Reflection on authentic learning elements in a multicultural context

In this table I have reflected the teamwork and peer learning in nine authentic learning elements.

Elements	My reflection
Authentic  context	The virtual multicultural environment and a non-linear design of the real-life setting sets the scene for multicultural teamwork
Authentic activity and tasks	Activities that have real-world relevance and ill-defined activities provide an opportunity for students to work together as a team when planning the work. This work requires some time since this can be a time for building trust, collaboration and a team.
Expert performances	I believe that from a peer work perspective this element is vital. The access to expert thinking and modelling processes, access to learners with various levels of expertise, opportunity for the sharing of narratives and stories and access to the social periphery contains much of learning from and with peers. Very effective way of learning.
Multiple perspectives	In a multicultural team, the different perspectives on the topics from various points of view came quite naturally and it´s possible to have a wider view to the subject.
Collaborative construction of knowledge	Authentic learning encourages to peer learning, when tasks are suggested to complete in pairs or groups rather than individually.
Reflection	Even with reflection, an attention is put to peer learning. Reflection gives an opportunity for learners to examine their thinking and to compare themselves with other learners in varying stages of accomplishment.
Articulation	Also with articulation, the peer learning is present. The opportunities to articulate in groups enable peer learning.
Coaching and Scaffolding	Peer learning or other words collaborative learning is enabled, where more able partners can assist with scaffolding and coaching
Authentic assessment	Peer learning is even assessed when the assessment is seamlessly integrated with the activity and one of the things to be assessed is significant student time and effort used in collaboration with others

My communal identity

I have a lot of working experience of multicultural virtual teamwork and I see that will be a way of working at the future too. When working virtually in the global enterprise with people from different culture, people who you haven´t ever met, there were assumptions made as studies say. According to studies, since there is no time to build necessary trust for team members, you just start working with the assumption of trustworthiness. And in the majority of the cases it really works. If there is time, I´d like to have some early trainings for the team to build even more effective one. It´s though quite usual thinking that in order to save time (even that is not always the case) new project teams just start to work together.

Recently I have used online communites and social media a lot for learning. No matter what the subject is, there is a lot of information existing online. The more recent information I want to know, more likely it´s to be found online. I´m not sure if there is a need to belong so many expert communites any more, just be online and you are able to find information and discuss whatever interests you.

I find the role and significance of peers in the development of a multicultural online teacher identity, as in any other topic too, very important. I see that if you want to learn and develop in any matter, it´s much faster and more effective way to learn from and with others than doing that yourself. So also the way of learning has changed compared to what I have originally learned at school. I have experienced the learning from the peers is a must in the development at work since there is no time to do it alone. Peers have also helped a lot in any informal learning I have done. There too I have experienced that together I have learned much more in a shorter period of time. Based on my personal experience, I hope the peers will be used more in learning at schools too. It´s much faster and nicer to walk with the pair of shoes than just one shoe. There are of course exceptions.

Multicultural virtual peer feedback and peer evaluation

Multicultural virtual learning has meant that new methods for teacher´s professional development has been developed. Benchmarking is considered as a one method which seems to be working. Benchmarking is defined as a formal process of comparison and the same time it´s a way of generating ideas for improvement. Benchmarking aims for further development, and it can be called also as benchlearning. Benchmarking supports the opportunity to learn from personal and others’ experience. Peer learning encourages reflection and analysis of teaching practices. Reflection means that personal thinking and practice is examined. Benchmarking integrates individual and collective reflection.

The virtual benchmarking saves time when no travelling for meetings is required. Virtual learning communities provide an opportunity for individuals to come together. Giving feedback virtually is though challenging, since there is an attempt to harmony and teachers still feel that criticism, feedback and constructive comparisons must be given. Cultural differences might lead to coordination difficulties and create obstacles to effective communication. Also delays in feedback because of the asynchronous communication might cause ineffectivity.

Relationship building, cohesion, and trust are fundamental processes for effectiveness, and virtual teams have difficulties in achieving those. Trust development in virtual teams is especially challenging, since there is no f2f meeting which is usually the way to assess teammates’ trustworthiness. Research has found that short-lived teams are able to develop trust, and in that case team members just assume that others are trustworthy and begin working with that assumption. Training has been found to help for building trust. Early training can help for team building and individual satisfaction. Addition to early and uniform training, it has also been suggested to consider open education resources (OERs), which are created by diverse groups of scholars, since they can promote multiculturalism among the virtual learners.

Online team members are expected to engage interactively in online discussions and virtual teamwork. They must be able to build and display trust. That means that they must trust in themselves, in others, in the technology, and in the team process.  When committing to virtual team support and helping each other in a team, a virtual team can experience that working together can add value to their own learning. The projects created by virtual teams can be more expansive than what might otherwise be offered.  

 

Referencies:

Khalsa, D. K. (2010a). Virtual teamwork in the online classroom: Social and cultural characteristics and influences. Part 1. DE Oracle @ UMUC. An Online Learning Magazine for UMUC Faculty. Retrieved from http://deoracle.org/university-showcase/papers-studies/virtual-teamwork.html

 

Khalsa, D. K. (2010b). Virtual Teamwork in the Online Classroom: Guidelines for Instructor and Student Success - Part II. DE Oracle @ UMUC. An Online Learning Magazine for UMUC Faculty.Retrieved from

http://deoracle.org/online-pedagogy/teaching-strategies/virtual-teamwork-part-2.html

Leppisaari, I., Vainio, L. & Herrington, J. (2009). Virtual benchmarking as professional development: Peer learning in authentic learning environments. In Same places, different spaces. Proceedings ascilite Auckland 2009. Retrieved 3.7.2013 from http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/auckland09/procs/leppisaari.pdf

Leppisaari, I., Herrington, J., Im, Y. & Vainio, L. (2011). Creating an e-Benchmarking Model for Authentic Learning: Reflections on the Challenges of an International Virtual Project. Educational Technology International 12 (1), 21–46. PDF

 

Tcherepashenets, N.  (2010). Book Review of R. Goodfellow &  M-N. Lamy. (2009). Learning Cultures in Online Education.  IRRODL, The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 11(2). Retrieved 22.7.2013 from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/824/1540

My development task and multicultural e-learning

Lately I have examined two different pedagogic approaches which are universal design and connectivism. I think the both are applicable to my development task and it may depend from the learners´background what approach to emphasize.

