The use of digital structures to support teacher education across four campuses Helen Coker, UHI Hello, I’m Helen Coker and I am a lecturer at the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland. We deliver teacher training using a blended approach. For the last two years we have delivered a Professional Graduate Diploma in Primary Education to a geographically disparate group of students located across the Highlands and Islands. Students spend half the year on placement and the other half in college.

2013-2014 2 students 4 students 5 students 9 students For the first year of delivery our students were spread across 4 Academic partners

2014-2015 3 students 2 students 8 students 9 students 18 students This year the numbers doubled and a five Academic partner joined. Next year a sixth AP will join us as well as a group of Gaelic Secondary students. 2015-16

Developing digital structures Critical Enquiry Data from the Online Space Feedback from Students and Lecturers Assignment and E-Portfolio content Developments Seminar sessions and chat rooms Collaborative tasks and feedback “Enquiry and research are integral to practice” (Donaldson, 2014) Our online space is essentially our classroom as students are only physically in the same place at the residential weeks which start and finish the year. We have taken a critically enquiring approach to the development of the online space – this models the professional approach we would like our students to develop. The course is still very new. At the end of the first year I carried out an enquiry gathering a range of data and critically reflecting on the students use of the online space. Findings from the enquiry were used to inform developments put into place this year- this is what I am presenting today – and I am currently gathering evidence from this year to inform changes for next year. Our numbers have steadily risen and next year a Secondary cohort are set to join us.

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Online Sessions VC Sessions Local Experiential Sessions Friday During college blocks teaching is delivered through a blend of online, Video Conferencing and experiential sessions. Online sessions are delivered through the University Virtual Learning Environment: Blackboard, and Mahara. Video conferencing sessions bring students into their local colleges and deliver synchronous sessions to the whole cohort; groups sizes vary with groups as small as two at some of the island colleges and up to twenty or more at the larger mainland ones. Friday sessions are locally based; students either visit schools or have workshops with local experts.

Feedback from this year Data from the online space Evidence Analysis Reflection Development Observation Feedback from this year Data from the online space Socio-cultural theories of learning Changes informed by the Enquiry

Patterns of Participation Students from APs with smaller groups of students spent more time in the online space CHANGE SLIDE – PICTURE?? Using data from the online space I was able to compare patterns of participation between students at different Academic Partners, those of different ability and also enquire into the way the space itself mediated student participation. When comparing Academic Partners I found that students in locally smaller groups made more use of the VLE. This might have been because this was where they accessed the other people on the course – the ‘human’ aspect of an online space is important, the space enabled them to interact with the rest of the cohort through discussion boards and other collaborative activities. Students in larger APs had peers to talk to and so perhaps felt less need to engage with the online space, but this meant they didn’t access a large amount of the social capital available as they interacted less with the whole cohort – as we moved forward we aimed to share the value of the online space with students and emphasise the ‘human’ aspect of interaction – we introduced chat rooms and online seminars that that students could literally talk to each other, a more ‘human’ form of communication than discussion boards.

Patterns of Participation A dialogic approach was found to correlate with higher achievement in assignments + PICTURE Looking at the way students used the online space higher achieving students were found to take a more dialogic approach (this was a very small cohort so the results are not generalisable). The data suggested that higher acheieving students read as well as posted, they spent a more equal proportion of time between the content area and discussion boards. The course is informed by a socio-cultural philosophy – in the process of negotiating meaning this dialogic approach may have helped students as reading others posts enables access to the social plane: seeing the understanding of others leading to reflection on their own understanding as it was either consolidated or challenged. The data could not tell us whether patterns of participation were reflective or predictive of ability but in moving forward we considered what we wanted students to do and the way in which we wanted them to use the space. We developed the structure to emphasise the importance of the social aspects of learning and developed activities in which engagement with content was active and shared.

Patterns of Participation + PICTURE Comparing Discussion Boards the language of the tasks seemed to influence their use; tasks where collaboration was explicitly valued elicited more activity. The language used in the online space had an effect on students engagement – the space mediated participation. EXPAND We therefore revisited discussion board tasks and considered the ways in which the space implicitly and explicitly mediated participation. The language used for Discussion Board tasks was found to relate to participation.

So what do we know about online teaching? Local group sizes effect online engagement Students use the online space in different ways The online space mediates participation So what has this told us about student learning? The critical enquiry highlighted: Group size makes a difference Students move around the online space and engage with the course content in different ways The online space itself enables and constrains participation – the structure we use and the language matter

Changes informed by the Enquiry Weekly discussion board running across the week Chat rooms for seminars and group discussion Collaborative Tasks Changes made were initiated this year. They focused on opening up spaces for collaboration and scaffolding dialogue. Discussion boards ran across a week and were structured to tie together different sessions – the language used was re-visited. Participation was 100% for the first two college blocks, a huge increase. Weekly seminars were run through the webinar tool – Collaborate – in Blackboard. Small groups worked across Academic Partners enabling discussion of the more theoretical aspects of the course. Students also had access to the Collaborate chat rooms without tutors and so could meet for a chat over coffee. Feedback from students on the seminar sessions was positive and attendance was high all year. Students also made use of the chat rooms independently to discuss activities with each other. The cross AP groups also worked together on Collaborative tasks researching specific aspects of practice, collating and presenting them in different ways. Using the chat rooms they would meet up at the beginning of the week – discuss what they were going to do - then go and do some research and meet up to discuss what they had found and then again to collate and present it. The group tasks also received positive feedback and the artefacts the work produced was of a good standard.

Mahara Reading Tasks We also used developed our use of Mahara – aiming to enable the flow of social capital we looked at different ways the students could work together EXPAND – Local groups accessing social capital of the whole cohort. For a critical reading session we gave the students a selection of articles and some critical reading prompts. Using these they worked in groups of 3 locally and wrote a short summary of the article and some questions. These were then e-mailed to me and I popped them up onto a Mahara page under the articles while the students had a coffee break. When they returned each group choose a different article and worked through the questions posed. Their responses were posted onto the Mahara page and the activity became a resource as the students moved forward. EXPAND These activities not only opened up dialogue and enabled collaboration – they also provided self-generating content for the course as students effectively carried out joint literature searches which they could return to as a resource later on.

‘Reflection – true reflection – leads to action’ Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed As we move forward we will continue to draw on the evidence we have of student learning. We will critically enquire and reflect on the learning spaces we create for students and use what we learn to inform developments. The online space for our students, both models and enables the development of a critically enquiring approach and supports the first steps in what will be a career long learning journey. Thank you for listening, Any questions…