# Task 3 - Group Activity

Edited by Enda O Reilly, 3/2/2012 9:13 PM

Tags:

Dead-Theorists Tell No-Tales – A Learning Theories Roleplaying Activity for Postgraduate Students

http://sync.in/oJC8Jhoewf <<synced in page for activity and model.

For this e-activity we are going to focus on the Collaborative Learning model. This is a model where two or more people learn or attempt to learn together. Collaborative learning is based on the model that knowledge can be created within a population where members actively interact by sharing experiences and knowledge. Collaborative learning is heavily rooted in Vygotsky’s Social Learning Theory and the zone of proximal development focusing on the idea of collaboration with others, where students enter hubs (communities of learning) and are guided to interact and collaborate with members of the community using chat room facilities, forums, video conferencing (Gillani, 2003). Dewey’s 1938 theory that the learning context is most effective when an interaction between social and physical and the learners’ inner world is established is also relevant to this model, (Juwah, 2006). This eactivity will be completed using a c omputer-supported collaborative learning. The collaborative learning model can be split up into five phases, the engagement phase, the exploration phase, the transformation phase, the presentation phase, and the refection phase.

The first phase is the engagement phase. This is where the students are introduced to the idea and are challenged by it. The platforms that are being used for the e-activity are Facebook, Webcourses and Blogger. T he learner s are introduced to the topic by email and on Webcourses and are assigned to a learning theory group, i.e.behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism. Each learner will be assigned a theorist on webcourses and will be informed that the task is for a duration of 21 days.
The Behaviorist theorists that could be used are Ivan Pavlov, B.F. Skinner, Albert Bandura, Edward Lee Thorndike, John B. Watson and Robert Gagne. The Cognitivist theorists that could be used are George A. Miller, Richard Mayer, and Benjamin Bloom, Alan Baddeley, Howard Gardner and Max Wertheimer. The Constructivist theorists that could be used are Lev Vygotsky, Jean Piaget, John Dewey, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Jerome Bruner.
The theorists that are chosen are those who are the strongest representatives on their discipline. There is an overlap between some of the schools, for example, Vygotsky, Piaget and Bruner have made contributions to the school of Cognitivism, and Bandura is representative of both Behaviourism and constructivism. These overlaps will also be discussed throughout the task. The theorists have been placed in their groups base on most significant contributions to the respective schools.
The tutor sets up a closed Facebook network and invites each student through webcourses and email to join the network, with a link to webcourses where there is a short guide on how to set up a Facebook account. R esources are available on the discussion board regarding the learning theories. The tutor could create a short video explaining the activity and how it relates to previous learning. The tutor is onhand to assist with question or queries.
The exploration phase allows the learner to explore the new material. They will explore the context from the resources, and from other learners' facebook pages and blogs regarding the lea r ning theories.They will also explore the platforms of a closed facebook network and blogs. The learner can also post web pages, text, video, images throughout.
Day 1-3: Students are required to have uploaded photographs of the theorist to their Facebook page, updated the profile with the date of birth, education record, and in the 'works at' option on Facebook, the student will enter the discipline of either Constructivism, Cognitivism or Behaviourism. In the 'my website' option, there will be a direct link to the blog. They will be required to upload a photo and create the relevant username for this blog. The learner s are required to do some introductory research on the theorist based on the personal and professional background of the theorist and on their most significant professional contributions. The tutor will have posted useful documents and links in the Resources section of Webcourses for research. Students are expected to use these Webcourses resources, websites and online journals for their research.
Day 4-6: Learners are required to write 300 words in their blog, outlining the major contributions in their career from a first person narrative. Pictures and links can be posted here to brighten up an expand on the representation. Learners are required to read the blogs of all the other learners and to ask a question on the Facebook page of each learner about something that is written in the blog. The tutor will post a list of pairs of students on Webcourses who will ask a question to each other, so that all learners have a question to answer.
Day 7-8: Learners are required to reply to the question on their Facebook page by commenting underneath the question that is asked.
Day 9-10: Learners are required to post a comment on their Facebook page detailing their findings from one experiment of the theorist that they represent. Learners are expected to use resources online, or from Webcourses.
During the transformation phase the student will create new material by e-organizing, clarifying, elaborating, practicing or using information in purposeful and authentic way. Students that are working under the same learning theories group will work collaboratively by supporting each other statemens, post, status, links etc.The tutor will be monitoring the progress and group work skills.
Day 1 1 - 1 3: Students are required to collaborate with one other member of their group to write a note to identify areas of similarity of the theorists. The comments should be posted on both pages and the students must be tagged in the post. Facebook chat, and Facebook messaging can be used for this collaboration.
Day 1 5 - 1 6: Students are required to ask a question, not previously asked, to each theorist within their school of thought and another question to each of the other schools of thought based on the answers to previous questions, comments or video posted.
Day 17 – 18: Students are required to reply to these questions
In the presentation phase the learners present learning to an audience to provides feedback.
Day 19 – 2 0: Students are required to post a comment on their page reviewing one theorist from another school of thought. This is to demonstrate collaborative learning through others. The tutor will have selected the theorist that the learner to whom they will post a question to avoid overlap.
Day 2 1: The other learner will then post a short comment about this review detailing something that the learner may have ommited, or just verifying and adding to it. The tutor will leave a comment after the learner's review of another theorist. As the students critically access and offer feedback on the other's resources they are asked to update their blog based on what they have learned from the resources provided and interaction on Facebook. The blog is open to the other students and is available for others to use/reuse.
To conclude the Collaborative Learning model a period of reflection is necessary. In the reflection phase, learners reflect on the process and progress of learning. Learners are required to write a 1000 word reflective assignment, comparing the 3 learning theories,that they have been exposed to for the duration of the activity, along with reflections of learning, providing students with a personal development opportunity.
I Took out the tutor specific parts and pasted them here:
It is the responsibility of the tutor to make students aware of what their goals are, how they should be interacting, potential technological concerns, and the time-frame for the exercise.
The tutor will leave comments and 'likes' throughout that encourage the learners during the eactivity on each of the learner's pages.
The tutor will send a survey to the students querying their competencies with the technologies, Facebook, Blogger and the internet. This survey will ascertain the level of competencies in posting, uploading and navigating. The tutor will also designate a section of the Discussion board on Webcourses to technical problems, in preparation for difficulties that the students will encounter on the used platforms. SM - Think that the survey is a great idea. What would you think of going one step further and making a mini-module which is a learning to learn exercise. The idea would basically be that the students would have to post e.g. their name, a simple fact etc. to proove to the tutor/moderator that they are able to use that technology. In the beginning it will be the role of the tutor is inspire the student to contrast the material. The tutor will need to post video, articles and leave comments that will inspire the student to agree, disagree, 'like', but most importantly interact and have a lively debate.
The tutor will observe and monitor the contributions of all students but will not participate in the interactions that are taking place within the Facebook network. The tutor may post helpful links and videos about learning theories on their own page.
I think that it would be fun for the tutor to take on a role as well - maybe make the tutor Socrates? It would create some common ground for the tutor(s) and students, and would also open up the possibility that different tutors could all act as one 'character'. Maybe not what we are after but my 2c nonetheless.

