Jigsaw learning – a way to get collaborative work working!

Sarah Honeychurch, University of Glasgow. Based on Aronson’s jigsaw classroom learning design but converted to online learning in Higher Ed.  The jigsaw model was made to tackle the problems of how to get desegregated students working together – the answer was to make them depend on one another. The had to depend on other students to provide them with the knowledge they needed to complete the task – students teaching students.  In the model Aronson split the class into groups, with each group researching different topics of one overall topic and to prepare a presentation to share with the rest – which made the work even better as they saw more of a purpose in it as it has a clear end user.  Students are then “tested” on what they’ve learnt by the fellow students.

In this example at University of Glasgow,  students were grouped into 15s, and each 15 split into 3 groups of 5 A, B and C- randomly. Each A, B and C group had their own wiki space on the VLE (Moodle) to build up their research and prepare it to feedback/present to the rest of their group.  Each week a tutorial topic was posted in the VLE, with sub topics and questions to the whole cohort.

My question, to the courses I support, is whether the collaborative work we set lends itself to this idea and could we employ it here.  I wold say that we probably wouldn’t use a wiki, but let students use their own way to compile the information, such a Google Docs as the more technology you introduce to learn the more they won’t use it. I guess the other thing is we often ask the students to write reports in an online group, so there is the next stage would be making sure the three parts of research lie side by side, rather than one being dependent on the other so perhaps the question would be on the same topic, but in different contexts eg an analysis of the marketing strategy of pepsi in 3 different countries, compare and contrast, etc

This could be used for online induction to build up critical friendship groups and an understanding of how students can learn from each other using CMC.

Critical Friendship Groups in Blended Learning

Jane Womald from the University of Huddersfield,   The Value of Soft Skills in Blended Learning.

In the transition of a course from face to face to blended learning the presenters wanted to make sure they didn’t lose the social aspects of f2f learning. The students were mature students, part time and working full time in education. Previously the course was a weekly evening course that established groups and critical friendships that developed through weekly contact. The course is typically over 3 years with 18 day schools. The primary principles of this project was to find away to create these create critical friendship groups and communities of inquiry (Vaughn and Garrison 2008) now that they didn’t meet as often.  Basing their work on the assumption that mature learners have experience to share to help all of them wiht their self development and problem solving, they adopted the idea of interactive and cooperative peer learning (Bambino, 2002) and that social presence + social interaction = social learning (Tu, 2002).

In the first module each student was involved in a round of introductions (name, job, a positive aspect of their work) as soon as possible so each had a voice, each heard and shown to be willing to share. Then in groups of 3 students considered some principles and prepared to communicate this to others and others were prompted to ask questions about what was being said (eg what does it mean? How does that work? How will you use that in your work?). Between sessions students were encouraged to communicate (however they wished). Later on students had to write an assignment based on a critical incident at work (IE a problem) and people in their CFG gave them feedback on what they did.  Plagiarism was not an issue as the essays were about personal incidents but people could learn from each other about different situations and double-loop learning occurred as the student got more advise and feedback about how to handle their problem. 

The presenters identified that there is a “lack of evidence of building and supporting informal opportunities for similar spaces for dialogue when developing online learning courses. Much effort is given to the design and structure of courses and the methods of delivery, yet there is an assumption that the social aspects of learning will happen independently.”

Things to read 

• Bambino, D. (2002) ‘Critical friends’ Educational Leadership. 59 (6) pp.25-27
• Garrison, D.R. and Vaughan, N. (2008) Blended learning in higher education: framework, principles and guidelines.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Reynolds, A. (2009) ‘Why every student needs critical friends’ Educational Leadership. Vol. 67 (3) November 2009. pp.54-57
• Rovai, A. & Jordan, H. (2004) ‘Blended Learning and sense of community: a comparative analysis with traditional and fully online graduate courses’. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 5 (2).
• Selwyn, N. (2009). ‘Faceworking: exploring student’s education-related use of ‘Facebook’. Learning Media and Technology.34 (2) June 2009. pp. 157-174.
• Tu, C.H. (2002) The measurement of social presence in an online learning environment. International Journal of Educational Communications. 16 (3) pp.34-55.

The teachers’ role changing from “wiki” to “motivator” (in Uruguary) Plan Ceibal

The ALT C 2011 -  The education and social impacts of Plan Ceibal – a new approach to the use of technology in education, Miguel Brechner – Uruguay

This was the first keynote about a Prime Minster lead government initiative in Uruguay, support the social policies of inclusion and growth, it as a social policy, real equal opportunities – both rich and poor families have the same opportunities and as children had to have their ID papers to get the laptop, all children now have a sense of  formal identity as many children didn’t have a birth certicificate , learning and education – not only are the laptops enabling learning and teaching to improve but the security system locks the laptop up if a child does not go to school . 

Feedback from teachers, parents and children are that kids are more motivated to go to school and watching less TV. 

Miguel described the shift in the role of the teacher as being from wiki to motivator – a very clever line. A teacher who is a wiki just holds information and passes it on (the learning as acquisition metaphor (Sfard)) and a teacher who has children with this technology is now responsible for motivating children to learn by themselves.  

What learnt from Miguel is that, as always of course, pedagogy should lead and the objectives of improving the social economies chances of being internationally competitive are improved through the affordances that the laptop gives the children to learn, enjoy learning and learn from each other. Whatever you do needs to make the teachers’ lives easier. ” The reminder me that we must make our choices about technology in learning to solve a problem or improve a service, not just for their sake.

Looking forward, he said that the universities in Uruguay are not at all ready for this generation, currently the laptops are with children up to age 13/14, in a few years we’ll see the impact on how many children go to university but also how universities will react to their perceptions of learning (the learning as participation metaphor). It it’s not about learning with technology, technology is normal thing now, it’s about how technology has changed the way people want to learn.

Steve Wheeler summed this up well in his blog “Miguel Brechner demonstrated how giving a free laptop to each child has liberated them to learn in their own way and in their own time.”