Things I could consider from universal design are the three main components of Universal Design Language (UDL), Dynamic Instructional Design (DID) Steps and the learning types. The main idea of Universal Design is that products and environment should be usable at the very beginning by all people. This could be done with three steps; have multiple representations of information, alternative means of expression and varied options for engagement. DID model defines a process and steps how to do that. Emphasis is on flexibility. Knowing the learners is important, and various instructional techniques and teaching strategies have been listed by grouping different learning types. With the help of Universal Design method I can ensure the support of diversity and flexibility of the course and the material.

Connectivism made me think the learning and knowledge management. Learning management has been devided to two, personal learning and social learning. Personal learning is about learning a certain discipline. In connectivism teacher and student work in the same place, create the same content. Students are not told to take specific tasks. They do what they think is relevant. So in connectivist course everybody does different things. The community is open and everybody can interact with each other. Evaluation happens by evaluating if the person has developed an appropriate personal knowledge in the network. I like the teacher´s role, to be active in the course, and the openness of the community. Also evaluation here was interesting, but I would like to understand more about it.

Reflection on authentic learning elements from a multicultural perspective

In this table I have compared Universal Design and Connectivism to the authentic learning approach and made observations there. I think both Universal Design and Connectivism do support in many ways authentic type of learning like having relevant context to studies, having access to expert performances, supporting diversity and giving space for reflection. There are though also differencies. Connectivism doesn´t really provide anything, students are choosing more independently the tasks and the way they do the tasks. Also the evaluation and the teacher role differs between connectivism and authentic learning. Universal Design gives more freedom to choose how to study compared to authentic elements since  e.g. it´s up to student how much to collaborate or articulate. Also teacher role may change depending from the student.

Element of authentic learning	Universal Design	Connectivism
Provide authentic context that reflects the way the knowledge will be used in real-life.	Relevant, real world experiences are valued.	Relevancy for students.
Provide authentic activities	Objectives are defined as measurable and observable (verbs). Clearly defined objectives.	Tasks are not provided. Students are doing the tasks what are relevant to them.
Provide access to expert performances and the modelling of processes	Provides a forum for sharing with learners.	Community is formed, acces to expert performances possible
Provide multiple roles and perspectives	Supports the diversity and multiple perspectives.	The role is up to student, multiple perspectives are formed by different students,
Support collaborative construction of knowledge	Learners can choose if they want collaboration or individual activities	Separates knowledge management to personal learning and social learning. Interaction within the community.
Promote reflection	It´s suggested to allow time for  absorption and reflection.	Happens in practice even not promoted.
Promote articulation	Depends on learner	Depends on learner, happens online
Provide coaching and scaffolding	It´s up to learner what kind of coaching and scaffolding is given by a teacher.	Student takes that from other students (or from the teacher).
Provide for authentic assessment of learning within the tasks	Activities contain immediate feedback	Evaluation whether the person has developed the appropriate personal knowledge.

REFERENCIES

Downes, S. (2011). Connectivist Learning: How new technologies are promoting autonomy and responsibility in  education, http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/connectivist-learning-how-new-technologies-are-promoting-autonomy-and-responsibility-in-education

Universal Design for Culturally-Diverse Online Learning (Eberle & Childress, 2007) PDF

Herrington, J., Reeves, T.C & Oliver, R. (2010). A guide to authentic e-learning. London and New York: Routledge.

Online teacher identity and pedagogic approaches

This time I have familiarized to different pedagogic approaches. I see that there is no single answer how to do multicultural online teaching. In fact there are several approaches. One thing which I think is sure, the role of the teacher is changing. Focus changes from teacher-centered to student-centered education. Teacher´s new role can be more like a facilitator role or even the same as student role is.

Especially in the e-learning environment where different cultures and learning styles meet more and more, the teacher´s new role needs to be understood. Role will be different from the traditional teacher role and it needs to be more flexible based on student´s needs. Learners’ diversity will grow, and that needs to be understood when designing an education. And addition to teacher, also education needs to be flexible to meet the different needs. Support for the students also changes, learners can get support also from other instances than just teachers e.g. from other students or experts.

From the connectivism point of view, even the teacher´s facilitator role is not the right change. Teachers need to take part to a course like students. Teachers are creating and working in the same place and with the same content as students do. Teacher creates a community together with the students by participating and engaging similarly. Universal design method also emphasizes diversity and flexibility. Teacher´s support is needed in many different ways for different learners.

I´m very interested about the idea of connectivism and a teacher´s role there. It is demanding but at the same time a very rewarding role. Teacher is there a learner all the time too. I wonder if that is a bit extreme shift if changing directly from a teacher centered role. Maybe it would be better first to change a teacher role to a facilitator role where a student is a center. Then I universal design could help in in practice to take into account as many different learners as possible when designing a course.  After a successful facilitator implementation, as a next step could consider emerging the roles of the teacher and the student to a one learner role. That possibly depends from the learners too.