Though published in 2001, Ruth Brown’s The Process of Community-Building in Distance Learning Classes (Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks; Volume 5, Issue 2 ; September 2001), contains a number of insights that remain relevant. Brown developed a theory and performed a study of the process through which community formed in adult computer-mediated asynchronous distance learning classes. She documented three-stages learners moved through on their way to becoming full members of a mutually supportive learning community:
The first stage was making friends online with whom students felt comfortable communicating. The second stage was community conferment (acceptance) which occurred when students were part of a long, thoughtful, threaded discussion on a subject of importance after which participants felt both personal satisfaction and kinship. The third stage was camaraderie which was achieved after long-term or intense association with others involving personal communication. Each of these stages involved a greater degree of engagement in both the class and the dialogue.
Brown’s paper contains many insights and prescriptions for social software developers, instructional designers, and online instructors, but I found her discussion of “Time Triangles” particularly interesting. As depicted in the following figure, Time Triangles describe how novice students spend most of their initial time making sense of the nuts-and-bolts technology features of an online learning platform. Once they feel comfortable using the system (and many never do), they next move on to trying to understand and assimilate the teaching methodology used by the online class. If and when they pass through this stage, they attempt to master the actual course content. Only if they succeed (more precisely, feel successful) at this stage do they (finally!) join and participate in true, learning community activities: collaborating, peer mentoring, socializing, and “deep” learning. This process is contrasted to the veteran student, where the “time pyramid” is inverted: because veterans are experienced software users and more easily extend trust to their fellow students, they enter an online class as ready community participants. To put it simply, there are “night and day” differences between novice and veteran online learners.
(I can’t also but think that Brown’s Time Triangles are the motivational learning analogue to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.)
As one who develops online learning environments (including the supporting technology as well as the learning designs embedded within the technology), this slide got me thinking: should I be designing environments matched to the novice or veteran (online) learner? Or, should I be designing different environments for each population? Or, should we strive to develop the “universal” interface that continually adapts to the user’s needs and experience level? In other words, when we consider various behavioral and interaction design options for the software we build, how do we answer the question “who are we designing for?” (Of course, these same questions apply to the “teaching method” and “content” levels as well.) After all, if the goal is to enable all learners to reach the “community building” stage as soon as possible, we must not overly attend to either the novice or the veteran student at the expense of the other.
For example, socio-constructivst research provides a number of learning findings that could (should) be applied to online learning environments (concepts such as page scope, issue versus conversational-based discussion nodes, online awareness and socially translucent social spaces to name a few). All these have as their primary goal enabling “community building.” Yet, we sometimes seem to set the usability bar for these concepts and features to the novice learner — essentially diluting their effectiveness (and ending up with the “lowest common denominator” phenomenon seen in many current offerings). Moreover, if you buy into the idea that “dumbing down” the environment comes at a cost to the needs of veteran learners, then we face a serious conundrum.
Still, we can’t simply ignore the novice learner (after all, if 90% of all new learners fail to make it through their first course, there won’t be enough learners left to build a learning community!). However, perhaps the answer to enabling new learners to cross the bridge lies in approaches beyond “discarding” or “dumbing down” these community building features and designs. Perhaps we would do better to adopt complimenting, non-technology-based, approaches: opportunities for students to play and tinker in “no-stakes” community spaces similar to the ones used in their formal online classes, early and more extensive scaffolding by mentors, better “on-ramp” opportunities such as Orientation Courses, etc.
I don’t believe we’ll soon develop the “adaptive interface” that some trumpet as the way to attack this problem. Nor should we go “too extreme” in either direction designing for the veteran or novice learner. But perhaps, with a little help from suitable external scaffolds, we can rest comfortably somewhere just right of center? Finding the right balance will let learners — and their online mentors — move on to the “higher” issues of pedagogy, content, and community.
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,Related posts: