Final+Critique

toc
 * Critique of the Design of Collaborative Learning Opportunities on EDU11111 Supporting the Blended and Online Student Experience**

** Introduction and Overview of Module **
This purpose of this screencast is to examine how collaboration has enabled the implementation of constructive alignment (Biggs and Tang, 2007) and the 3E framework (Smyth) in the module Supporting the Blended and Online Student Experience (SBOSE). This is the second module students take on the Edinburgh Napier MSc Blended & Online Education (BOE) Programme. This programme is delivered on a part-time basis, fully online, and is designed to offer educational professionals an opportunity to explore topics important for supporting the distant student experience – e.g. individual and cultural diversity, inclusive design, support needs, and equivalence of experience. This Screencast will offer a critical analysis of the collaborative activities within the module in light of Bigg's constructive alignment model, where all assessment tasks, and learning and teaching experiences are linked to the learning outcomes, and the main development model of the course the 3E approach by Smyth, which describes an approach to curriculum design - specifically one which enables increasing levels of student autonomy through appropriate use of technology and opportunities for collaboration. The screencast will focus on three particular collaborative activities offered to students - the student led seminars, the asynchronous discussion boards and the second life visits. The screencast will offer recommendations to further support the delivery of the collaborative activities and offer some concluding thoughts.

The aim of the module is to offer an “experiential learning” opportunity and allow students to engage with the subject and their fellow students through a range of individual (learning outcomes 1,2,4,5) and collaborative tasks (learning outcomes 1,2,3) that are meant to feed directly into the assessed work. The course is assessed via student led seminars (that are peer assessed), and an individual assignment. The module builds on the 3E Approach taken in the first module on the MSc programme. As learners move through the MSc programme there are opportunities for them to take control of their own learning. In the SBOSE module, the second module in the programme, learners are offered an opportunity to “extend” by, for example, designing and implementing student led seminars which include the design of collaborative opportunities for their peers. The module also offers an opportunity for empowerment since the student led seminars allow students to decide how and what they learn. The module is delivered through WebCT vista and this tool is used to support online collaboration and communication through, for example, the discussion boards, use of Elluminate, and the whose who chat option. The course also gives the students the option to explore and collaborate in the Second Life environment.

** Curriculum Design Models and Collaboration **
Social constructivism (Vygotsky) argues that students construct their own learning and mental models. It maintains that learners (and their tutors) need to be active and collaborate to achieve a shared understanding of knowledge in a given topic area. Both constructive alignment and the 3E framework embrace social constructivism and therefore to apply these design models successfully it is necessary to support opportunities for collaboration.

Biggs (2007) model of constructive alignment focuses on how well the aspects of the curriculum fit together. Students construct meaning through what they do in learning situations, and teachers align learning situations, teaching methods and assessment tasks with the Learning Outcomes (LOs). Learning, teaching and Assessment activities should therefore be matched to the learning outcomes. As illustrated in the diagram below:




 * Figure 1: Houghton, W. (2004) based on Briggs. **

As noted by Smyth, in the Edinburgh Napier LTA resource bank (2011), the 3E Framework approach used on the BOE programme comprises an //“Enhance-Extend-Empower continuum describing simple uses of technology for enhancing the learning experience through to activities that engage learners in applying knowledge in sophisticated, authentic ways//”. The "extend" opportunity in the SBOSE module means students are facilitated to go furthering in their use of technology to support aspects of individual and collaborative learning and assessment through an increase in their choice and control. In addition, as noted earlier, an argument can be made that, particularly in the student-led seminars, the learners are facilitated to the Empower level of the 3E framework where students are able to chose from amongst the predetermined learning outcomes, but they then decide what to learn and how to learn it.

Second Life Activities
The use of Second Life within the module is not part of the assessed activities – rather it gives the module participants an opportunity to explore the possibilities offered by the platform, and to engage with fellow class members and academic staff on virtual field trips. Support and interaction is also offered via the discussion boards (including a ‘Second mid-Life Crisis’ forum, which did not appear to be available during the module).

The fact that students' learning takes place by exploring Second Life, rather than merely reading about it, offers them the chance to undertake the ‘experiential learning’ discussed earlier. An element, which would perhaps have extended this, would have been the opportunity to create content within Second Life – this could also have extended the opportunity for collaboration. Arguably though it would be unrealistic to include this in a relatively brief introduction to the area (particularly when it is an optional element). It should be noted, however, that participants are able, if they wish, to create content as part of their projects.

There is a link between this activity and learning outcome 4, which states: // During the design or appraisal of new or existing courses, critically consider the complex student support issues that arise in blended and online learning. //Students who engage with Second Life as part of this module will be aware of many of the issues which can potentially arise from its inclusion in their own provision (such as the technical skill required). The opportunity to discuss and reflect on this (via an assessed discussion in the forums) would perhaps have allowed students greater opportunity to critically consider the inclusion of Second Life in their own projects.

That students are able to use Second Life as part of their projects means that the use of the virtual worlds can be seen as part of the ‘extend’ element of Smyth’s 3E Framework, as it can be seen to:

“…offer new opportunities for learning or to extend classroom activities in ways that provide more choice and control in what, when and how students learn.” (Smyth, 2007: p2)

In addition, the fact that students can choose to incorporate Second Life into their own activities could also be seen as an example of the empower element of Smyth’s 3E Framework (as they are empowered to use the technology, should they wish to do so). But could potentially empower more by supporting students in ‘engaging in online professional communities’ through Second life.

