A foundation of participation - tools for building a collaborative learning environment

Building on a Foundationof Participation

or

Motivating Active Student Engagementin Blended Formative Learning

Brant Knutzen

Adjunct LecturerFaculty of Education

University of Hong Kong

Introduction

• My passion is online discussions– Moderator of BBS online Debate forum in 1983

• I have been using Moodle LMS to support blended teaching / learning since 2005– The “heart” of Moodle (Tomaz Lasic)– Learning activity with the most potential for social

construction of knowledge– Also the most likely to fail! Why?– What works, and why– Creating new tools

• Enable use of discussions as formative learning activities• Evaluating their success (learning analytics)

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

What is Blended Learning?

• Blended Teaching / Learning

– adding online activities to expand the learning environment

• Beyond the limited face-to-face classroom time

• Incorporating the use of external resources

• Creating and supporting learning opportunities which suit the student’s schedules (asynchronous interaction)

• Technology supports new ways to collaborate in groups

• Excellent transparency into the student learning process

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Social Constructivism

• John Biggs captured the educational value of discussion when he stated:

"Good dialogue elicits those activities that shape, elaborate, and deepen understanding“

(Biggs 1999 p. 5)

Benefits of Active Student Engagement

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Motivation

Motivation : how do we encourage student engagement with online activities?

– Intrinsic and extrinsic methods

– Effective use of technology

Goals:• Engage the students in formative learning

• Social construction of knowledge

• Enable teacher to focus on quality

• Sustainable teaching practice

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Motivation on three levels

1. Constructive Alignment – between formative and summative activities

2. Situative – groupings and task design create social pressure

3. Leverage the LMS – the Learning Management System (Moodle) provides structures and automation to drive collaborative learning

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Constructive Alignment

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

IntendedLearning

Outcomes

Teaching / LearningActivities

SummativeAssessment

Biggs, J., & Tang, C. (2007). Teaching for quality learning at university.

Constructive Alignment

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

IntendedLearning

Outcomes

Teaching / LearningActivities

SummativeAssessment

FormativeLearningActivities

Biggs, J., & Tang, C. (2007). Teaching for quality learning at university.

Constructive Alignment

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

IntendedLearning

Outcomes

Teaching / LearningActivities

SummativeAssessment

FormativeLearningActivities

Biggs, J., & Tang, C. (2007). Teaching for quality learning at university.

Constructive Alignment

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

IntendedLearning

Outcomes

Teaching / LearningActivities

SummativeAssessment

FormativeLearningActivities

IntendedLearning

Outcomes

e.g. : Intended Learning Outcome - at the end of this course, students will be able to:

• Critically evaluate and reflect upon theories, practice, content and concepts learned in this course.

Critically evaluate,

Reflect

ILO

Constructive Alignment

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Critically evaluate,Reflect

Teaching / LearningActivities

SummativeAssessment

FormativeLearningActivities

SummativeAssessment

e.g. : Learning Portfolio• Cumulative reflection blog• Meta-cognitive thinking• 温故而知新，可以为师矣。

CumulativeReflection

Blog

AssessmentILO

Constructive Alignment

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Critically evaluate,Reflect

Teaching / LearningActivities

CumulativeReflection

Blog

FormativeLearningActivities

FormativeLearningActivities

e. g. : Weekly Discussion Forums• Oral discussions in classroom to start• Initial perspective is first forum post• Q & A for one week (average ≈ 5 posts)• Final post is reflection on learning• Reflective posts copied into Word blog

WeeklyForum

Discussion

AssessmentILO TLA

Situative Motivation

• Socio-cultural factors

• Peer pressure to perform

• Key factors to achieve this motivation:

– Group formation

– Task design

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Situative Motivation

Initial state on first class session:

– Students are all individuals, no group identity

– Teacher as authority and arbiter

– Traditional transmission-style teaching

• Mass assignments for all students to work on individually

• No facilitation of collaboration

• Very limited social construction of knowledge

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Situative – no Grouping

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Teacher

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Very limitedcollaboration

Example forum – no groups or task design

Example forum – no groups or task design

• No groups or task design• Each student assigned a unique color, or can use the

Moodle profile picture and name• Time dimension is not scaled on Y axis

Situative – Grouping

• Group formation by common interest

• Small groups around size 5

– Sets up proximal access

– Reduces social barriers to interaction

– Reduces the “noise” level

• The Participation Forum allows the students to set up their own “semi-private” areas for discussion

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Situative – Task Design

• Task design creates a structured requirement for interaction

– Participation Forum task:

• Easy first post gets everyone involved

• Questions gets everyone aware and thinking

• Answers require critical or transformative thinking

• Additional rounds of Q&A

• Final post is reflective: how has perspective changed?

