Reflective Blog: What I Have Learnt…

Dear Reader,

For those among us who take long journeys be it bus train or plane, you may appreciate it when I say that I feel like I’ve just arrived, put my feet up and have an epic hot chocolate on the way.

I would definitely say blogging on the science of education has been a rewarding journey, being aloud to design my own learning environment and curriculum has resulted in my own conceptual learning that I would have not believed possible from such a module structure.

As I have written in previous blogs, there are major benefits to social media in education. To be completely honest it didn’t dawn on me that when I started blogging on social media I was referring to this very style of learning. As each blog has passed I have seen the benefits that I have read about occur in my own learning. In my opinion discusion has been  a powerful tool, even after writing a blog, I was still able to learn by reading comments and evaluating what people have said.

In blog 7 I  mentioned the idea of collective intelligence, We are all blogging about different educational topics. I feel that together we have  a great knowledge of educational psychology, and by reading your blogs each week I have definitely been able to learn from each one.

As you may guess from the debate in my blogs, I think the set up of this module should be implemented more, particularly in higher and further education. I have lernt to take charge of my own learning and be responsible for my own understanding, somthing that happens too irregularly in the current education system.

I have learnt information is out there, just waiting to be applied to psychological and educational principles. Above All, I have lernt that a Disney quote can be applied to any situation!

Thank you for reading, even if you have only read one blog, skimmed or  just perused the pictures!

It’s been a blast!

****

Oh WordPress, You Devil!

*NM

So WordPress has a life of its own again and is posting everything under the wrong dates. This means you may have to scroll down to find my newest blog. If you are looking for my synthesis blog please follow the link below and save your scrolling arm (fingers? I’m sure there should be a term for this…):

Synthesis Blog

Apologies for confusion, but maybe it will be worth it… Okay, it probably won’t but theres a Disney quote in it and I can’t help myself.

Something To Ponder

**Non-official blog- Not to be marked**

Found this a while  back and intended to included it in a blog. Never got round to it in the end but its definitely  something that could be considered by  future educators.

Happy Easter!

It’s reassuring to see that in some cases education is beginning to incorporate the changing social world.

****

Synthesis Blog: The Power of Social Media In A Changing World

Hello, Hylô, Hallo, Salut, Ola, Ciao & Hola,

I hope your kettle is on, because today is looking like a long one! Buckle up, here comes my synthesis of ‘Social Median in Education’.

If at any point you want to refer to a previous blog, all the key terms are hyperlinked.

So way back in blog 4, I discussed Kerawalla’s four-factor framework(2008). This framework suggests that learning through social media is constructed around presentation, audience, comments and community. The literature surrounding social media (at least that which I have discussed) has had relevance to this theory, therefore I believe this framework is the best tool to ‘tie’ this topic together.

Presentation

Social media assignments that may involve students writing blogs, creating videos or discussing on forums, require the student to acquire information, report information and evaluate this information through independent learning (Glogoff, 2005).  Independent learning moves the student from being a passive listener to an active learner, thus improving analytical reasoning and conceptual understanding (Gow & Kember, 1990). Social media sites that may encourage learning are YoutubeEdu, blog sites such as WordPress, and even sights such as Tumblr can be beneficial, allowing students to enhance cognitive schemas through mnemonic images.   An additional benefit of using multiple social media sites (or even social media alongside traditional teaching) is that students can learn through multiple mediums. Students who gain enjoyment from multimedia resources are better at extracting information from learning materials, and as a result perform better on assignments (Large, Beheshti and Breuleux, 1998). Also, by being exposed to a large number of multimedia devices, students can enhance their working memory through duel-coding. Duel-coding allows students to retrieve information from both visual and auditory memory pathways (Moreno & Mayer, 2002), thus the method in which a student researches and presents knowledge can influence their future learning.  