References:
Dewey, J., (1938). Experience and Education. New York: Macmilla
Dillenbourg, P. (1999). Collaborative Learning: Cognitive and Computational Approaches. Advances in Learning and Instruction Series. New York, NY: Elsevier Science, Inc
Gillani B. (2003) Learning Theories and the Design of Learning Environments. Maryland: University Press of America
Juwah, C., (2006) Interactions in Online Education. Implications for Theory & Practice. (Open & Flexible Learning Series). Aberdeen, UK: Robert Gordon Universit
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind and Society: The Development of Higher Mental Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

The platforms that are being used for the e-activity are Facebook, Webcourses and Blogger.

Blogger requires that the students have a gmail account IIRC. This may be another potential technical issue for some. Also are we deliberately ignoring twitter here?

I am open to any other suggestions about blogs, but they have to open a new email account to create a new facebook page anyway, so perhaps opening a gmail account for that is hitting two birds with one stone (facebook and blogger). I didn't want to use all the social media platforms that are available, just to keep it contained, as anything they can tweet, they can comment in facebook. What do you reckon?

Each member of the class of 18 students will be assigned a theorist on webcourses and will be informed that the task is for a duration of 25 days.

SM - Could we maybe consider making the activity 'scaleable' in batches of three students?? So could have an activity that can work for 3 to 18 students? Would the students not need some more detailed information about timeline, expected contributions, roles and responsibilities etc.

yeah steve, initially i took it that there are 18 in the class, but yes, it should be a more generic exercise rather than one targetted at a class. I can use those theorists names as just examples.

The Behaviorist theorists are Ivan Pavlov, B.F. Skinner, Albert Bandura, Edward Lee Thorndike, John B. Watson and Robert Gagne.
The Cognitivist theorists are George A. Miller, Richard Mayer, and Benjamin Bloom, Alan Baddeley, Howard Gardner and Max Wertheimer.
The Constructivist theorists are Lev Vygotsky, Jean Piaget, John Dewey, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Jerome Bruner.

SM -Given that this task is roleplaying based, would it be an idea to ascertain the familiarity of the participants with the concept of roleplaying, how it works and what it requires? I think that this would be essential for the students, as the word 'roleplaying' conjures up a lot of different things for different people. This is something that could be dealt with in the online sessions.

yeah this is a good idea for the task 4.

The theorists that are chosen are those who are the strongest representatives on their discipline. There is an overlap between some of the schools, for example, Vygotsky, Piaget and Bruner have made contributions to the school of Cognitivism, and Bandura is representative of both Behaviourism and constructivism. These overlaps will also be discussed throughout the task. The theorists have been placed in their groups base on most significant contributions to the respective schools.

