Quality, that complex issue: collaborative design for

quality networked learning in HE.

Juliana Raffaghelli, Patrizia Ghislandi,University of Trento

Department of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences

@julianar71 jraffaghelli@gmail.com Facebook, linkedin, academia etc etc :P Venice, Trento, Genoa

Outline

Defining Quality in Higher

Education

Quality NWL

Our Research

• A transformational perspective

• Our approach: The mediated quality to achieve quality literacy

• How it could be defined• How quality NWL integrates

a vision of quality in higher education

• Learning Design

• Focus• Theoretical Framework• Methodological Approach• Main Findings

Conclusions & Discussion

Quality

Defining Quality in Higher Education

A transformational perspectiveOur approach: The mediated quality to achieve quality literacy

Quality NWL

Our Research

5

Studies on Quality of eLearning in HE

Q UNESCO Quality for all

EFQUEL –UE-

SLOAN-C MODEL –USA-

ISO/IEC 19796

Sistematic ApproachesAccess?Excellence?InnovationInclusiveness?

The problem of defining quality

Diverse Cultures of Quality are underpinned by diverse values:› Exceptional/Original› Distinctiveness› Excellence› Fitness for Purpose› Inclusive

6

Reconceptualizing Quality in Education

Quality is not an intrinsic, universal value

It is very much about the methodology

of evaluation, And the substantial

epistemological principles and values underlying the process of evaluation

8

Quality of eL in HE is a Complex issue

Elements Dimensions

Multiperspective The teacher – the student – the institution, the evaluators

Diverse Methods of Analysis

Benchmarking – guidelines – standards – quantitative or qualitative approaches

Diverse Time In itinere – ex ante – ex post

Diverse Meanings Pedagogical – Organizational – Technological – Economical

Diverse Levels of Analysis

Individual – Group – Institutional – Socio-cultural

Ghislandi et al, 2008

A transformational perspective

The transformational perspective is the kernel of a quality learning culture:

› a human group that take part of a learning experience as a deep, reflective experience, connected to the own professional/ personal identity For which purposes do I/we teach/learn? What can I/we do

with this teaching/learning?

› not just for accomplishing activities, recalling information, and obtaining credentials (course diploma).

Teachers and students should become insiders of the culture of quality (Elhers, 2004; 2011;

Ghislandi & Raffaghelli, 2012)

Quality Literacy: the result of professional development or mediated quality

Mediating Artifacts: Signs/ Toolsto undertand/implement quality

SUBJECTActive stakeholders

of quality

OBJECTQuality Culture in Higher

Education

Mediated Quality:A process to develop Quality awareness

The zone of Proximal

Development

The mediated quality approach (based on Vygotskij concept of mediation)

Quality Teaching in Higher Education

Defining Quality in Higher Education

A transformational perspectiveOur approach: The mediated quality to achieve quality literacy

Quality NWL

Our Research

Quality NWL: a culture of quality

eQuality for Networked e-Learning (NLC 2002) Significant contents and technologies to

interact/connect with (Goodyear et al, 2004) (Collaborative) Designing for (networked) learning

(Laurillard&McAndrew, 2002; Goodyear et al, 2004) A dialogic, critical and reflective perspective of learning

(Jones, 2008, Zenios & Goodyear, 2008) The institutional perspective, relating the classroom

practice with the curriculum and the learners' profile after concluded the course (Dircking-Homfeld, Jones, Lindstrom, 2009)

Quality NWL: a culture of quality

"the time is right to simply use the term NWL and drop the ‘e’ in networked e-learning. This is because we think it is more important to foreground connectivity as a specific and important pedagogical feature of NWL. We claim that an updated definition of NWL should not only refer to being a pedagogy based on connectivity and the co-production of knowledge but also one that aspires to support e-quality of opportunity and include reference to the importance of relational dialogue and critical reflexivity in all of this" (Beaty,Cousin & Hogdson, 2010, p.585).

14

In spite of educational research findings...

Conole, 2004; Blin&Munro, 2008; Kennedy et al., 2011; Ghislandi & Raffaghelli, 2012

...Tradition remains!

A medieval University Classroom, http://people.clemson.edu/~elizab/medievalgallery.htm

Lectures at IITB - http://www.plancessiit.com/jee-mag/lectures-iitb/

Our research

Defining Quality in Higher Education

A transformational perspectiveOur approach: The mediated quality to achieve quality literacy

Quality NWL

Our Research

Our research focus

Focus › exploring one perspective of quality: teaching

Research question› Can collaborative learning design mediate

the process of achieving awareness on NWL quality dimensions?

