Mapping the Terrain for Online Teaching and Learning Practices
When I was teaching outdoor education in the early 1990s, a friend and fellow instructor was part of a team developing a wilderness program in a remote area of Chilean Patagonia. He told me about a remarkable adventure he had with his students there. Miles in the distance, he could see the towering range of mountains they were trying to reach. He pulled out his map to plan a route. However, when he looked at the area between them and their destination, his stomach dropped. Where the map should have shown contour lines indicating the cliffs, rivers, valleys, and glaciers ahead, there was nothing but a blank white spot. Gulp. After many deep breaths, he gathered his students, informed them that the adventure officially had begun, and plodded off with them to navigate the unknown territory.
Eventually, they successfully made it to their destination. Many students later reported that this experience was the most meaningful part of their trip. Although they assumed at the time that the blank area on the map was the result of a printing problem, they learned later that aerial photographers couldn't take pictures because the area was almost constantly clouded over.
Developing online learning can be a lot like entering a blank area of a map. The trusted practices that guide face-to-face instructors in classrooms don't quite match the terrain of this newer online environment. Designing a path that leads from course objectives to student outcomes can be a bit of an adventure. While adventures promise many rewards, wouldn't it be nice to have a map?
Campus Projects
In spring 2005, evaluation and research consultants at the Digital Media Center began a multi-year case study research project called Pictures of Practice to fill in areas of the map related to online teaching and learning practices. We intend to investigate online teaching and learning at the ground level and, over time, to provide useful knowledge for faculty members and other would-be online adventurers.
Developing online learning environments will probably be something of an adventure for some time to come. At this point, our goal is to establish some landmarks that poke through the clouds so you can know what to expect underneath. Stay tuned to the Evaluation and Research section of our site over the coming months as we post the results.
Methods
Each semester, we choose two or three faculty members who have developed student-centered online learning environments with WebVista to be case study participants. We use qualitative methods to address three research questions:
- How do faculty members design and develop online learning environments?
- How do faculty members facilitate teaching and learning in online environments?
- How do faculty members assess student learning in online environments?
We conduct ethnographic interviews with the faculty members, key collaborators, and students. We also analyze the course WebVista sites, which provide important evidence of interactions and how the activities of teaching and learning are carried out.
For the current case studies, we are using the Activity Oriented Design Method (AODM) (Mwanza, 2002), which is built on cultural-historical activity theory (e.g., Engeström, 1987; Leont'ev, 1978). To conduct an AODM analysis, the researcher examines the context in which humans and computers interact and uses the results to inform technology systems design.
Example
We recently used this method to examine a collaborative system that a faculty member and a teaching assistant (TA) developed to grade student assignments in a course taught totally online (see Figure 1 at right). The coursework was divided into modules. For each module, each student submitted a written assignment using the Vista assignment tool, participated in online group discussions using the Vista discussion tool, and received one grade.
An important task in an AODM analysis is to identify areas of tension or contradiction in an activity system. Based on interview and Vista assignment tool data, we identified tensions in the grading system (see Figure 2 at right). While assessing student work, the TA realized that it wasn't possible within Vista to display the assignment and discussion tool submissions at the same time. This was a problem, because the TA wanted to compare how each student addressed the same concepts in written assignments and discussions. Consequently, the faculty member and TA decided to print paper copies of all the submissions, which they felt cancelled out the advantages associated with online submissions.
Our analysis of the students' use of the Vista assignment tool revealed another important finding. The tool enables students to submit text either by typing in a box or attaching a separate document. The professor and teaching assistant stated that the content and formatting of assignments, including students' use of grammar and spelling, was significantly better when the students composed the text with word processing software and submitted it in attached documents than when students typed it directly into the assignment tool text box. From a practical standpoint, this indicates that there are potential advantages associated with encouraging students to compose assignments using word processing software.
Bibliography
The following may help you understand and apply activity theory.
Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research. Home page. University of Helsinki. http://www.edu.helsinki.fi/activity/.
This site includes an overview of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) as well as citations and links to other resources published by a number of leading researchers in this area.
Engeström, Y. Learning by Expanding: An Activity-Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit, 1987.
This work represents a more recent elaboration of activity theory.
Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition. "Mind, Culture, and Activity Homepage." University of California, San Diego, 2005. http://communication.ucsd.edu/MCA/.
This site provides links to a discussion forum (XMCA), paper archive, and other resources for "interdisciplinary scholars who share an interest in the study of human mind in its cultural and historical contexts."
Leont'ev, A. N. Activity, Consciousness, and Personality. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1978.
Leont'ev developed the original formulations of activity theory after Vygotsky's death.
Mwanza, D. "Daisy Mwanza's Web Site!" The Open University, 2005. http://iet.open.ac.uk/pp/d.mwanza/index.htm.
In addition to information about Dr. Mwanza's research and background, this Web site lists her published work and provides links to PDF versions of her dissertation and selected publications.
Mwanza, D. "Towards an Activity-Oriented Design Method for HCI Research and Practice." PhD thesis, The Open University, 2002. http://iet.open.ac.uk/pp/d.mwanza/Phd.htm.
Mwanza developed the Activity Oriented Design Method (AODM) to carry out design-based research using activity theory.
