Week 7

Introduction

In our modern world, digital technology and e-learning has revolutionised education. Throughout the course of the term, in preparing and publishing blog postings for EDSE12024 – Digital Pedagogies in Secondary Schools, I have had the opportunity to interact and engage with fellow students and learners in a digital learning environment, Blogger. This limited online collaboration provided a number of benefits and successes, drawbacks and failures and learning experiences and outcomes, including:

Benefits and successes:

• The ability to read and gain ideas from other people’s thoughts and reflections
• The ability to gain a variety of viewpoints and perspectives on shared issues
• The ability to express opinions and provide feedback on other’s works and blogs
• The comments from others provide feedback and ideas for improvement on future work and blog postings

Drawbacks and failures:

• The nature of the tasks meant that collaboration was not really necessary to complete them
• The viewing of other’s blogs invites the possibility for illegitimate use or plagiarism
• Collaboration with others was not heavily monitored or facilitated, but instead learner-owned which meant that interaction and engagement was either not carried out at all or only minimally by some members of the learning environment

Experiences and outcomes of limited online collaboration:

• It built my technological knowledge and skill set, using the new and foreign type of digital technology, Blogger
• It built my professional knowledge base of other digital tools that I can use in my teaching through viewing and engaging with other’s blogs
• It helped me to gain an idea of how to work with and interact with others in an e-learning environment

Reflection of theory and experiences in relation to pedagogy and e-learning design

In the context of digital online learning environments and communities, there are two different types of learning approaches; cooperative learning and collaborative learning. Cooperative learning refers to “the process of working together to [achieve] the same end” (Morrison, 2012). In contrast, collaborative learning means “to work jointly on an activity to produce or create something” (Morrison, 2012). Cooperative and collaborative learning generally use different levels of cognitive processes and skills; application, planning and development as opposed to analysis, synthesis and problem solving respectively (Morrison, 2012). Group work, whether it is through cooperative or collaborative learning has the ability to help support student learning and outcomes in e-learning virtual classrooms or environments. According to Weimer (2013), it has the capability to generate five key learning outcomes, including:

1. The ability for students to learn and develop mastery of content and materials more effectively
2. The ability for students to learn the content at a deeper level using higher order thinking skills and processes
3. The ability for students to learn how a group or team functions effectively and productively to complete an activity or task
4. The ability for students to make better decisions and generate better solutions than if they were to work individually, through the sharing of greater knowledge, ideas and perspectives
5. The ability for students to learn how to work effectively with others, particularly others who may have different backgrounds or experiences to them, others who are unfamiliar to them or others they may disagree or dislike

This theory and experiences have influenced and impacted upon the pedagogy and e-learning design that I will implement and use as a teacher.  Morrison (2012) demonstrates the difference between cooperative and collaborative learning; both of which are approaches I can implement into my e-learning design to help engage students in their learning in digital online e-learning environments. Weimer (2013) has also enlightened me to the real value in group work in digital e-learning environments, whether it be through cooperative or collaborative learning, for improved student learning and outcomes. Finally, my experiences have aided me to improve my e-learning design and shown me that cooperative or collaborative learning in e-learning environments is likely to be more successful if:

• Students have the ability to view and provide comments and feedback upon others’ learning
• Collaboration is a necessary component for students to complete tasks and activities effectively
• Collaboration is well managed, supported and monitored in the learning environment with discussion questions or prompts to facilitate interaction if required

References

Morrison, D. (2012). Online groups – Cooperative or collaborative? Retrieved from: https://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/online-groups-cooperative-or-collaborative/

Weimer, M. (2013). Five things students can learn through group work. Retrieved from: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/five-things-students-can-learn-through-group-work/