facilitating information literacy teaching and learning in a level 1 sport & exercise module by...

Facilitating Information Literacy Teaching and

Learning in a Level 1 Sport & Exercise Module by Means of Collaborative

Online Working

Geoff Walton, Subject & Learning Support Librarian, Staffordshire University: [email protected]

Jamie Barker, Lecturer in Sport & Exercise, Staffordshire University: [email protected]

Mark Hepworth, Lecturer & PhD Supervisor Loughborough University:

[email protected]

Presentation outline• Introduction• Research Project Aims• Research Project Objectives• Methodology• Results and Discussion• Recommendations for the future

Context• Teaching involvement• Module

– Effective Learning, Information & Communication Skills in Sport & Exercise SHP91000-1

• Research interest• Blackboard VLE

– Finding a way of getting students to use the Discussion Board segment of the resource

Research Project Aims

• Devise a framework for delivering IL in a blended fashion using notions of :– Scaffolding (of online collaborative learning)– Reflection and– Situated Learning.

Scaffolding• This learning structure involves 4 elements (Mayes &

de Freitas, 2004):– It provides learning activities which are real or simulated

(situated learning)– It is structured interaction (collaboration) between

participants – where opportunities are made for all students to contribute; the process rather than the task is the focus and a clear vision of what is to be achieved is communicated

– It involves guidance by an expert (e.g., tutor(s))– The gradual passing of locus of control from tutor to learner

where the learner becomes able to use a skill with increasing independence

Reflection

• Race (2002) defines reflection as: ‘The act of reflecting is one which causes us to make sense of what we’ve learned, why we learned it, and how that particular increment of learning took place. Moreover, reflection is about linking one increment of learning to the wider perspective of learning – heading towards seeing the bigger picture’

Situated Learning

• The notion of situated learning emphasises the importance of context-dependent learning where the learning activity is given as authentic a social context as possible Mayes & de Freitas, 2004) – in this case Sport & Exercise

Why Online Collaborative Learning?

• Primary courseware– Web pages, online documents – convey information

• Secondary courseware– online tests & quizzes – apply new concepts to meaningful asks

• Tertiary courseware– Opportunity to engage in collaborative working with fellow

students and tutors – produce new material & made available to all learners, highly interactive, large learning payoff (Goodyear, 2001)

Research Project Objectives (1)

• Devise subject specific IL activities which provide students with opportunities for online discussion & collaboration

• Create a diagnostic assessment to determine baseline skills in certain IL areas

• Re-assess these skills after delivery to detect differences

• Try out a scaffolded delivery framework for online collaborative working

Project Objectives (2)

• Analyse online collaborative dialogue to gain a rich picture of the online conversational processes.

• Devise a set of reflective questions to be used to encourage reflective learning

• Use findings to improve this framework for next cohort

Methodology

• Participants• Delivery• Quantitative data gathering • Qualitative data gathering

Participants

• Undergraduate students who have been organised into their seminar groups for the Level 1 core module Effective Learning, Information & Communication Skills in Sport & Exercise (2006-07 entry) at Staffordshire University.

Delivery

• Face-to-face workshop• Online Reflective Practice Task• Evaluation of sources (online activity)• Referencing of sources (online activity)• Online Reflective Practice Task

Face-to-Face Workshop• Subject specific problem-based scenario (foster the

notion of situated learning) BA students example:• A local PE teacher asks you to do a talk about soccer

violence (also known as football hooliganism, or stadium violence) to class of ‘A’ level sports students[…]

• Delivery included:– Identifying information need: keywords, simple combinations– Using specific resources (e.g., Library Catalogue, e-journals) to

answer the question

Online Reflective Practice Task (see handout page 1)

• 1) What did I actually learn in this session today?

• 2) Which were the most difficult parts and why were they difficult for me?

• 3) Which were the most straight-forward parts and why did I find these easy?

