etug fall workshop 2013: beyond effectiveness &efficiency

ETUG Keynote, Victoria, BC, November 2013

Beyond effectiveness &efficiency

Learning that’s good for the soul

George Veletsianos, PhD Canada Research Chair

Associate Professor School of Education and Technology

Students’, Instructors’, and Scholars’ experiences and practices with emerging

technologies in digital environments (e.g., social networks, open scholarship,

open courses/experiences)

To improve environments and practices

My research

•  May or may not be new technologies

•  Evolving, “coming into being”

•  Go through “hype cycles”

•  Not yet fully understood

•  Not yet fully researched

•  Potentially disruptive (but potential is unfulfilled)

(Veletsianos, 2010)

Emerging Technologies

“Strong pressures to produce

mediocre instructional products

based on templates and preexisting

content.”

Wilson, Parrish, & Veletsianos, 2008

Two Dominant Narra-ves

Narrative #1

The latest technology as a panacea

Narratives #2

Online education = efficient mode

of delivery to

large numbers of students

“Examples of

outstanding [online] instruction

are hard to find.”

Wilson, Parrish, & Veletsianos, 2008

Courses can be effective and efficient…

But are they:

Transformational?

Socially just?

Truly Open Practices

•  Faculty use social media to: –  Explore scholarly ideas – Re-envision their identities as public intellectuals –  Share knowledge – Debate & critique – Advice & reflect – Connect with other researchers – Reach multiple audiences

(Kjellberg, 2010; Kirkup, 2010; Martindale & Wiley, 2005; Mewburn & Thompson, 2013; Veletsianos, 2012)

Open Practices

What scholarly activities do individuals enact on social media?

Announcements

Draft papers

Open textbooks

Syllabi + Activities

Live streaming Live-Blogging

Collaborative authoring

Debates + commentary

Open teaching

Public P&T materials

Crowdsourcing

What scholarly activities do individuals enact on social media?

Veletsianos (2013)

These acts/activities question academic traditions & the status quo

And circumvent systems…

PirateUniversity.org

ThePaperBay.com

Reddit.com/r/Scholar

“Places of gathering” and “networks of care and bonding”

Veletsianos (2013)

#PhDChat

Project Engage!

http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1138506

Sample project

Design considerations for powerful learning

-  Narrative & Storyline

-  Sharing with others

-  Design opportunities that allow engagement

beyond course activities (interacting with

experts/colleagues, authentic contributions)

-  Open also means “being vulnerable” and

“putting yourself out there”

Contrast: The other “open” practices

The xMOOC phenomenon as a symptom

•  MOOCs are “the billion $$ solution to a problem we haven’t identified yet.” (Siemens, 2013) – A historically accurate perspective.

•  “The history of our field is replete with bandwagons, new technologies that were the temporal panaceas... Bandwagons are solutions in search of problems” (Choi & Reeves, 2013).

If the MOOC phenomenon is not a solution, what is it?

•  A “symptom of a larger problem” (Marquis, 2013)

•  A “symptom of the HE crisis” (Kendzior, 2013) •  A “symptom of the absence of educational

ambition among politicians” (Newfield, 2013) •  “A symptom of change” (Stewart, 2013) •  A symptom of “the seismic shifts that are

taking place in our profession” (Taylor, 2012) •  A symptom of “society’s degraded approach

to knowledge” (Leddy, 2013) •  “One symptom of openness” (Batson, 2013)


•  I propose that the MOOC phenomenon is a symptom of pressures, failures, closed ears: – Economic, political, privatization pressures – Educators’ failures to create their own solutions

to educational problems – Lack of impact of educational technology

research on learning design – Lack of impact of educational technology

scholarship (to share our findings, to make meaningful contributions to practice).

Even so, the MOOC phenomenon has made some contributions

•  Elevated the profile of online education •  Raised the profile of free (perhaps open?)

education •  Elevated the profile of teaching (Collier,

2013) •  Exerted pressure on HE institutions to

innovate •  Provided impetus for more collaboration

within HE (e.g., at the institutional level)

Hence…

The MOOC phenomenon

What happens “on the ground” with open learning/participation?

•  Caveat – Open courses vs. “Open” courses vs. Open

learning/participation

•  Learners report – benefiting from open course participation

(Hilton, Graham, Rich, & Wiley, 2010) – Facing a number of obstacles (Mackness et al,

2011)


•  Institutional MOOCs demonstrate low completion rates, <10% (Jordan, 2013)

•  Big Data & Learning Analytics research question traditional understanding of “completion” – Learners exhibit varied participation behaviors

(e.g., auditing, completing, disengaging, sampling) (Kizilcec, Piech, & Schneider, 2013)

– Koller et al. (2013) argue that participants may not necessarily intent to complete a course


•  We lack an evidence-based understanding of experiences with all open forms of learning/scholarship •  Majority of the research on open online learning

conducted to date has been survey-based, focused on learner behavior, and guided by tracking online behaviors

•  Reports from institutional offices are helpful, but we need in-depth studies


•  Need multiple methodologies: •  Macro (Kizilcec, Piech, Schneider, 2013) •  Auditing, Completing, Disengaging, Sampling

•  Micro (Ota, 2013) •  “[I was] left with a partial sense of

accomplishment and feelings of hollowness and incompleteness.”

•  In the frenzy surrounding the rise of “edtech” and MOOCs, it seems that student voices and experiences are rarely considered.

What is it like to participate in open online learning?

Veletsianos, G. (2013). Learner Experiences with MOOCs and Open Online Learning. Hybrid Pedagogy. Retrieved on Sept 29, 2013 from http://learnerexperiences.hybridpedagogy.com.

Results

•  Learners –  questioned institutional/instructor commitment, –  identified a need for improved instructional design, –  praised responsive MOOC instructors, –  criticized instructors who were not visible, –  valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity, –  appreciated the opportunities for open learning.

To summarize…

•  The realities of open online learning are different from the hopes of open online learning.

•  We only have small pieces of an incomplete mosaic of students’ learning experiences with open online learning.

Where do we go from here?

Design experiences, not products Sharing Storylines Vulnerability Design, develop, dream on.

Thank you!

Download these open access books:

http://tinyurl.com/book321

http://learnerexperiences.hybridpedagogy.com

Thank you!

www.veletsianos.com

www.veletsianos.com/publications

@veletsianos on Twitter

[email protected]