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Situative – after Grouping / Task Design

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Teacher

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Situative – after Grouping / Task Design

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Teacher

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Situative – after Grouping / Task Design

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Teacher

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Example forum #2with Groups and Task Design

Participation Map - example forum with Groups and Task Design

Assess with Rubric

Public Assignment

UnsustainableAssessment

Grouping, Task Design

Formative learning activity designGoal: Social Construction of Knowledge

Assessment Design

Students Engage!200-300 posts

No Collaboration

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Optional Activity Assess with Rubric

Public Assignment

UnsustainableAssessment

Lack of participation

No points Grouping, Task Design

Formative learning activity designGoal: Social Construction of Knowledge

Assessment Design

Students Engage!200-300 posts

No Collaboration

Activity does notachieve ILO

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Optional Activity Leverage the LMS Assess with Rubric

Public Assignment

UnsustainableAssessment

Lack of participation

Near 100% Participation!

KnowledgeConstruction!

DisaffectedStudents

Topic Questions Design,Activity Management

No points Grouping, Task DesignProgrammed

Point Distribution

Formative learning activity designGoal: Social Construction of Knowledge

Assessment Design

No CollaborationParticipationForum

Activity does notachieve ILO

Students Engage!Collaboration!

Intended LearningOutcome Achieved!

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Leveraging the power of the LMS

• The Participation Forum automatically awards points based on participation, produces a grade

– Grades produced by participation:• One post = 6• Two posts = 8• Three posts = 8.6 • Four posts = 9• Five posts = 9.2• Six posts = 9.33• Seven posts = 9.42• Eight posts = 9.5 etc

• More Q&A participation = higher grade• Carl Rogers: “unconditional positive regard” • Grabinger & Dunlap: REAL – “risk-free environment”

More participation -> higher grade

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Number of discussion posts

Number of posts -> Forum Grade

A foundation of participation

• This assessment method for assessing a forum creates a foundation of participation: in my experience over 90% of students will cognitively engage with the discussion

• As always, the teacher’s role is to create the educational value of the activity:– Set up challenging topic questions to guide

exploration

– Maintain a “visible presence” in the forum activity

– Successfully moderate the discussion

Discussion moderation techniques

• Salmon’s 5-stagemodel ofeModeration

• Teacher guidesstudents upthe levelstowardknowledgedevelopment

Source: http://www.atimod.com/e-moderating/5stage.shtml

Participation-based forum grade

• The Moodle LMS handles the awarding of quantitative marks for participation

• Teacher can focus on quality:– Monitor progress

– Guide the discussion

– Challenge students

– Time for thoughtful qualitativefeedback• Minimum: 30 mins to 1 hour each week per discussion

The Participation Map

• New Moodle plug-in automates the production of the map of discussion activity:– Quantitative statistics

– Qualitative graphic display: a “data portrait”

• Useful for displaying discussion activity– Feedback to students in the class (who is working?)

– Feedback to teacher (what approach is working?)

– Anonymous mode for reporting research results

Example Participation Map

Student profile picturesStudents can interact in multiple groups

Tim

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Red line shows rating cutoff

Group comparison stats

Overall discussion statistics

Quantitative Data

• Quantitative ratings of overall discussion

Map of discussion starting in class

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Map of Procrastination

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Participation Map is a teacher tool

• After install on Moodle server, this learning analytic tool is only available to those with Teacher roles

• New option on CourseAdministration block

Participation Map operation

• Select theforum, andthen plot type:– Normal plot

for feedbackto teacher andstudents

– Anonymousfor reportingresults outside

Conclusion

• I have been using the Participation Forum methodology since 2007– Three levels of motivation consistently achieves

very high levels of student activity and engagement with group discussions

– Enables the teacher to focus their time / efforts on providing qualitative feedback to support formative learning

– “Sounds good, but do you have any evidence?”Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Student activity achieved – Moodle report

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Student participation achieved

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Course comparison – posts and views

Slide Design: Brant Knutzen

Questions and Discussion

• My blog about these open source and other research projects: Brant.Knutzen.se

• Specific websites for downloading open-source projects:– ParticipationForum.org– ParticipationMap.org

• Questions?

• My email is: Brant@Knutzen.se