of the students felt that web-based material should be developed for other modules... but 69% did not find the online lecture/group chat was a worthwhile experience as an alternative to face-to-face delivery. I wondered whether this might be due to technical challenges, discomfort at potential exposure in front of peers, or an underlying expectation that 'lectures' are didactic rather than constructivist in approach. My own experience has often shown students wanting to be told the answer, and finding it uncomfortable if they are required to construct knowledge more independently or collaboratively. 
• The paper argues that online discussions might provide a means for students who prefer not to ask questions in front of their peers or lecturer - while this may be true, my gut feeling is that online fora still provide plenty of opportunities for a shy student to feel uncomfortable. They are (usually) still identifiable to the other participants, and there may even be heightened concerns regarding the fact that any comment made may be archived, prolonging the 'agony' of any 'embarrassing' comment or faux pas. 
• The authors considered that the asynchronous and synchronous discussions were the most innovative aspects of the developments presented. Compared to our current Open University experience on H807 (in 2011), it's hard to feel that this is innovative. However, the paper is from 2004, and more importantly refers to a campus-based module. I think that incorporation of such online discussion in a campus-taught class today may well still be viewed as innovative.

Reference:

Pavey, J. and Garland, S.W. (2004) ‘The integration and implementation of a range of “e-tivities” to enhance students’ interaction and learning’, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, vol.41, no.3, pp.305–15.

Clark (2001), Beaudin (1999), Rohfeld and Hiemstra (1995), Hughes and Daykin (2002) all cited by Pavey and Garland (2004).

Salmon’s five-stage model

Salmon (2002) has coined the term ‘e-tivity’ to describe ‘a framework for active and interactive learning’ (Salmon, 2002, p.1). She argues that participants in online learning groups need to be supported in a structured way through a learning ‘event’, and that it is when this structure is absent that online learning fails.

Salmon suggests that all interactive learning activities should be:

• motivating, engaging and purposeful
• based on interaction between people – individuals and groups and resources
• designed and led by someone who understands their role and has learned the skills of online conference moderation
• simple, low cost and easy to run
• reusable.

The key features of e-tivities are:

• a ‘spark’ – stimulus, challenge, task, problem
• an online activity – students have to DO something
• a participative element – students have to respond
• a summary, feedback or critique – from the group or tutor
• guidelines – instructions for the activity, an invitation to take part.

Salmon’s five stages are:

Students begin at stage 1 where they require maximum technical and e-moderator support. As they progress, they develop in their online interactions, gradually developing and strengthening the learning community, requiring less support, and engaging more in personal and community knowledge construction. Salmon’s five-stage framework provides the scaffolding structure for learning and, she argues, each of the five stages requires different kinds of activities.

The NMC Horizon Report 2011 K-12 Edition is Ready! | NMC

The NMC Horizon Report 2011 K-12 Edition is Ready! | NMC

I'm looking forward to time to read it, but tonight I'm stuck into models of e-learning...