Presentation Description and Goals A. Goals The purpose of this presentation is to force me to come to grips with weaknesses in my own online teaching through: 1) Examination of ways to maximize online graduate education critical thinking. 2) Increasing understanding of how to take advantage of differences among classmates to maximize online learning 3) Understanding the role of the instructor in maximizing interaction and critical learning 4) Enhancing learner-instructor and learner-system interaction by building a collaborative environment 5) Facilitation student creation of their own independent knowledge. 6) Integrating lessons from the advances in teaching/learning theory through the use of Heider's Balance Theory, Cognitive Mapping, and Social Network 7) Developing a positive, encouraging environment in which participants are willing to give opinions more than they are requested to 8) Minimizing barriers: a) forms of language used, b) power distances, c) gender differences, f) perceptions of "conflict" and how to manage it, g) social presence, h) the time frame in which the group functions, i)and the varying level of technological skills. 9) Involvement in developmental research which provides opportunities to study processes while implementing distance education course materials. Description B. The Context/Problem I am aware that having 9 rather complex goals makes it unlikely that I will have much in the way of definitive results the first few times around. This simply points to the broad range of issues I need to address in bringing my online teaching up to what the state of the art is. C. The Approach/Results The presentation will look at a number of graduate course discussion forums and use social network analysis [UCINET software] and Balance Theory Analysis [Abelson, 1983] to examine patterns of interaction. The following long list of goals will be examined but the first discussion forum analyzed showed that those who initiated participation early were more likely to respond to the contributions of their fellow classmates than those who waited to provide a new discussion topic. A simple way to address this might be to insist that students contribute a topic of their own prior to beginning to comment on the contributions of their colleagues, a rule that would have implications for grades since a minimum number of original contributions to a topic and responses to fellow students are required to get maximum points. The formal paper will place references [APA style] throughout the text as each of the goals listed is examined based on data from the presenter's graduate course discussion forums. 1) Examination of ways to maximize online graduate education critical thinking. There is some evidence that provision of a range of materials and their access [modeling], giving graded feedback, and the like can enhance critical thinking. 2) Increasing understanding of how to take advantage of differences among classmates to maximize online learning Some literature shows that women tend to provide intuitive input while men tend to provide more documented materials. Maximizing these two different perspectives might enhance critical thinking. 3) Understanding the role of the instructor in maximizing interaction and critical learning There is a considerable body of recent applied research suggesting ways to enhance critical thinking. This includes instructor involvement in online discussions, providing support and encouragement to students, and providing access to resources, while encouraging students to seek other relevant materials. How to best achieve this is the topic for further research. 4) Enhancing learner-instructor and learner-system interaction by building a collaborative environment This appears to involve instructors actively participating in discussions in a non-judgmental way and structuring of student to student interaction in a way that demands shared learning. 5) Facilitation student creation of their own independent knowledge. This is an area where the literature is thin but requiring students to come up with a list of potential materials to address the topic ahead of beginning the discussion and sharing the materials with other students for credit will be tested in future courses. 6) Integrating lessons from the advances in teaching/learning theory through the use of Heider's Balance Theory, Cognitive Mapping, and Social Network The following diagram shows applications of Heider's theory and how the interaction between the instructor, student, and concept can affect the continuing discussion. For example, one of the most active students in the class, and a student with whom I had little agreement, stated at the end of the discussion forum dealing with the Health Reform Bill, that he felt he had learned nothing from the discussion. My guess is that my biases hindered his ability or willingness to ‘learn' in that situation. 7) Developing a positive, encouraging environment in which participants are willing to give opinions more than they are requested to There is evidence that the instructor, by interacting with students in a positive, encouraging environment, will assist the motivation of participants to be willing to give opinions more than they are requested to. 8) Minimizing barriers: a) forms of language used, b) power distances, c) gender differences, f) perceptions of "conflict" and how to manage it, g) social presence, h) the time frame in which the group functions, i)and the varying level of technological skills. How to assess this will be a learning experience in itself but the use of cognitive mapping http://www.banxia.com/dexplore/pdf/GettingStartedWithCogMapping.pdf can help along with word counts in examining the various potential barriers listed above. Initiative, formative research will be used to build rather than test potential hypotheses. 9) Involvement in developmental research which provides opportunities to study processes while implementing distance education course. This goal will come as the previous eight goals begin to be addressed. Addressing all of the goals will keep the presenter and others quite busy for quite some time. D. Published References Available on request