Audience

When students produce a piece of work through social media, they write with an audience in mind. Students will put more effort into a permanent piece of work, such as a blog, that other people will see or read (Egger). As a result, motivation is increased, demonstrating higher levels of critical thinking (Liu, 2001). Deng and Yuen (2012) found when writes with an audience in mind, more online discussion occurs, leading to peer and collaborative learning. Collaborative Learning is the notion that students work together to strengthen their understanding through social interaction (Frechette, 2013). Inquisitive students, who ask more questions and are more actively involved in class discussion, demonstrate better academic performance and an enhanced understanding (Smith et al, 2009). Students from online learning courses have an increase in social presence, as their work is peer reviewed. This increase in social perception leads to an increase in motivation. Richards and Swan (2003) found students demonstrate more understanding in situations where social perception is high (e.g blogs), than in situations where social perception in low (e.g exams).

Comments 

As I mentioned previously, discussion aids learning (Smith et al 2009). Discussion is argued to improve collaborative learning, which has been found to to improve understanding (Bonwell & Eison, 1991).  Arbaugh (2000) suggests that students who are part of an e-learning environment will discuss course content more freely than those who have face-to-face peer interaction, thus implying social media can innate more active learning than the traditional classroom environment. The use of social interaction in social media, such as comments or tweets, feeds discussion. This discussion encourages students to apply personal meaning to information,  and leads to further exploratory/independent learning (Lipman, 1991). Commenting is not just for students; teachers can comment on work and synchronise blogs with the curriculum.  This leads to Organisation effects (Bjork, 1994), thus allowing challenging information to be reviewed and allows for the improvement of long-term learning.

Community

The idea of community in education refers to the people we learn from, traditionally speaking, our classmates.  However, moving education to social media means we also move our academic community. Academic communities have a collective intelligence,  where each member has specific knowledge that can be pooled together (Jenkins, 2008). Students are able to retrieve knowledge from their communities’ collective intelligence, and thus the size and quality of a student’s community will effect their learning. Social media learning means a student can select their individual community from across the world, and they can gather information from students, experts and resources with similar interests to themselves from vast online resources. A student’s unique academic interests (personal learning environment) leads to the construction of a student’s academic community (Orlando, 2010). The implications of this are that a student will be motivated by their interests to develop learning from resources they deem relevant,  thus encouraging independent learning. In addition, education becomes personal, where each student can learn at a pace suited to their individual ability and can be motivated by their own passions, therefore incorporating a student’s talent into their learning, as opposed to sacrificing their talents in the name of a curriculum.

Kerawalla’s four-factor framework highlights the benefits of implementing social media in education. Although the cognitive advances of using social media, such as multimedia and organisation effects, are numerous and effective, the main advantage that social media provides is the social interaction that encourages collaborative learning. Improving socialisation, by putting students behind screens, seems preposterous; however, as the research suggests, students discuss academic content more on social media sites (Deng and Yuen, 2012). Social media allows students to use ‘what makes them special’ to enhance their education. Students can enhance their academic community and share a collective intelligence with this community. The effect of collaborative learning is that students contemplate information, therefore turning it into understood knowledge, rather than retrievable facts. After all, is this not what education should be about? 

Thanks for reading,

I hope you have enjoyed my blogs, I’ve certainly enjoyed yours.

****

References

Kerawalla (2008): http://www3.interscience.wiley.com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/cgi-bin/fulltext/119880599/HTMLSTART

Glogoff (2005): http://studentcenteredlearning.pbworks.com/f/Instructional+Blogging.pdf

Gow & Kember (1990):http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00133895?LI=true

Large, Beheshti & Breuleux (1998): http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0740818898900275

Moreno & Mayer (2002):http://imej.wfu.edu/articles/2000/2/05/index.asp

Dave Egger: http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_eggers_makes_his_ted_prize_wish_once_upon_a_school.html.

