Quick References to Online Learning in Higher Education
Today: Always at your service!
Three topics are in focus in module 4: The Five-Stage-Model (Salmon 2013), a conceptual framework on blended learning (Vaughan et al., 2013), and the theory of Constructive Alignment by Biggs (e.g., Biggs, 2014). First and foremost: I like models as they aim to reduce complexity when complex realities, patterns, and effects are described. What I like even more is when there is a sound theoretical argumentation on why a model is postulated as it is. Concerning the Five-Stage-Model the question remaining is the theoretical base. I did some research (not as extensively as I should have, but time is running) and did not find any information where the assumptions come from and how the model has been tested. It would be interesting to learn if the stages of the model can be observed across online learning contexts, if and how they lead to a higher online performance. Where does this question come from? First and foremost: I am convinced that an empirical approach should be the starting point for models and frameworks that claim a somehow general validity. Yes, I know… I’m the boring psychologist with coefficients, standard errors, significance levels and rejected hypotheses. But this role needs to be played on stage as well, don’t you think? Apart from that: Reflecting my own teaching that needed to be transferred from offline to online teaching over night (see Marek et al, 2021) I can confirm the face validity of the model. I intuitively can allocate several phases of my own teaching to the five stages and: reflect on my own derailment. Why did some things not work as intended? I tried to establish a forum discussion in one of my corona-flipped online courses and asked the students to engage in living, fruitful, and inspiring discussions on our course content. I provided the space for that and encouraged the students to share their experiences and thoughts online. And it happened… nothing. The forum was an abandoned place in our OLAT-environment (OLAT is the Canvas of Frankfurt University). Obviously, I put stage 4 “knowledge construction” before stage 2 “online socialisation”. There is one thing I always can rely on: the best teacher colleague EVER – my good friend and colleague Marcel. Being in this (corona-teaching) together and reflecting on my “online derailment” Marcel and I came to the following conclusion (we both do research in the context of the psychology of service): In the beginning of an online course, we need to be engaged and active service employees – active hosts who warmly welcome their guests in a new environment and allow them to get familiar with the new environment so that they can feel at home (c.f., Schneider, 2010). When guests feel at home, they feel safe – and safety is an important prerequisite in learning environments (one of my fellow students in the collaborative learning course brought this topic up in the beginning). Interestingly, Salmon’s model postulates that the amount of interactivity changes over the five stages and that this interactivity is highest during the “Information-Exchange” phase. Referring to Marcel’s and my reflections last summer I would complement another dimension to the model: the amount of teacher-learners interaction. This needs to be very high in the beginning and, contrary to the interactivity, low during the central phases while it increases toward the last phase. Interestingly, this matches the script of service interactions where the service provider-customer interaction is always high in the beginning and towards the end of a service process. To make a long story short: I am convinced that HE bears characteristics of service contexts. We should have known the Five-Stage Model when corona hit us – together with what we know about service, we would have been online teaching super-heroes. Somehow at least.
In my reflections above I use the term “teacher-student interaction” (maybe because we talk about employee-customer interactions all the time in my department). Reading through the chapter of Vaughan (2013) it came to my mind that this kind of interaction can be seen as part of the teaching presence in the Community of Inquiry framework. Looking at the table organizing elements, categories and indicators of the Community of Inquiry approach my service analogy becomes even more clear: Design & Organization through setting a curriculum & methods, facilitating discourse through shaping a constructive exchange, providing direct instructions through focusing and resolving issues – all this can be seen as services a teacher needs to provide in an online learning environment to fulfil his clients expectation on a professional, fruitful, and comfortable learning environment.
The Constructive Alignment Approach makes things very simple – in the sense of transparency and clearness of the teaching process to all stakeholders (indicators of a good service quality, by the way – e.g., Tan & Kek, 2010). It is a great quick reference to check own teaching activities critically in terms of their “fit”, even though there is some critique as well that has its place. In a German article I found (Reinmann, 2018) it is discussed that the approach can lead back to a purely behaviourist approach on teaching and learning as the strict alignment indicates from the beginning what to learn and by that limits the learning process to predefined goals. Personally, I can understand the critique (to the German speakers: it is an interesting article in general to my opinion) – at the same time I think it is rather the overall didactical strategy that becomes transparent and by that provides guidance through the learning process than strict learning goals. However, it becomes obvious that models just provide a simplified picture of a complex reality and that more dimensions than those addressed in a model need to be taken into account. As always in educational research the context and further contextual factors play an important role and need to be considered when applying the Constructive Alignment approach. Everything else is: just too simple.
References
Biggs, J. (2014). Constructive alignment. HERDSA Review of Higher Education, 1, 25.
Kay C. Tan & Sei W. Kek (2004) Service quality in Higher Education using an enhanced SERVQUAL approach, Quality in Higher Education, 10:1, 17-24, DOI: 10.1080/1353832242000195032
Marek, M. W., Chew, C. S., & Wu, W. C. V. (2021). Teacher experiences in converting classes to distance learning in the COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of Distance Education Technologies (IJDET), 19(1), 40-60.
Reinmann, G. (2018). Shift from teaching to learning und constructive alignment: Zwei hochschuldidaktische Prinzipien auf dem Prüfstand. Impact free, 14, 1-11.
Salmon, G (2013) The Five Stage Model [Homepage]
Schneider, B., & Bowen, D. E. (2010). Winning the service game. In Handbook of service science (pp. 31-59). Springer, Boston, MA.
Vaughan, N. D., Cleveland-Innes, M., & Garrison, D. R. (2013). Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry. Athabasca University Press.