The tutor will send a survey to the students querying their competencies with the technologies, Facebook, Blogger and the internet. This survey will ascertain the level of competencies in posting, uploading and navigating. The tutor will also designate a section of the Discussion board on Webcourses to technical problems, in preparation for difficulties that the students will encounter on the used platforms.

SM - Think that the survey is a great idea. What would you think of going one step further and making a mini-module which is a learning to learn exercise. The idea would basically be that the students would have to post e.g. their name, a simple fact etc. to proove to the tutor/moderator that they are able to use that technology.

This is also a good idea for what the tutor can do for task 4.

The tutor will set up a closed Facebook network and invite each student to join the network with a short guide on how to set up a Facebook account for the theorist.

This seems to indicate that a learning outcome will be a 'working knowledge if Web 2.0 tools' such as Facebook.

The student will need to know how to use facebook before going in, so there could be an introductory documents or a video made for them. I guess it could also be a learning outcome yes.

Day 1-3: Students are required to have uploaded photographs of the theorist to their Facebook page, updated the profile with the date of birth, education record, and in the 'works at' option on Facebook, the student will enter the discipline of either Constructivism, Cognitivism or Behaviourism. In the 'my website' option, there will be a direct link to the blog. They will be required to upload a photo and create the relevant username for this blog. The students are required to do some introductory research on the theorist based on the personal and professional background of the theorist and on their most significant professional contributions. The tutor will have posted useful documents and links in the Resources section of Webcourses for research. Students are expected to use these Webcourses resources, websites and online journals for their research.

Day 4-6: Students are required to write 500 words outlining the major contributions in their career from a first person narrative.

Stage 3: Information Exchange - where are stages 1 and 2???

Day 7-9: Students are required to read the blogs of all the students and to ask a question on the Facebook page of each theorist about something that is written in the blog.\

If we think of 500 word blogs, times 20 students we are looking at a 10,000 word reading assignment in two days, plus (unique) questions. Is this realistic? Also what is the solution for duplicate questions and comments? Given the way the theorists are divided those in support of the theory will always be in the minority.

Ok, maybe it should be reduced to 300 maximum. The solution for duplicate questions and comments is that the student doesnt reply to all of them, but selects 5. Perhaps this should be reduced to 2.

Day 9-10: Students are required to reply to a minimum of five questions on their Facebook page by commenting underneath the question that is asked.

Day 10-11: Students are required to post a comment on their Facebook page detailing their findings from one experiment of the theorist.

As this is a roleplaying exercise, should we not instead ask the students to describe one of their own experiments which they think is the most important? IF we don;t do this we rapidly loose the roleplaying perspective

The experiment that they are writing about is their own.

Day 12-13: Students are required to post a relevant video on their Facebook page.

Day 14 - 17: Students are required to collaborate with one other member of their group to write a note to identify areas of similarity of the theorists. The comments should be posted on both pages and the students must be tagged in the post. Facebook chat, and Facebook messaging can be used for this collaboration.

Day 18 - 19: Students are required to ask a question, not previously asked, to each theorist within their school of thought and another question to each of the other schools of thought based on the answers to previous questions, comments or video posted.

Day 20 – 21: Students are required to reply to two questions from within their own school of thought and at least one question from the other schools of thought.

Day 22 – 25: Students are required to post a note on their page reviewing one theorist from another school of thought

Students are required to write a 1000 word reflective assignment, comparing the 3 learning theories that they have been exposed to for the duration of the activity.

The tutor will observe and monitor the contributions of all students but will not participate in the interactions that are taking place within the Facebook network. The tutor may post helpful links and videos about learning theories on their own page.

I think that it would be fun for the tutor to take on a role as well - maybe make the tutor Socrates? It would create some common ground for the tutor(s) and students, and would also open up the possibility that different tutors could all act as one 'character'. Maybe not what we are after but my 2c nonetheless.

Yeah that's a great idea. Something that would allow modeling to happen also.
I created a Facebook profile for pavlov to see how it would look etc.,
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003558736351. I tried for about an hour to get timeline and it wouldn't happen. It's not 100 percent necessary but I wanted to make one to ensure that the whole implementation would run smoothly in reality. Maybe someone else could make a cognitivist throats page or something and we could link up.

#### Viewer Comments:

Facebook Page

Hi Niamh,

Fantastic job on the page looks really good.

Deb.

Thanks steve for that contribution. Will make a few changes now.

Hello Edel and Niamh

Great piece of work on the activity, really clear and looks like a fun activity which I wouldn't mind doing myself. You have alot of activity detail which can brought into the e-moderator's guidelines. Would it be possible to scale back the days to 21 and leave the activities as they are i.e. drop a day or so somewhere along the the way?

Regards

Enda

Hi Niamh

All looks good my only query is with regard to the instructions that students will get. Will the instruction be that they must post to the discussion as outlined and post web pages text video and images or is the main focus the discussion and they can post the other items if they wish. If there was an assessment would the additional material posted be graded as well as the discussion posts

Angela