Deng and Yuen (2012):http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet28/deng.html

Frechette (2013):http://journalofmedialiteracy.org/index.php/current-issue/98-david-considines-ten-technology-tips-for-principals

Richards & Swan (2003): http://epsl.asu.edu/epru/documents/EPRU%202002-101/epru-2002-101.pdf

Bonwell & Eison (1991): http://www.oid.ucla.edu/about/units/tatp/old/lounge/pedagogy/downloads/active-learning-eric.pdf

Arbaugh (2000): http://jme.sagepub.com/content/24/2/213.short

Smith et al (2009): http://www.sciencemag.org/content/323/5910/122.short

Jenkins (2008): http://www.idunn.no/ts/dk/2007/02/confronting_the_challenges_ofparticipatoryculture_-_media_education_for_the?languageId=2

Orlando (2010): http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/edtech-news-and-trends/personal-learning-environments-help-students-extend-learning-beyond-the-classroom/

Blog #7 Part of Your World

Hello!

So final entry before the synthesis blog, SCARY! I feel like I have a 1001 things left to say, but on the tip of my tongue right now is the idea of ‘community’.

Last week I mentioned cyber bullying. If our bullies are now online and so are our friends, shops, clubs and parents, is our entire community not now a series of online interactions?

Ainsworth (2002) has suggested that community places a role in education. It is suggested that the community in which a child grows up in will influence a child’s educational goals and motivation to learn (Andrews, Garfinkal, Parker, Perry & Rauh, 2003).

If you’re anything like me, your ideal concept of community will be something like this:

A whimsical, nurturing, disneyesque series of cute interactions and singing animals. However, Zaidieh (2012) suggests that our actual community is more like this:

A mass of online communications in the form of clicks, tweets, likes and pokes.

This shift in community has occurred not only for physical communities, but for academic communities too. Zaidieh argues that online communities allow students to learn through interaction with online friends/personas. However, these personas may not always be genuine. It is argued that being able to change one’s identify allows students to overcome fears of social perception and educational anxiety. In addition, Zaidieh suggests that as students spend copious amounts of leisure time on social media, online communities have a greater impact on extra curricular learning than their classroom environment.

Social media in education causes an increase in collaborative learning. Frechette (2013) found that online based learning programmes had a higher rating of community than the traditional classroom. Furthermore, Frechette has suggested that a strong sense of online academic community (OAC) encourages this collaborative learning, resulting in an increase in class discussion and conceptual understanding. Social media in education shifts educational power to students, allowing them to become “authoritative producers of knowledge”. When students are encouraged to explore information themselves, and share this with their OAC, they demonstrate more motivation in their learning, thus helping education extend from the classroom to extra curricular learning. Frechette argued that increasing community through social media decreases the authority of an educator, this is seen as beneficial, as collaborative learning through videos and blogs develops understanding more effectively than an autocratic teaching system.

Orlando (2010) suggests that each student has a personal learning environment (PLE), a topic or interest they enjoy. This implies that learning can be encouraged by linking education to personal relevance. In many cases, this link remains relevant, for example, if a student is interested in medicine, but is studying Native American history, they should be given opportunities to discuss and evaluate the healthcare of Native American tribes in their blogs. Orlando argues that a student’s individual PLE will shape their OAC. Social media allows students to select what OACs they compile information from, based on their PLE. As the web is incredibly vast and rich in information, a student’s educational community can consist of scholars and students around the world with similar interests.

Jenkins (2008) suggests that our academic communities create a collective intelligence (CI). CI refers to the combination of knowledge provided by all members of an academic community. An example of CI is our class. We all have various interests and various degrees of knowledge in our education, some of us research feedback, some research technology and some people research grading etc. Although we may not be educational experts, individually the combination of our communities’ knowledge is impressive.  CI suggests that students have the ability to both contribute their individual knowledge and retrieve knowledge from their community. Social media causes online communities to be larger, and therefore greater in CI, allowing students to absorb more information. Jenkins argues that OACs face academic problems together; for example, Wikipedia allows users to edit information, therefore community members interested in particular areas can collaborate information in order to increase their CI, which can thus increase the individual knowledge of community members.

Finally, OACs have been suggested to make education accessible to everyone. Jenkins argues that we are motivated by community, students who do not have a motivational home environment, can instead be motivated by the community they have chosen as a result of their PLE. Furthermore, Frechette argued that social media allows community to go above class, race and socioeconomic standing. This means that all students have an equal opportunity to learn, and that they can learn in a community regardless of their academic ability.

