Introduction
Merriam and Caffarella (1991) state that most definitions of learning
include change or the potential for change. Also, included in most definitions
of learning is the idea that learning results from experience.
This chapter includes some specific concepts that enhance learning. Utilization of these concepts allows for the creation and enhancement of learning experiences. These concepts include motivation, interaction, collaboration, and content.
The motivation section discusses the type of learner that enrolls in distance learning and the effect of distance learning on learner motivation. How the learner’s motivation is sustained is also explored, specifically in the area of involvement, feedback, and communication. Interaction and collaboration are combined because of the necessity to interact or exchange ideas with someone in order to work with them to produce a product. The discussion on collaborative learning includes a definition of collaborative learning. The chapter also discusses participation and group dynamic skills that take place in collaborative learning environments. Interactive communication and the need for cooperation is explored and how relevant these concepts are to students having a positive learning experience. The final section discusses content. The role of context and learning environment in constructivist learning theory is explored. The concept of media richness in communication literature in media selection for various kinds of learning is the last area of collaborative learning to be discussed.
Motivation
and Distance Learners
The distance learning environment can be an alienating experience for
some students; however, they can be motivated via interaction. There exists
a direct relationship between interaction and motivation (Kearsley,
1995). We, as distance learning instructors, must find new and
different ways of motivating our students. In teaching at a distance, our
words arrive to the student in a form often filtered of the body language
and intent. Thus, true meanings of given feedback are either skewed or
not communicated. We thus have the unique opportunity, even responsibility,
to help our students find motivation via interactive technology.
Students of distance learning are typically self-driven adults who have selected the course for either its accessibility or its ability to meet other needs such as unusual course offering or guest speakers (Moore, 1997; Sherry, 1996). These people have similar needs as the face-to-face student, including:
Once the instructor has prepared the course content, planned for multiple forms of interaction, and become expert with all technologies to be used, the first class meeting may be called. At this stage, learners must be given ample time to become comfortable with the operation of the technology itself (Hillman, Willis, & Gunawardena, 1994). The initial meeting may be face-to-face or at a distance and should allow for guided training of the technologies and distribution of personal attributes (e.g. major, hobbies, interests) by students and instructor. This provides a basis for future student-student and student-instructor communication. Later, groups may be formed and group projects may be assigned. Students should feel comfortable in using the technology and in communicating with each other and with the instructor. To help sustain the students’ motivation, the instructor may choose weekly discussion topics whose responses are to be shared in some way (e.g. email, BBS, audioconferences) among the learners.
In order to motivate learners at a distance, educators must make technological plans for meeting student (or client) needs and adjust them to fit the type of learner enrolling in the program. There are many options available: email, ftp, chat sessions, audioconferencing, and audiographic conferencing, etc., all of which create forums for interaction. It is imperative that the distance education instructor choose technologies with which (s)he is both familiar and comfortable and which fit the function and goals of the course itself (Neal, 1998). In providing modes of interaction, you, the instructor, not only help the students form and maintain motivation, but you empower them with the ability to build knowledge constructively through collaboration.
Interaction
and Collaboration
Learning is social as well as intellectual. Individual, isolated attempts
to make sense of complex data can easily fail unless the learner is encouraged
by some larger group that is constructing shared knowledge (Dede 1996).
Dede further asserts that educators must help all students become adept
at distance interaction because skills involving information-gathering
from remote sources and collaborating with dispersed team members are as
central to the future workplace as learning to perform structured tasks
quickly was to the industrial revolution.
Dede (1996) defines conventional traditional distance education as replicating traditional classroom teaching across barriers of time and distance. He sees distance education via the web as an alternative teaching paradigm, distributed learning. Distributed learning uses new media to reach more diverse audiences conveying content in a variety of new ways — virtual reality, world wide web, virtual communities. Although it sounds easy, it is a difficult and time consuming task to take a successful face-to-face course and transform it into a successful online or web based one. Course elements need to provide adequate opportunities for learner-content interaction as well as collaborative and cooperative learning opportunities which allow the learner to interact with other learners, the instructor, and with the technology. In order for distributed learning to be successful core skills for distributed learning need to be developed. These core skills should include basic PC familiarity, word processing, telecommunications knowledge including dial-in procedures, online tools including FTP, Telnet, email and web browser familiarity, online library searches, download procedures, and system software for all of these functions (Martin, 1997).