The theoretical framework applied

Collaborative Design and re-design

SUBJECTAcademics as active

stakeholders of quality

OBJECTQuality

NWL

The zone of Proximal

Development

The mediated quality approach (based on Vygotskij concept of mediation) applied to Quality NWL

Achieving QL for quality NWL

Collaborative Design and re-design

SUBJECTAcademics as active

stakeholders of quality

OBJECTQuality NWL

Quality Culture

The zone of Proximal

Development

Collaborative Learning Design

Outsider of Quality NWL Insider of

Quality NWLIs it possible to move from here…

…To here?

Methodological Approach

Teachers-led Inquiry (TLI)› A new approach for NWL› Qualitative, transformative, ecological

Elements of the TLI› Problem: Achieving quality NWL for HE› Context of Intervention: 2° Run of an

undergraduate course at an Italian University.› Participants: Two professors, Two eTutors and an

instructional designer, as team leading the course.› Teachers’ led inquiry process: activities of

discussion for collaborative re-design , negotiating the own discourse about quality NWL

Roles

Quality Teaching Values & Beliefs

P2 - Pedagogical Expert

P1 - Content Expert

eT1 - Communication –

ContenteT2 – Web 2.0

tools use

Instructional Designer

Collaborative Desgining for Learning – 4 month process

Data collecting process

The body of data collected was composed by several types of data:› 4 audiotaped and 1 videotaped working

session. The sessions were aimed at discussing and advancing in the process of learning design.

› 201 email exchanges within the working team.› 5 MEMO written by the instructional designer

accompanying the process of learning design, after every session.

Analysis Transcription in Italian Discourse analysis Codification of Discourse organizing it in 4

categories connected with Quality NWL dimensions

Member checking on codification Excerpts of discourse translated into English

for the article/presentation.

Informed consensus was requested to participants. All data is protected against the identification of participants. For this reason, details on the topic of the course, as well as professional fields of research are not mentioned.

Results 1

Quality Dimensions

Quality NWL aspects negotiated Discourse

Improving knowledge/ understanding

The negotiation of approaches for educational quality

- discuss about the use of technologies

- improve the contents, - supporting collaboration

between students - giving sense to the

course in the context of the career and institutional culture.

DIALOGIC PERSPECTIVE

“I’m concerned about the number of unsuccessful students the last year… (Session 1/P1: COD3 ASSESSMENT, PERFORMANCE)

“I believe there are issues to improve since the course is still an hybrid between your and my type of teaching approaches” (Session 1/P1: COD4 CONTENT; SHARED TEACHING)

“I think there are topics that require a glossary, clear definitions of concepts and terms for the students. I know I could be schematic…” (Session 1/P2: COD7 PEDAGOGY; NSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT)

“…the other epistemological approach prevails and I can see many students have prejudices about this field of research” (Session 1/P2:COD9, INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT - PREJUDICES)

“this module on networked learning can be confusing, for there are other completely different laboratorial activities relating to the specific content, this is on the process, not the content…but I agree that students wouldn’t understand the value of collaborating without it” (Session 1/P2:COD23 COLLABORATION)

Results 2

Quality Dimensions

Quality NWL aspects negotiated Discourse

Experiencing quality principles: The tools for achieving quality NWL

Some of the tools that were adopted by the team to support the learning design process.SIGNIFICANT RESOURCES

“I can prepare the course schedule and the syllabus, so we can understand where do you intervene. I need you to focus some topics that are in tight connection with your discipline, while there are other that I think is better I take over…” (Session1/P2:COD41, SHARED TEACHING, ORGANIZATION, TOOLS)

“So the syllabus, that you have to prepare for the students, crystallizes all your process of negotiation of contents and pedagogical approach” (Session 1/ID:COD46 SHARED TEACHING, TOOLS)

“I prepared a simplified presentation for the adoption of collaborative forum…Guess this is the minimum for the proposed collaborative approach” (Mail123/eT2, COLLABORATIVE PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH, TOOLS)

“I prepared a table with the division of roles for the evaluation, since we are three people working together, apart eT2 that was with us initially” (Mail137/P2) (SHARED TEACHING, TOOLS)

