Elearner narratives of experience: innovating evaluation Caroline Daly, Norbert Pachler, Jon Pickeri

1
E-learner narratives of experience innovating
evaluation Caroline Daly, Norbert Pachler, Jon
Pickering and Jeff Bezemer Institute of
EducationUniversity of London
www.wlecentre.ac.uk
2

• Keeping up with e- learning
• The next VLE will be different for the learner
• The next set of e-learners they encounter will be
  different
• The technology will move on and we will start all
  over again
• and again

3
Continuing Professional Development
accredited CPD
challenging orthodoxies
portfolios
scholarly teaching
Work-based learning
Criticality research literacy
critical incidents
practitioner research
socio-constructivist pedagogy
learning journals
online discussions
Collaborative learning
response partners
mixed mode
4
The study

• Aimed to find out about e-learners experiences
• Based on a tutor group of 12 experienced teachers
  
• Longitudinal design (7 months)
• Quantitative data - pre-course questionnaire
• Qualitative data - based on a range of
  learner-narratives
• loosely-structured face to face interviews
• think-aloud online commentaries by individuals
  responding to a mediating object to do with
  e-learning
• focus group interviews at mid-point in the first
  module
• online commentaries on issues-of-the-month
  based on the socio-communicative aspects of
  e-learning
• open-ended follow-up interviews with 5
  participants
• Five sample cases selected for detailed
  analysis and reporting

5
  Please rate the ways you prefer to learn. On
a scale of 1-5, 1 means very positive about
learning like this, and 5 means not positive at
all.   working mostly alone 1 2 3 4 5
discussing in a small group (3-4) 1 2 3 4 5
discussing with a partner 1 2 3 4 5
discussing in a larger group (8-12) 1 2 3 4 5  

• Thinking about your learners, do you know what
  answers you would get?
• From individuals?
• As a group profile?
• How do you knowand does it matter for the way
  e-learning is designed on your course?

6
Learner preferences
7
Working with narrative data collection

• Methodological principles
• A way of knowing (Bruner)
• Access to informal as well as formal experiences
  of learning
• Informs the presentation of the data in cases,
  i.e. contextualised and autobiographical accounts
  of learner experiences
• Ethical considerations
• Impact on the learners a significant outcome
• Reconceptualising the role of the practitioner
• Research and Development as a core aspect of the
  MTeach
• A different approach to evaluation

8
Key areas of learner experience on an
award-bearing CPD-related distance course

• The experience of moving between
  work/life/learning contexts
• The experience of communicating online (genre,
  mode and medium-switch)
• The experience of collaborative learning
• The experience of socio-dynamics