It is widely held that a high level of interaction is desirable and positively affects the effectiveness of any distance education course (Kearsley, 1995). Four types of interaction are readily accepted — learner-content, learner-learner, learner-instructor, and learner-technology (Hillman, Willis, & Gunawardena, 1994; Moore, 1989). Although distance educators agree that interaction is necessary, they all have different ideas as to the amount and type that is required. Challenges exist in distance education courses where there are few, if any, face-to-face meetings. Care must be taken with course design to build in components that encourage learner participation with the course content, other learners (classmates), and the instructor. Many instructors design course elements that have students working in groups to create projects. The group projects force students to work collaboratively and/or cooperatively to complete the course requirement.
Collaborative learning assumes that knowledge is a consensus among members of a community of knowledge peers. It emphasizes the cooperative efforts between students and the generation, rather than the transmission, of knowledge (Kimber, 1994). People construct their knowledge by talking together and reaching an agreement about what something means. It is a reacculturative process that helps new knowledge seekers become members of knowledge communities whose common property is different from the common property of the knowledge communities the already belong to (Bruffee, 1993). This learner-centered approach allows learners to develop a relationship to solve a problem by sharing the tasks, the discovery, and the development of the answer. Group members should be active participants in the process. Group dynamic skills also become important as members are no longer working alone to resolve a problem. Borich (as cited in Berge, 1996) views increased skills in collaboration as one of the outcomes of cooperative learning activities. Borich states “the foundation of collaboration is the ability to exchange thoughts and feelings with others at the same conceptual level.”
Cooperative learning is designed to actively engage the student in the learning process and is directed at improving that student's critical thinking, reasoning, and problem solving skills. This type of learning is usually created through highly structured, team-oriented activities (Berge, 1996). Cooperative learning asks students to work together to locate information, solve problems, and make presentations. It involves structured activities and distributed tasks. Distributed tasks are tasks that are split into subtasks with each group member solving his/her task independently. Borich's model of cooperative learning (as cited in Berge, 1996) does the following: promotes models of pro-social behavior, presents alternative perspectives and viewpoints, builds a coherent and integrated identity, and promises critical thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving behavior. Also as a result of these outcomes, students may improve their collaborative skills, increase self-esteem, and increase their achievement.
Paulsen (1998) states that cooperation can be hard to achieve in distance education but that group communication technologies have been devised to facilitate cooperation at a distance. Instructors must develop their own group dynamic skills as well as work at designing and developing tasks that push students toward attainment of proficient group dynamic skills. Students need to reach a comfort zone with both the group and the technology being used. To facilitate the development of interactive communication between students, instructors can schedule training session(s) where students can meet face-to-face as well as design a set of activities designed to be completed online to help facilitate this process — student introductions, dyadic partnering, informal topic discussions (Rohfeld & Hiemstra, 1995).
There is no magic formula to achieve the correct proportion of learner motivation, interaction, or levels of collaborative and/or cooperative learning. What is known is that every class and learner is different. Multiple items and issues can impact the already complex mix of learners in a course. Kearsley (1995) suggests several areas that are in need of further research. These are: 1) is frequency of interaction in a course a meaningful measure; 2) is interaction more important for certain groups of learners than others; 3) is interaction more critical in certain kinds of learning than others; 4) does interaction affect learning outcomes such as retention or transfer; 5) does interaction increase student comprehension/understanding; 6) does interactivity always improve learner satisfaction; 7) what form of interaction is the most critical; and 8) does/should the pattern of interaction change over a course/program. When we have some of the above questions answered and guidelines written, it will hopefully be easier to facilitate what is needed—the instructor will better know what to include to aid in the acquisition of knowledge and the learner will be more receptive because more of his/her needs are being met.
Content
and Context
Constructivist learning theory draws attention to the embeddedness
of learning and the significant role that context and a rich environment
play in the learning process. This implies a tight relationship between
message content and the various communication channels and environmental
factors present in the communication interaction. When technology is used
to mediate communication in an educational setting, the content and context
that are transmitted depend on the kind(s) of media being used. Media-richness
studies and media-comparison studies surface key issues that need to be
addressed so educators can better understand the impact media and technology
have on the learning process.
Before looking at the studies, it is helpful to understand what is meant by 'content' and 'context.' Distinguishing content from context is somewhat problematic. In the field of education, content has been associated with performance objectives in the knowledge domain and has been measured as such in studies. Should affective and psychomotor skill domains be included in this concept of content? In communication studies, content has been associated with the intentions of the sender of a message. Emotional aspects are included in these intentions and can be transmitted through verbal, non-verbal, or symbolic forms. Context, on the other hand, refers to the environment in which the communication act takes place. These definitions are not precise, but they do provide us with some conceptual tools to use when looking at the studies.