In conclusion, a student’s community can aid or hinder their education, be it offline or online. The social media revolution can motivate students to learn beyond the classroom around their personal learning environment. A student’s individual goals and learning can be direct through social media to form an online academic community, and this allows students to access large amounts of knowledge from their community intelligence. Above all, social media can generate an academic community that enhances collaborative learning to aid a student’s conceptual understanding, with each individual learner, providing their own insight and learning from someone else.

Thanks for reading!

*****

References

Ainsworth (2002): http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.94.3.440

Andrews et al (2003): http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jcop.10049/abstract

Zaidieh (2012): http://wcsit.org/pub/2012/vol.2.no.1/The%20Use%20of%20Social%20Networking%20in%20Education%20Challenges%20and%20Opportunities.pdf

Frechette (2013): http://journalofmedialiteracy.org/index.php/current-issue/98-david-considines-ten-technology-tips-for-principals

Orlando (2010): http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/edtech-news-and-trends/personal-learning-environments-help-students-extend-learning-beyond-the-classroom/

Jenkins (2007): http://www.idunn.no/ts/dk/2007/02/confronting_the_challenges_ofparticipatoryculture_-_media_education_for_the?languageId=2

Blog #6 Biebber Fever Strikes Again (REPOST)

The first publishing attempt didn’t allow comments, I have reposted. Sorry guys!!

Hello once again,

Welcome back to my ramblings on the social paradigms of education and social media.  A theme that keeps occurring in comments is ‘cyber bullying’ and its detrimental effect on education (see week 1), so I have decided to tackle this issue head-on by considering the effects of self-esteem in education.

In the news this week,  Courtney, a 15 year old girl, faced online abuse and hate attacks over twitter after Justin Bieber re-blogged her tweet. Bieber’s fans/Beliebers (suffering from a severe case of Bieber Fever) were outraged that a “non-Belieber” received attention and they did not. Courtney reported that these tweets began to take a toll, decreasing her self-esteem and self-confidence. By no means do I suggest that a hate campaign to this extent or insanity would occur during the application of social media in education, however this example shows how social media, when in the wrong hands, can harm self esteem. When using social media in education, a decrease in self-esteem would mean a decrease in educational motivation and a decrease in academic performance. (Deci & Vallerand et al, 1991).

In support of this, Valkenburg, Peters and Schouten (2006) found that although receiving positive feedback via social media can increase self-esteem, negative feedback causes a decline in both self-esteem and motivation. Fletcher’s (1990) theoretical framework of self-esteem and cooperative education suggests that in order for peer learning to be effective students must:

1. Have successful mastery experiences

2. Have empathetic advisor interactions

3. Have rules, standards and individual control

4. Be able to provide others with feedback

This framework implies that self-esteem increases confidence in academic ability. Furthermore, when empathy, rules and standards to promote self esteem are not met, students are unable to constructively provide feedback to their peers.  As a result, Fletcher’s framework suggests that when educators initiate peer interaction in academic blogs, it is important to maintain a code of conduct that encourages self-esteem in order for cooperative learning to be successful.

Arguably student self-esteem should be monitored because of student welfare. However, positive self-esteem has been associated with an improvement in academic performance. Social media in education is primarily associated with learning through social interaction, whereas positive self esteem has been shown to improve intergroup relations and efficiency of cooperative learning (Salvin, 1991). In addition, Deci and Vallerand et al (1991) found that when student self-esteem was encouraged, in regards to their academic ability, students demonstrated increases in course interest, intrinsic motivation and confidence. The research found that students demonstrating high self-esteem in academic abilities, placed a higher value on educational content and demonstrated  more efficient self-regulation than those demonstrating low self-esteem. Deci and colleagues argued that the increase in self-regulation and intrinsic motivation led to an increase in academic performance and conceptual understanding.

Additionally, Williams and Deci (1998) found that medical students, who had increased self-esteem, demonstrated higher conceptual understanding of psychiatric disorders and demonstrated better cognitive adjustments to learning. Edwards and Deci’s model suggests that self-esteem enhancement in relevant activities increases student motivation and performance.