Results 2

Quality Dimensions

Quality NWL aspects negotiated Discourse

Reflecting on the quality achieved

How the initial problems for the design are adjusted

DESIGN FOR NWL

“here is the tank of instruments we are about to use. Guess it reflects our conversations and last changes to the current design” (Mail3/P2)“In this new plan we solved the problem of a balance between the networked learning approach and the contents; however the raising numbers of students is a variable we cannot adjust and the laboratorial and collaborative approach depend highly on this” (Session3/P2:COD16)

Results 2Quality

DimensionsQuality NWL aspects negotiated Discourse

Concrete innovations to the own learning design practices: the impact of quality

Innovations emerging from the new learning design

CONTEXT

“I can see the groups are quickly entering in the collaborative process for the first module. I guess how it will be for the Module 7, where we have a lot of practice…” (Mail107/Et1, ACHIEVEMENTS, COLL)

“I don’t think this group is properly collaborating. Very few interventions and this is reflected on their joint assignments..” (Mail114/Et1, FOCUS, COLL)

“In the end I think the assessment system we considered is fair with specific knowledge the students must have, but also with the idea of the collaborative learning” (Session5:P1, COD3, ASSESSMENT, COLL)

“This course could be the beginning of something bigger. I think we can package it and prepare a post-lauream course like a Master Degree, for the contents we are re-elaborating and the approach would be innovative in our (national) context” (Session5/P2:COD7, TRANSFORMATIVE PRACTICE)

“I’m in front of two minds and two souls, in their generative and dialogic space. I don’t think they could do this alone…their result is about negotiation, and the final representation of the design in the syllabus is the product of two views of the pedagogical practices…” (MEMO4/ID, TP)

Interpreting results

The collaborative process leads to a combination of perspectives on the quality (MEMO4/ID),

Which in time determines the innovation for an expanded vision on quality (Mail107/eT1; Mail114/eT1; Session5/P2:COD7)

There is an intersemantic process that can be seen clearly in the expression of eT1 and P1 (Mail114/eT1; Session5:P2, COD3)

The ID Memo quoted shows also this impression on the process of negotiation and meaning making.

Interpreting results

Both P1 (supported by eT1) and P2 (supported by eT2) participated in the TLI on the basis of issues that were attempting against what everyone of them considered “the quality”:

› Contents of the course› Lab activities and eLearning› Institutional context › Examinations 

Interpreting resultsQuality Issues as perceived by the team Underlying Networked Learning

principles for quality Contents of the course: the problems expressed by the students regarding a "too fluid" "vast" "contradictory" content, and not easy to match with the own professional profile

Significant contents to interact/connect with

The translation of lab activities from a highly face-to-face approach to a blended system

Significant technologies to interact/connect with

Yielding collaboration as part of the re-design of the course

A dialogic, critical and reflective perspective of learning

Examinations: A concern on the way grades are attributed that fairly reflects the knowledge/skills the students must display after having attended the course.

The institutional perspective, relating the classroom practice with the curriculum and the learners' profile after concluded the course.

Interdisciplinary collaboration between P1 and P2, within a team were eT1 and eT2 played crucial roles in defining and supporting operationally the decisions taken by P1 and P2; while ID supported P2 in the analysis of the whole process of teacher-led inquiry

(Collaborative) Designing for (networked) learning

CONCLUSIONS

Defining Quality in Higher Education

A transformational perspectiveOur approach: The mediated quality to achieve quality literacy

Quality Teaching in Higher Education

Our Research

Conclusions & Discussion

Conclusions

Designing is a process of negotiation of initially different points of view; › One centered on the excellence of the content; › The other focused on the learner and the pedagogical

processes, as well as the adoption of educational technologies;

This perspective of quality is deeply rooted on the participants’ personal point of view and history of teaching and making research.

The process of improving quality implies tight collaboration and negotiation of the participants’ agency.

Conclusions

Collaborative Designing for Learning mediates quality for it allows to expand the own idea of quality teaching.› Expanding the own perspective › Achieving awareness on a new way of

interpreting quality (to know, to use, to evaluate, to innovate through a NWL approach)

› Becoming an insider of a shared and transformative quality perspective.

Future directions for research

How the approach of mediation for quality NWL could be further operationalized:› Co-Design› Co-production of contents› Co-teaching› Evaluation› Opening up courses

Which are the contextual/institutional/political constrains and supports for collaboration between teachers?

Which is the impact on the teacher’s professional identity?

The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he

becomes by it.John Ruskin

Thank you for your attention!Author contacts: patrizia.ghislandi@unitn.it / jraffaghelli@gmail.com