9
Issues for online commentary
1. A sense of community? Now that you have spent
your first month as an online student on the
MTeach what has it been like so far? Some
researchers say that it is very difficult to
establish a sense of community at a distance.
Others say that it is certainly possible to form
a learning community online, and there are
several theories about what this might look like.
What are your first thoughts?
10
The style inwhich a person writes I feel gives
an insight into their personality, as youread
their writing you can often build a sense of who
they are and thesituation they are coming from.
Now that responses are being posted I am
beginning tofeel more confident in this on-line
learning processand that a community is
beginning to emerge.
it's a big learning curve for me I've never done
anything like this before
it's a bit daunting posting work, without it
being checked first!! I'm sure I'll get used to
it
I am aware that other professionals are reading
my work before anyone has told me whether it is
any good or not.  Now, I know I'm a teacher and
I'm nearly 26 yrs old and I should probably have
grown up a bit by now but I hate getting things
wrong (!) and it feels a bit like being asked to
read your work aloud to the class before your
teacher has checked it.  Does anyone else know
what I mean ?
or perhaps not knowing the person who posted the
tasks could be more benefit to bringing a sense
of community as it allows us to take a more
non-judgemental view as we do not have the
baggage that people bring with them? Just a
thought.
It certainly takes some getting used to, as I too
have not done anything like this before. I am
finding that when Ive read someones
correspondence I want to talk about it
immediately and explore the issues involved
11
Issues for online commentary
2. Writing online/talking in a seminar Only two
of you had prior experience of learning online
before joining the MTeach, so this has been a new
way of communicating to learn for everybody else
in the group. These discussions form a
significant alternative to talking about issues
at the face to face days or in traditional
seminars. What has it been like to discuss by
using writing to communicate with each other like
this?
12
I can say that I feel so much more confident
about learning on line now. Im sure that I speak
for a number of us when I say we werent too sure
where (at what level) to pitch the on-line
discussions initially, was it meant to be really
academic or more chatty.
Although I am still quite apprehensive about what
I am writing, I am getting used to this process
of communication. It still feels quite weird that
there's no immediate response to what I have
written, or the usual interaction of a verbal
conversation. However I look forward to
logging-on and reading postings. This way of
communication is giving me time to reflect on my
own teaching and learning has certainly made me
question what is going on in my school. It's
great to hear about other schools, teaching and
different educational establishments.
Online learning has its highs and lows, I've
learnt.
I too feel I'm getting more confident with time,
though there is still always a slight worry about
how my task responses are being received.
13
we learn with and from each other
separate although connected
Experiencing lightning flashes of inspiration
from others, and making direct contact from time
to time by bumping first into one peer and then
another until eventually the music (the module)
stops
taking control of their own routes and
directionsmaking decisions about how, when and
why they access the knowledge
I wrote blindI wasnt sure how to do it
isolated, separate, a bubble, not shared
14
Interviews as learner narratives
Whereas I felt more comfortable because I wanted
to get the non-verbal feedback. Because when
youre talking to somebody youre getting that
feedback all the time, arent you? About whether
theyre agreeing. Youre nodding at me now
because you understand what Im saying, whereas
when youre doing that online you dont know
whether theyre understanding you at all. Sally
Im used to talking to people when I havent a
clue who they are, soI find it pretty easy to
talk to people online. I was more nervous coming
today, having not met anyone than I was chatting
online and discussing issues. Katy
15
Sample case Katy
16
Katy
I enjoy online contact because my brain is
glacially slow, and also because I can have
Google and Wikipedia at my fingertips to help me
with fact-finding. 
Issue 2
I suspect I will be an outcast for this, but
never mind ) I really like using writing to
communicate with other people. I'm fairly quiet
in person - e-mail avoids the problems of
interrupting other people, or speaking over each
other, or wanting to address a specific person
without feeling anti-social
Issue 1
17
The experience of e-learning - Katy

• The learners are in a transition process, related
  to prior experience
• The learners can assume online personas or egos
  which enhance their participation (Blake)
• Conflicting conceptions of e- learning persist
• A sense of community is quick to establish but is
  very differently experienced by its members
• Students learning is embedded in social
  relations which regulate participation and which
  are constantly being negotiated

18
The sample cases
Steve
what might be applicable to me might not be to
somebody elseyou could still learn from what
they are saying. Im still part of it even though
Im not an active part of it
if were going to talk about learning, then I
want to know what everybody else in the world who
is important has ever said about learning, and
then maybe Ill have my own opinion
youve got information that youve built upit
gets you thinking in certain ways. Youre also
aware of other peoples learning process as well
everyones got their own opinions and thats how
we are learning from each other. You read all the
text-books and everything, but you actually gain
morewell, I do anyway, from discussing things
with teachers andtheir experiences
Katy
Sally
Ruth
19
Katy re-thinking the constructivist experience
20
Meta-learning

• An unexpected outcome has been the impact on the
  learners of discussing their learning and
  reflecting on how they learn within the
  collaborative online environment
• Considerable degree of interest in how they learn
  with others and what impedes/supports this
• Considerable commitment to the collaborative
  processes (e.g. response partners, sharing files
  and documents, detailed consideration of issues
  raised in online course discussions)
• They create a culture of use, shaping the
  context of their own learning and how it works at
  a distance
• Articulations are shaped by the social and
  physical environment in which they were produced
• Among each other in tutor-prompted online
  commentaries
• With an interviewer who is not an online tutor
• At school, in a classroom, at IoE, with or
  without filming

21
Outcomes/implications
We wanted to find out about e-learners
experiences to develop the pedagogy of an
award-bearing course in CPD i.e. the
implications for course design and better
evaluation methods in the online modules of this
mixed mode course BUT more important has
been the telling itself meta-learning.

• Articulation of learning experiences may have
  more student benefits than developing tasks and
  established concepts of e-tutoring
• E-learners need to have knowledge for an altered
  world, in which they learn how to be a learner
  in new contexts as a core transferable skill
• This implies a shift for the practitioner role in
  HE
• Embedded opportunities are needed for students to
  narrate the learning experience a different
  concept of evaluating professional learning