Researching tutors’ perceptions of effective online pedagogy:
The Learning Activity Analysis Tool
Dr Gordon Joyes,
Institute for Research in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, University
of Nottingham, gordon.joyes@nottingham.ac.uk
Abstract
The tutor plays an important role in mediating online learning and behaviour
is influenced by their understandings of effective pedagogy. An understanding
of the relationship between pedagogic beliefs/ understandings and actual
practice is therefore a key research area. However research into these
understandings is problematic as there are apparent differences between
espoused beliefs about teaching and learning and actual practice or enacted
beliefs. Measurement and research design/instrument issues can account
for part of the disagreements between these. It can be argued that differing
abilities to reflect on personal pedagogic practice as well as the diverse
pedagogic language used by different lecturers and subject disciplines
could also account for these differences. This paper explores the use
of an online tool for researching online tutors understandings of effective
practice by focusing on an analysis of an existing online learning activity
and tutors’ views about the nature of the learner support that might
be needed.
The context for the study is the eEducator project within the UK government
funded e-learning International Sino-UK programme. This involved collaboration
between the University of Nottingham, UK and Beijing Foreign Studies University,
China to develop a module for training tutors of online learners - one
that could be adapted for use in a variety of contexts. As part of this
project a reflective analytic online tool the Learning Activity Analaysis
Tool (LAAT) was developed and this is the focus of the paper. The module
was piloted at the School of Distance Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia,
Penang. Six experienced tutors of undergraduate distance learners from
different subject disciplines, teacher education, mathematics, biology,
chemistry and English as a second language participated in the use of
the LAAT.
Each tutor analysed the same online learning activity and provided an
online summary of the strategies they would use to support the online
learners. They then shared their analyses using the functionality built
into the LAAT. An asynchronous online discussion followed that was used
to explore the ways the LAAT could be used to explore the tutors pedagogic
understandings. The research involved an initial analysis of the LAAT
entries to reveal the pedagogic understandings underpinning the tutor’s
strategies for learner support. This was followed by discussion group
questions designed to explore instances of actual practice. This research
revealed a sequence of activities that acts as a model for developing
pedagogic understanding using the LAAT.
The strength of the LAAT in this context is that it ensures a holistic
approach to analysing the nature of the support learners may need in relation
to an online learning activity. The implications for supporting effective
networked learning are self-evident in that the LAAT encourages an analytic
and enquiry based approach to developing effective learning environments.
It is particularly helpful when considering activities that involve online
communities of learners working within course based education where the
elements of regulations and of roles play an important part in ensuring
successful engagement in the learning process. The LAAT allows the supporting
tutor/s to think through the design of the networked learning activity
before it starts and predict points of tension and explore strategies
to overcome these. However the underlying pedagogic implications of these
strategies need to be considered if new pedagogic perspectives are to
be developed and this can only be achieved by taking a broader view of
the nature of the learner and of learning. This limitation might be viewed
as a limitation of Activity Theory itself and the ways it focuses on a
specific activity. However third generation activity theory provides a
framework to focus on multiple, interrelated activity systems which would
reveal the broader pedagogic issues.
Full Paper - .pdf
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