As you may expect, self-esteem has its limitations. Purkey (1970) argues that ‘the self concept’ alone is not an influence on academic performance. Purkey also suggests self-esteem is only effective when related to academic abilities, and that self-esteem works indirectly through motivation to enhance performance and willingness to learn

So, ‘cyber bullying’ could occur through negative blog comments or aggressive tweets, if students share their work through social media. ‘Cyber bullying’ decreases self-esteem that may, in turn, interfere with Fletcher’s frame work, intrinsic motivation and self-regulated learning, which stunts academic performance.

However, I refuse to leave you on a negative note!

Canfield and Wells’ (1994) book “100 ways to enhance self concept in the class room”  suggests we can encourage self-esteem through highlighting strengths, building relationships and refraining from using language that hinders academic goals.  These measures are all applicable to educational social media – with teacher moderation, for example, as long as peer feedback is ‘marked’ or monitored, detrimental language and abuse will not reduce self-esteem. In addition, monitored peer evaluation can be directed towards measures of increasing self-esteem and thus aiding academic performance.

Thanks for reading!

I couldn’t pick between these quotes! I’ve pushed the boat out and you can have them both.

Thank me later.

******

References

Bieber Article: http://www.parentdish.co.uk/2013/03/04/bieber-fever-turns-nasty-for-teenager-on-twitter/

Deci, Vallerand et al (1991): http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00461520.1991.9653137

Valkenburg, Peters and Schouten (2006): http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cpb.2006.9.584

Fletcher (1990): http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ426579&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ426579

Salvin (1991): http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ421354&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ421354

Edwards and Deci (1998): http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=711623

Purkey (1970): http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED058359&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED058359

Canfield and Wells (1994): http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED376383&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED376383

Blog #6: Bieber Fever Strikes Again

Hello once again,

Welcome back to my ramblings on the social paradigms of education and social media.  A theme that keeps occurring in comments is ‘cyber bullying’ and its detrimental effect on education (see week 1), so I have decided to tackle this issue head-on by considering the effects of self-esteem in education.

In the news this week,  Courtney, a 15 year old girl, faced online abuse and hate attacks over twitter after Justin Bieber re-blogged her tweet. Bieber’s fans/Beliebers (suffering from a severe case of Bieber Fever) were outraged that a “non-Belieber” received attention and they did not. Courtney reported that these tweets began to take a toll, decreasing her self-esteem and self-confidence. By no means do I suggest that a hate campaign to this extent or insanity would occur during the application of social media in education, however this example shows how social media, when in the wrong hands, can harm self esteem. When using social media in education, a decrease in self-esteem would mean a decrease in educational motivation and a decrease in academic performance. (Deci & Vallerand et al, 1991).

In support of this, Valkenburg, Peters and Schouten (2006) found that although receiving positive feedback via social media can increase self-esteem, negative feedback causes a decline in both self-esteem and motivation. Fletcher’s (1990) theoretical framework of self-esteem and cooperative education suggests that in order for peer learning to be effective students must:

1. Have successful mastery experiences

2. Have empathetic advisor interactions

3. Have rules, standards and individual control

4. Be able to provide others with feedback

This framework implies that self-esteem increases confidence in academic ability. Furthermore, when empathy, rules and standards to promote self esteem are not met, students are unable to constructively provide feedback to their peers.  As a result, Fletcher’s framework suggests that when educators initiate peer interaction in academic blogs, it is important to maintain a code of conduct that encourages self-esteem in order for cooperative learning to be successful.

Arguably student self-esteem should be monitored because of student welfare. However, positive self-esteem has been associated with an improvement in academic performance. Social media in education is primarily associated with learning through social interaction, whereas positive self esteem has been shown to improve intergroup relations and efficiency of cooperative learning (Salvin, 1991). In addition, Deci and Vallerand et al (1991) found that when student self-esteem was encouraged, in regards to their academic ability, students demonstrated increases in course interest, intrinsic motivation and confidence. The research found that students demonstrating high self-esteem in academic abilities, placed a higher value on educational content and demonstrated  more efficient self-regulation than those demonstrating low self-esteem. Deci and colleagues argued that the increase in self-regulation and intrinsic motivation led to an increase in academic performance and conceptual understanding. 

