student agency, peer authority and participatory learning

Keith KirkwoodSchool of Language and LearningVictoria University14 July 2011

Student agency, peer authority and participatory learning

My paper according to Wordlewww.wordle.net

Presentation outline

1.Student engagement and learning

2.Pedagogies and ICTs of learner agency

3.The locus of control and authority

4.Participatory learning, immersion and co-design

1. Student engagement and learning

What is student engagement?

“The concept of student engagement is based on the premise that learning is influenced by how an individual participates in educationally purposeful activities.”

(ACER, 2011, p. 4)


Active learning and engagement


“…active learning is defined as the extent to which students are involved in experiences that involve actively constructing new knowledge and understanding. Engaging students in these forms of learning is at the heart of effective educational practice.”

(ACER, 2011, p. 17)

Why active learning?

1. It is a time of unprecedented change: socially, economically, environmentally, informationally.

1. The sage on the stage is antiquated and irrelevant.

2. Universities have reached a ‘crisis of significance’.


…and so this happens


Or this…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

Strategies for generating active learning and engagement

Let students:

1. Become knowledge creators2. Produce work for a wider audience3. Employ both formal and informal learning4. Employ a variety of alternative venues of expression5. See how what they learn will serve them elsewhere and is

transferable to other contexts6. Develop a sense of a learning community7. Help steer the ship

(after Brown et. al., 2010, pp. 54-55)


2. Pedagogies and ICTs of learner agency

Social constructivist learning

Brown, J. S., & Adler, R. P. (2008)


Pedagogy 2.0

(McLoughlin, C., & Lee, M., 2008, pp 11, 17)

“There is a need to expand our vision of pedagogy so that learners become active participants and co-producers rather than passive consumers of content, and learning processes are participatory and social, supportive of personal life goals and needs.”

• “increasing the level of socialization and collaboration with experts, community, and peer groups”

• “fostering connections that are often global in reach”


Pedagogy and the read/write web

The read/write web enables ‘Pedagogy 2.0’ and active learning strategies in e-learning environments through:

• User-created content

• Online community and visible social capital

• Collaborative exchange


Pedagogies for active learning


1. Constructivism and social constructivism (Vygotsky)

2. Communities of practice (Lave & Wenger)

1. Connectivism (Siemens), Rhizomatic education (Cormier)

2. Collaborative learning (Bruffee)

3. Pedagogy 2.0 (McLoughlin & Lee)

A popular example of socially-constructed knowledge


Socially media creates active learning communities


3. The locus of control and authority

Peer authority

“Students who engaged in learning activities with their peers were more likely to participate in other effective educational practices and had more positive views of the campus learning environment.”

(National Survey of Student Engagement, 2010, p. 9)


Social Learning Environments (SLEs)


Cloud-based SLEs


•OpenStudy (Emory University and Georgia Tech)

•GradeGuru (McGraw-Hill)

•Mixable (Purdue University)

•FinalsClub (Harvard) (Parry & Young, 2010)

OpenStudyhttp://openstudy.com


OpenStudy – logged in


GradeGuruhttp://www.gradeguru.com


Mixablehttp://www.itap.purdue.edu/studio/mixable/


FinalsClubhttp://finalsclub.org/


SLE pedagogies

The 3 peas:

• Peer learning

• Personalized learning

• Participatory learning

4. Participatory learning, immersion, and co-design

Participatory learning – SLE agents

‘Transactional control’ – group dynamics on SLEs develop an emergent structure; collective participation shapes the learning process, so that the group becomes a class of actor in the system: student, teacher, content, group. Dron (2007a, b):


Image: Dron 2007, p. 239

3D Learning Environments (3DLE) – Virtual Worlds


“Within the possibility space afforded by virtual worlds, residents become engines of creation themselves, working as the producers of content in the world, designing and reshaping the space around their own ideas and interests. Developers no longer produce all of the content; instead, this task is given over to the residents of the world.”

(Ondrejka, 2008, p. 229)

3DLE co-development: UWVW class of 2011


3DLE Co-development: Maya Islandhttp://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/University%20of%20Washington/114/139/27

4. Participatory learning, immersion, and design

Student participation in course and curriculum design


• Elon University: ‘Course design teams,’ consisting of faculty members, undergraduate students and academic developers

• University College, Dubin: ‘3rd year students develop a VLE for 1st year students

“We’re all learning through engagement with the subject and with each other” – Elon University professor.

(Bovill, Bulley & Moss, 2011; Bovill, Cook-Sather & Felton, 2011; Mihans, Long and Felton, 2008)

References 1

ACER. (2011). Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) (Vol. 2011). Camberwell, VIC: Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER),.

Bovill, C., Bulley, C. J., & Morss, K. (2011). Engaging and empowering first-year students through curriculum design: perspectives from the literature. Teaching in Higher Education, 16(2), 197-209.

Bovill, C., Cook-Sather, A., & Felten, P. (2011). Students as co-creators of teaching approaches, course design, and curricula: implications for academic developers. International Journal for Academic Development, 16(2), 133-145.

Brown, J. S., & Adler, R. P. (2008). Minds on fire: Open education, the long tail, and learning 2.0. Educause Review, 43(1), 16-32.

Brown, M., Auslander, M., Gredone, K., Green, D., Hull, B., & Jacobs, W. (2010). A dialogue for engagement. EDUCAUSE Review, 45(5), 39-56.

Bruffee, K. A. (1999). Collaborative learning: Higher education, interdependence, and the authority of knowledge (2nd ed.). Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press.

Cormier, D. (2008). Rhizomatic education: Community as curriculum. Innovate, 4(5). Retrieved from http://www.innovateonline.info/

Dron, J. (2007a). Control and constraint in e-learning: Choosing when to choose. Hersey, PA and London: Idea Group Publishing.

Dron, J. (2007b). Designing the undesignable: Social software and control. Educational Technology & Society, 10(3), 60-71.

References 2

Kirkwood, K. (2010). The SNAP Platform: Social networking for academic purposes. Campus-Wide Information Systems, 27(3), 118-126. doi: 10.1108/10650741011054429

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McLoughlin, C., & Lee, M. (2008b). Future learning landscapes: Transforming pedagogy through social software. Innovate, 4(5). Retrieved from http://www.innovateonline.info/

Mihans, R., Long, D., & Felton, P. (2008). Power and expertise: Student-faculty collaboration in course design and the scholarship of teaching and learning. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2(2), 1-9.

National Survey of Student Engagement. (2010). Major differences: Examining student engagement by field of study—annual results 2010. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research.

NSSE. (2011). National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) Retrieved 8 June, 2011, from http://nsse.iub.edu/

Ondrejka, C. (2008). Education unleashed: Participatory culture, education, and innovation in Second Life. In K. Salen (Ed.), The Ecology of games: Connecting youth, games, and learning (pp. 229–252). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Parry, M., & Young, J. R. (2010, November 28). New social software tries to make studying feel like Facebook. The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Keith KirkwoodStudent Learning Unit / Students Supporting Student LearningSchool of Language and LearningVictoria University

PHONE +61 3 9919 4015EMAIL [email protected] www.snap.vu.edu.au

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