collaborative learning spaces
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"Collaborative Learning Spaces: Methods, Ethics, Tools, Design." Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing Conference. North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND. October 2010.TRANSCRIPT
Collaborative Learning Spaces
Methods, Ethics, Tools, Design
Emergent Spaces
Demand Side• Professional Environments:
collaborative, networked, just-in-time• Information Workers: new media skill
sets and flexible adaptation to new tools and contexts for cooperative action
Emergent Spaces
Supply Side • Institutional Values: online learning,
non-traditional network communities• Pedagogical Innovation: technology
and cooperative learning, Open Education, Connectivism, COINs, etc.
Emergent Spaces
Personal Motivation; Situated Innovation
• Research Interests: new media, open source, rhetoric, and professional communication technologies
• Service Learning: University online learning initiative, College-level team and group-work initiative
Emergent Spaces
• Social media, crowd-sourcing, collective intelligence
• Composing common spaces and shared interfaces
• Ethical and practical challenge for the immediate future
METHODSBest practices for collaboration and technology-use
Criticisms of Group-work
Student Feedback• Waste of time, too unfocused• Too complicated and/or inefficient; • Mismatched goals and/or abilities• Social loafers vs Dutiful achievers
Group-work goes wrong
• Pooled work; group structure is non-essential
• Homogeneous membership: dynamics for invention are weak
• Heterogeneous motives and/or weak management: goals and processes are unclear or underdeveloped
Best Practices for Groups
• Shared Purpose, Goals, Interests• Interdependence and Mutual
Accountability• Make work relevant, competitive,
evenly distributed• Structured Processes: Group
Contracts, Peer Evaluations, Group and Individual Assessments
Achieving Purpose
• Daniel Pink, “Drive”: simple incentives are counter-productive
• Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose• Make profit motive and purpose
motive congruent
Purposeful Group Learning
• Tragedy of commons = higher order purpose; making the best of a bad situation
• Need to get “self-interest” out of the way; better higher order purpose
• Must make project/process purpose congruent with grade incentives
Similarly, Technology
• Avoid redundant, irrelevant, over-complicated, needless proprietary
• Usability (and accessibility): Effective, Efficient, Engaging, Error Tolerant, Easy-to-Learn
• Specific tools are too often solutions in search of a problem
ETHICSValues for Technological Commons
Values for Learners
Students who are engaged, interested, challenged, motivated
• Autonomy: choice, immediate action, 3rd person play
• Mastery: activity-specific goals for skill development (intrinsic)
• Purpose: long-term objectives; continuing value; community investment
Collaborative Commons
Facilitate connections and create common ground between:
• Pedagogical Goals and Opportunities• Technological Tools and Applications• Collaborative ProcessesEngage the unique challenges of
situated learning communities
Composing Ethical Commons
Common Purpose• Develop sustainable processes of
innovation• Develop sustainable communities of
learners
Composing Ethical Commons
Immediate Value• Overcome pedagogical challenges• Achieve emergent goals/objectives
TOOLSExamples and Applications
Building a Better Bullet Point
• Resume Draft-work• Open Source process• Typewith.me
• Unique challenges: self-representation; rhetorical sensitivity; writing process
Crowd-sourced Editing
• Editing business correspondence• Assembly line: identify, rewrite• Microsoft Word
• Unique challenges: first author inertia; “pretty-good”-isms; achieve action bias in revision
DESIGNPutting it TOGETHER; Iterative development
Collaborative Service Learning
• Inspiration• Implementation• Iterative Development
Inspiration
• Overcome traditional zero-sum “coverage v group” work problem
• Students teach each-other• Build connections between
successive generations of students• Practical knowledge developed by
students for students
Implement
Best Practices • autonomous results: products and
assessment • interdependently structured
processes for invention, distribution, and performance
• Utopian impulse must be matched by pragmatic application
Iterative Development
• 1 ed. Basic Assignment; Teamwork Instruction; Screencast Capture
• 2 ed. Group Selection; Work Roles• 3 ed. Commissioned Assignments;
external (local) clientsFuture: Web-based deliverable for
public portal site, videos with abstracts and supporting references
Creating Collaborative Environments
• Purposeful, Interdependent, Group Processes
• Highly Structured Interfaces and Infrastructures for Learner Practices
• Scaffolding and Iterative Development for Learners and Curriculum
Summary Outline
1) formulate an Ethics: identify stakeholder goals, values, and formulate outcomes;
Summary Outline
2) choose appropriate Tools: consider institutional/contextual affordances, consider issues of usability and integration;
Summary Outline
3) outline a Design: strategically integrate writing, technology, and collaboration knowledge and skill sets, employ scaffolding, regular reinforcement, and achievable expectations;
Summary Outline
4) review, revise, Redesign: always try something new, expect to improve, iteration is the key.