Student Led Seminars
The student led seminars offered another opportunity for 'experiential learning', when two or more participants were given the opportunity to design and run an online seminar for a small group of students and their tutors on the course to take part in over a two week period. Each seminar reflected an interest of those leading the seminars, e.g. retention. The seminars also allowed students a choice as to what technology they used to run the seminar, be it a wiki or a WebCT environment, etc. The seminars were assessed both by the participants themselves and by their peers. The student based seminars were activities designed to allow students on SBOSE to demonstrate two learning outcomes while collaborating, LO2 and LO4. In terms of LO2 the students had to: Analyse, apply and reflect upon online facilitation skills that prompt student engagement, promote understanding, and demonstrate sensitivity to individual needs . In addition the student based seminars also supported the demonstration of LO4: During the design or appraisal of new or existing courses, critically consider the complex student support issues that arise in blended and online learning .

These activities, therefore, demonstrated quiet clearly Bigg’s constructive alignment, as we can identify the student led seminar activities aligning clearly to the learning outcomes. When looking at the 3E framework, it can be argued that this activity also offered an opportunity to empower students in terms of control ( offering a high degree of student participation) and opportunities for collaboration. While this objective was also achieved successfully through the learning activity, this aspect, could have been even further supported by offering additional opportunities for collaboration around the peer/self assessment. By adapting the assessment process slightly, to allow the students an opportunity to reflect and discuss with each other in Elluminate their individual ratings of the online seminars, this would have supported further the sharing of knowledge of pedagogy in "authentic ways". In addition, it would have been useful for those running the student led seminars to have discussed in Elluminate what marks they felt they should receive and provide justifications for this. This empowering opportunity would build further on the idea of peers learning together. It would also have ensured that learners were learning as actively as possible.

Discussion Boards
The constructive alignment approach to learning outcomes demands that the student learn skills for seeking out the required knowledge as the changing situation demands. The approach facilitates active student engagement in authentic learning activities that are designed to achieve desired learning outcomes and assessed in terms of what students can do, rather than the ‘declarative knowledge’ or knowing about something they can recite or write (Biggs, 2003). The discussion boards for this module encouraged each student to contribute to each discussion, and the group used the following bullets to evaluate the usefulness of the discussion boards. According to Northover (2002) there are a number of aspects that contribute to the usefulness of discussion boards to students: • Value – make the discussion as inherently valuable to the students' purpose (ie meeting learning outcomes) as possible. Since all of the students contributed to the discussion boards (on more than one occasion) suggests that students valued these discussions, and arguably could appreciate that learning outcomes were met; • Challenge – a discussion that becomes boring or predictable will cease to be of interest. As above, engagemnet was continuous fot the boards throughout their use; • Non-threatening – the discussion environment must be a 'safe' one. There were a variety of discussion topics, with a variety of opinions and points made, suggesting that students felt safe to discuss points; • Feedback – students must have confirmation from the tutor that they are 'on the right track. There was good engagement with the tutors, often suggesting other areas to expand and/or deepen the students' learning'; • Encouragement – most students will respond better with an actively encouraging environment. The tutor has a prime responsibility here, but this will often also come from fellow students. Students responded to other students' postings as well as tutors. • Authentic – realistic and meaningful tasks increase the value to the students; building knowledge which is practical, contextualised and relevant. Students talked about the practical application, suggesting the meaningfulness of the tasks set. A discussion board activity will have greater impact and worth if it can encourage a deeper level of learning and understanding. Northiver (2002) suggests that "a discussion that consists of a single activity only – discussing or debating a single concept – may have a limited impact. If the activity can build through two or three parts of the discussion, it can lead to a more purposeful outcome..." Since the discussion topics were related to the module content and other discussion, we would suggest encourages reflective and/or experiential learning, which encouraged students to participate in the accumulated participation and learning of the group. Perhaps this could also be explained as extending and/or empowering students as described by the 3E Framework - it extended what, when and how students on the module learned, and also gives students choice on what they would like to discuss (within the context of the discussion set) and whether they wanted to add more than one posting.

Recommendations and Conclusion
We will end the screencast by offering some concluding thoughts and recommendations to help to further improve the collaborative opportunities in the SBOSE module to enable further the successful deployment of Bigg's constructive alignment and the 3E framework. We can view the Module as both constructively aligned (Biggs and Tang (2007) in terms of Learning teaching and assessment strategy and that it employs the 3E framework effectively. All three activities discussed offer opportunity for collaboration and deep learning. But collaboration could be supported further.

The use of Second Life in the module can be seen to extend students' knowledge and offer new opportunities for learning. In addition its' inclusion empowers students to use it in their individual and group projects. As such the use of Second Life in the module is closely linked to Smyth's 3E model. By allowing students to explore Second Life, rather than just reading about it, it offers an ideal opportunity for experiential learning. One recommendation, regarding the use of Second Life in the module, could be by extending it to make greater use of the discussion boards, to allow students to reflect on and discuss their experiences and be assessed on this. It may also encourage greater engagement with what is an optional, albeit very worthwhile, activity.

In terms of the student led seminars, the critique has suggested that further opportunities for collaboration, and enhancing the learning experience for students through the sharing of knowlede in authentic ways could have been achieved by allowing an additional collaborative element around the peer and self assessment activities. Either the discussion forums or the elluminate platform could have been used for the proposed enhancement of this activity. To conclude we would argue that SBOSE provides rich opportunities for experiential learning and collaborative activity. However, it could be further extended to facilitate greater empowerment of students by the forementioned changes.