Additionally, Williams and Deci (1998) found that medical students, who had increased self-esteem, demonstrated higher conceptual understanding of psychiatric disorders and demonstrated better cognitive adjustments to learning. Edwards and Deci’s model suggests that self-esteem enhancement in relevant activities increases student motivation and performance.

As you may expect, self-esteem has its limitations. Purkey (1970) argues that ‘the self concept‘ alone is not an influence on academic performance. Purkey also suggests self-esteem is only effective when related to academic abilities, and that self-esteem works indirectly through motivation to enhance performance and willingness to learn

So, ‘cyber bullying’ could occur through negative blog comments or aggressive tweets, if students share their work through social media. ‘Cyber bullying’ decreases self-esteem that may, in turn, interfere with Fletcher’s frame work, intrinsic motivation and self-regulated learning, which stunts academic performance.

However, I refuse to leave you on a negative note!

Canfield and Wells’ (1994) book “100 ways to enhance self concept in the class room”  suggests we can encourage self-esteem through highlighting strengths, building relationships and refraining from using language that hinders academic goals.  These measures are all applicable to educational social media – with teacher moderation, for example, as long as peer feedback is ‘marked’ or monitored, detrimental language and abuse will not reduce self-esteem. In addition, monitored peer evaluation can be directed towards measures of increasing self-esteem and thus aiding academic performance.

Thanks for reading!

I couldn’t pick between these quotes! I’ve pushed the boat out and you can have them both.

Thank me later.

******

References

Bieber Article: http://www.parentdish.co.uk/2013/03/04/bieber-fever-turns-nasty-for-teenager-on-twitter/

Deci, Vallerand et al (1991): http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00461520.1991.9653137

Valkenburg, Peters and Schouten (2006): http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cpb.2006.9.584

Fletcher (1990): http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ426579&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ426579

Salvin (1991): http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ421354&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ421354

Edwards and Deci (1998): http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=711623

Purkey (1970): http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED058359&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED058359

Canfield and Wells (1994): http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED376383&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED376383

Blog #5 Social Reward: Like, Comment, Follow…

Hello Again!

To start with a quick reminder: School is a social experience – as students learn through interaction with their teachers and with their peers (Terry, 1927). As I have mentioned in previous blogs, social experiences are moving away from face-to-face interaction and becoming more frequent in online environments (Weinberg, 2012). Because of this shift in socialisation, education should be prepared to incorporate social media when necessary; one way of doing this may be through using the principles of social reward and the notion of social perception.

So what is social reward?

Dwer et al (1983) suggested students that are encouraged demonstrate more confidence in their academic abilities, thus leading to an increase in student resilience.  This means that students who face hardship in their studies, such as not understanding certain information, will “bounce back” without hindering their learning process. Research such as this has led some educational psychologists to research the effect of social rewards such as praise and encouragement. Grille argues that social rewards such as praise can be used as a tool to improve student motivation; however, Grille does see praise as a manipulative technique and suggests a more positive self evaluation alternative. Others have argued that praise is a positive reward method in schools, Barnett (2002) suggested praise increases the positivity of a learning environment, which is associated with increasing student motivation.

But once again we find ourselves asking that same question… does this increase in motivation actually aid learning?

According to recent “Dance Investigation” by Sugawara and Tanka (2012), praise can be used to increase motor learning. Not only did participants who were praised spend longer practising and performing with better accuracy, they also showed a deeper understanding in regards to the meaning of  the choreography. In addition, the research found that participants who observed praise did not receive the same learning benefits.  This suggests that in educational settings it may not be sufficient to praise just certain students, but to praise each student on their individual merits (Sorry!). Moving away from dancing, Haring (1978) outlined four key stages of learning (The Instructional Hierarchy), the stages wherein consist of Acquisition, Fluency, Generalisation & Adaptation. These final stages are what we traditionally view as learning, and the view of understanding. However, to reach these stages, Haring argued we must pass through the stages of accuracy and fluency. Haring suggests praise can be used to highlight students’ improvements and encourage this progression further. In the acquisition stage, where accuracy is a goal, students could be praised for the amount of correct answers given. Once in the fluency stage, where efficiency is key, praise is directed towards the quantity and speed of correct answers. Although praise may not help students in the generalisation and adaptation of knowledge, it can build the foundations that lead to this deeper understanding.