(Adapted from Race, 2002)

Online Discussion 2 (Evaluation of sources)

• Activity (see handout p2)

• Student postings (see handout p3)

• Summary (see handout p4)

Online Discussion 3 (Evaluation of Sources)


• Student postings ( see handout p5)


Online Discussion 4 (web pages)




Online Discussion 5 (URLs)




Online Discussion 6 (Referencing sources)• Activity (see handout p11)


• Student second postings (3 examples):– The second one is incorrect. You do not need the volume or

page number…– Joe has referenced the sources well but their is a few mistakes,

not putting italics and when in a journal using page and volume instead of putting 1,1

– punctuation errors when referencing the name of the author.

Quantitative data gathering

• Pre & Post Delivery Test focused on:– Catalogue (3 questions)– E-journals (including questions regarding simple search

strategies) (4 questions)– Evaluation of Sources (4 questions)

• Discussion board activity:– Number of student postings– Time taken to do postings

Qualitative data gathering

• Discussion Board output (content of student postings)

• Observations of students as they worked• Questionnaire responses• Focus Group• Analysis of assessed work

Results (Control Group)No. % Correct Pre-

Delivery% Correct Post-Delivery

2 84 853 84 924 10 545 6 316 16 237 35 628 81 929 41 46

10 63 5411 70 85

Table 1

Results (Post-Delivery comparison)No. Control Group Experimental

Group2 85 943 92 1004 54 565 31 626 23 257 62 698 92 1009 46 69

10 54 7511 85 62

Table 2

Results (postings)

Online Discussion

Primary posting Secondary posting

2 17 23 16 74 13 25 15 86 13 21

Table 3

Time taken to make a first posting 10 to 24 mins

Results 1 (Qualitative)

• Discussion 2, short, often one sentence, few concepts (see handout p3);

• Discussion 3 postings longer and more detailed, greater number of concepts in more depth (p5) ;

• Discussion 4 detailed with many criteria given (p7);• Discussion 5 many defined URL, only some moved on

to file structures, collectively plenty for summary (p9 & 10).


• Discussion 6 proved the most successful in terms of initial and secondary postings;

• Over two weeks gave more time for students to reply;

• One student even commented (in their own time and unprompted) on the summary pointing out an error;


• It was noted that whilst students were working on online tasks they appeared engaged and focused on what they were doing;

• Questions from students were relevant to the activities in question;

• Some difficulty was noted regarding the APA web resource – in that students couldn’t readily find the information needed but stuck to it until they did, I.e., the activity became more difficult than it needed to be.


• Questionnaire responses two clear issues:– Students very positive towards Online Discussion 6

(Referencing);• ‘I think I learning about references was useful and improved

my understanding of it’

– Students very negative towards other activities;• ‘I did not find reflecting on the work of another useful’

Results 5 (Qualitative)• The experimental group provided many richer reflective

statements in their assessed work than the control group. The completion of two online reflections before the assessment may have enabled them to do this. – they mention resources in specific terms for example, Library

catalogue, Swetswise and e-brary etc rather than in general terms for example, Library and e-journals;

– they also mention persistence, confidence and changing keywords to refine a search rather than expressing difficulty in finding information.

Discussion• What do the results tell us?

– Students willing to use Discussion Board during class positive towards activities which (in their view) have clear benefit

• What were the successes and why?– Referencing activity– Postings show learning even if students disagree

• What were the failures and why?– Students didn’t feel Discussion Board was beneficial– Activities & summaries differed in format– Lack of time for students and tutors

Recommendations for the Pilot study

• Future delivery should:– Make explicit to students how the activities link & contribute

to the assessment – Chunk activities into smaller tasks and set format– Have a reflection for each task– Allow one or more online interventions by tutors during online

discussions.– Direct students to specific relevant parts of web pages which

support an activity – Method for creating summaries from postings

Thought for the day

• ‘Everybody is starting to realise why we did all that now’(Focus Group participant’s opening remark as he

came into the room)

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