Week 3b Students' Conceptions of Lear...

Week 3b Students' Conceptions of Learning

My thoughts on this activity

I have found these articles and theories very hard to understand. They are written in a very academic language which I do not understand. We are expected have an understanding of these theories in time for an online discussion on Wednesday night. I am hoping that the elluminate session will illuminate me.

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Research shown that students' conceptions of learning as they develop as students changes , and at the end of their studies they were different people to what they were at the start. Being more or being different.

Learning involves identity.

The activity theory framework is helpful for TEL, it embeds tools within the activity relationships rather than as an add on.

Pedagogy and technogy are intertwined, even the flip chart - what came first the flip chart or the pedagogy of brainstorming, Powerpoint or the pedagogy of bullet points (revealing point by point). (Cousin 2005)

A3 Identity in Cyberspace - Bayne

Sian Bayne writes about identity in cyberspace and differences in power between students and teachers in the online environment. The possibility of presenting oneselve to others differently to the f2f you.

The students interviewed in this research felt that cyber identities left them dangerous, personality split and deceitful.

Danger - to a student it feels like self betrayal. Danger that you create a picture of tyourself and then find it hard to maintain the gap between the virtual and real persona. Loss of control - the constructed persona gains control over the real self.

Personality Split - People say things they wouldn't normally say f2f.

Deceit and perversion - virtual identities - lying about oneself, and depends on perceptions of others over which you have no control.

Students felt that there is a tensio between their real self that goes to f2f tutorials and their less authentic selves which emerge online.

The teachers found the online environment as a chance to have more time and space to be a better teacher, to prepare responses, be more authoritarian and remain in control (in direct opposite to the student's fears). However some teachers expressed concerns that the real them doesn't come across online, for example their fun side, they felt them came across stuffy in the online environment.

1. Are your views similar? Yes I would agree from both viewpoints. As a student (web user) i want to be honest, I do not want to pretend to be something I am not however saying that I do find that the online working environment allows me to be me even more than my real self. I am someone who is happy to talk up in class but I do find that I am more willing to put myself out of my comfort zone and say contentious things or things that might make me look stupid online. As someone who supports students I also concur with the teachers' views, the online environment and email messages give me more time to create a better response for students and as they never meet me or see me my actions aren't effected by my perception of what other peoples' perceptions of me are.

2. Do you feel uneasy around the uncertainties in relation to how you project your own identity online, or interpret that of others? Having read this I may now be more aware of possible deceit. I am honest so I expect others to be honest too, I can't relate to the need to be different (perversly different at all).

3. By contrast, have you found it liberating to experience with your own identity online? I have been dabbling in twitter recently, and now have a public blog and it is odd knowing that anyone can read and access your thoughts. It is liberating as one of the students said, you might say things you wouldn't normally say face to face and as a result you may learn stuff you wouldn't say face to face.

4. Have your own reactions to the mutable subject online changed with experience in using online interaction? (mutable means prone to change). I don't think I've had any experience I can draw upon for this.

5. Do you now feel differently about your own identity relationships? No

6. Why do you think Bayne found differences between students and teachers? Mainly because teachers are used to performing and taking on different roles as teachers; the students have only been students and children and are mabybe more concerned about what others think. At WBS lecturers are nervous about lecturing using the virtual classroom or through recorded videos - this is akin to what the teachers said in this article about their online identity motivating them to be a better teacher - are our lecturers fearful that delivering teaching through video or video conferencing makes them susceptible to critique more than in a lecture theatre. The teachers seem to care about being good at their jobs when devliering online, whereas the students are more concerned about being themselves.

7. Can you draw upon the activity theory model to help interpret these differences? Taking the explanation of Engrestrom's activity theory below, we can interpret these differences because the students and teachers have diffrent motives (objects) they are different subjects, using different tools to reach the outcomes. The effects of rules and community and division of labour effects how they practice. As Rajkumar says beloe, as all the parts in the theory are constantly changing, the outcomes and beliefs will also be changing.

Notes:

"An activity is undertaken by a human agent (subject) who is motivated toward the solution of a problem or purpose (object), and mediated by tools (artifacts) in collaboration with others (community). The structure of the activity is shaped and constrained by cultural factors including conventions (rules) and social divisions (division of labor) within the context. Engeström emphasizes the mediational role of the community and that of social structures including the division of labor and established procedures.

All the elements of this system are continuously changing. The human beings not only use instruments, they also continuously adapt them, consciously or otherwise. They obey rules, but also transform them. They follow rules of division of labor but in doing so constantly help evolve them as well. Transformation is then crucial to this model – and the interplay between the various elements constantly leads to the various new outcomes being created. " Rajkumar, S (no date) Activity Theory http://mcs.open.ac.uk/yr258/act_theory/ accessed 24th February 2009

8. Would the different subject positions of teachers in the learning activity system help to explain their reactions and feelings of control? The teacher is part of the community or even one of the instruments in helping the subject get to their outcome so they can influence the other subjects.

9. Does a teacher's position in authority within the community mean that they feel more confidently able to exert a particular teacherly persona using online contributions?> Yes