The concept of "media richness", discussed primarily in communication and management literature, is used to describe the capacity of different kinds of media to carry the richness of the communication context. Conrad and Poole (1998, p. 228) state that media richness relies on: the number of cues the medium can carry, the timeliness of feedback via the medium, the variety of language that can be used in the medium, and the degree to which the medium allows the message to be personalized. Media richness theory is applied in the selection of certain media given the demands of the communication situation. Daft and Lengel's (1984) research suggests that richer media should be used in situations where the issues being addressed are complex, emotional, or conflict-laden. These 'situations' deal with content as well as context. Some educational experiences require the student to grasp complex or highly abstract concepts as components of the content. Other educational experiences have affective goals or an affective component that influences the students' receptiveness to the information being communicated. This research suggests that dommunication of these kind of messages will be inflenced by the type of media used.
Building on this study, Trevino, Lengel, and Daft (1987) apply the concept of equivocality, which refers to messages having multiple and conflicting interpretations, to media richness. In other words, highly ambiguous messages or content necessitate richer media just as situations with complexity do. In 1990 Trevino, Daft, and Lengel applied symbolic interaction theory to their findings. This theory suggests that shared systems of meaning are the bases for meaningful interaction. These are important issues for learners accessing learning resources in through various media, whether they are interacting with content or whether they are interacting with teachers or other learners. This line of research demonstrates that the degree of complexity, emotion, controversy, or ambiguity in a message affects what kind of media should be used. Richer media can capture the non-verbal aspects of communication and provide a climate where relational trust and learner motivation is affected.
Despite the media richness studies, numerous media comparison studies in educational technology have shown that there is no significant difference in the achievement, attitudes, and retention of learners in different mediated environments. Media comparison studies usually look at two or more media in relation to their effectiveness in education. Threlkeld and Brzoska (1994) state that there are hundreds of studies that demonstrate the 'no significant difference' hypothesis. McIsaac and Gunawardena (1996) supplement these findings with the fact that instructional design has a much greater impact on learning than the media chosen. While this may be true concerning the content or cognitive aspect of education, Thomerson and Smith (1996) found in their study that the affective experiences encountered in class are different in face to face and distant learning environments. This finding seems to confirm the communication research conclusions that distortion can occur in messages with emotion depending on the richness of the medium.
Media comparison studies lead us to believe that media selection is not important to educational outcomes. This seems to contradict the findings in studies related to media-richness. One explanation could be that 'content' was only evaluated at the knowledge and comprehension levels of the cognitive domain of Bloom's taxonomy. If higher level thinking skills, which could be associated with complexity and ambiguity, were examined in studies, it might explain the disparity between these two lines of research. Bringing affective and psychomotor domains into studies could bring clarity to this issue as well. Another question that arises from the research is when does transmitting contextual factors complicate the communication process instead of complementing it? Until the research gives conclusive findings, taking both lines of research can give us some tentative guidelines on the use of media in education.
A primary instructional element of distance education is interaction. There are four types of interaction readily accepted, learner-content, learner-learner, learner-instructor, and learner-technology (Hillman, Willis, and Gunawardena, 1994; Moore, 1989). Although there is disagreement on amount and type of interaction, it is of vital importance that interaction take place. The individuality of the learner will alter the amount of need and desire for interaction, but interaction must occur.
Cooperative or collaborative learning is aimed at enhancing critical thinking skills. According to Berge (1996) improving critical thinking skills, reasoning, and problem solving skills is best achieved by highly structured and collaborative activities. As collaborative skills are improved the student has increased self-esteem and higher level of achievement.
Finally constructivist learning theory was discussed in relationship to “media richness” in communication context. The concept of “media richness” in this chapter is used to describe the ability of different types of media to carry the meaning of communication context. The need to use different media in complex, emotional, or conflict-laden situations was explored and the importance of clarifying meanings in situations of uncertainty and ambiguity were addressed.
Learning has been thought about, researched, and found fascinating for centuries. Yet, the complexity of the learning process has continued to be illusive and difficult to understand (Merriam and Caffarella, 1991). Distance learning has provided us with a new and exciting avenue to learn. The quest continues to find and provide the best teaching/learning environment possible.
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