It is not only praise that can motivate students academically, smiling has been shown to an influential social reward.  Research here at Bangor University, conducted by Erin Heerey & Danielle Shore, has described smiling as a form of social currency that can encourage desired behaviour. This suggests if teachers reward students with a smile and friendly attitude, students may work harder to receive elicit this response in the future.  Social reward goes beyond the teacher and extends to fellow pupils. In accordance with the theory of social perception, Richardson and Swan (2003) found that in online learning environments, audience size was perceived to be high. Students with this perception appeared to more motivated in their assignments and demonstrated better understanding. As a result, students received higher grades than when perceived audience size was low. These findings suggest that students can increase their own motivation by increasing their audience size, and this can be achieved by sharing assignments through the medium of social networks.

So, we are all familiar with Wordpress, but have you thought about how we can use it more effectively? Imagine receiving an email that you have another follower on your blog, your perceived audience size is automatically increasing, and therefore increasing your motivation. Blogs can be ‘liked’, and this could be used as a form of an ‘online-smile’ to either highlight our improvements or motivate us to gain more likes. In addition, WordPress blogs can be linked with other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to further and increase our audience/social perception, which should reflect in our academic performance.

To conclude, schools can motivate students with praise and a simple smile, and this would improve motivation and performance. Also, as students, we can take out motivation into our own hands by increasing our perceived audience size through the use of social networks, thus increasing our chances of social reward.

Thanks For Reading 🙂

******

This week’s video:

******

Jesse asked following this talk if I had my word pressed synced with my Facebook. In the name of hypocrisy and self motivation I have decided to link my social media sites to my academic work …EEEK

Sorry for such along blog! If you are interested in this area there is much more I couldn’t include!

 

References

Terry (1927): http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1078758?uid=3738032&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21101878049197

Weinberg (2012): http://www.pluggedin.co.uk/article/do-you-socialise-more-online-than-for-real

Dwer (1983) (Via Warren): http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/content/18/4/287.full

Grille: http://www.naturalchild.org/robin_grille/rewards_praise.html

Barnett (2002): http://epsl.asu.edu/epru/documents/EPRU%202002-101/epru-2002-101.pdf

Harring (1978): http://www.interventioncentral.org/academic-interventions/general-academic/instructional-hierarchy-linking-stages-learning-effective-in

Heery & Shore: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/10/economic-value-smile-research

 

Blog #4: Why We Are Blogging?

Hello,

Welcome back to blog number 4, and with that, the introduction of the ‘themed’ blogs! Drum roll please… The blog topic is… Social Media! (Who would have seen it coming? Well, just about everyone but no harm in a bit of drama!) From blog comments I have read and in-class discussions, I have heard there is a bit of scepticism to the use of social media in education. Yes, typical social media is a long way off being appropriate for schools, but have you considered what we are doing right now? We are currently using online social media to present and discuss information with peers, therefore blogging is a prime example of how social media can be used to enhance learning.

So, we write one blog a week on a topic relevant to the module, we also read each others’ work and comment when appropriate. Of course, this class organisation has a purpose, to motivate, engage, collaborate, structure and enhance learning (Downes, 2004). For a blog-learning environment to be successful, a framework is required; Kerawalla’s four-factor framework (2008) suggests that blog-learning should be structured around the following four features:

Presentation

Audience

Comments 

Community

Presentation refers to presenting a blog on information that the student is motivated to research (Glogoff, 2005). Glogoff argues that blog presentation involves the student to acquire information, report information and evaluate this information. Part of this procedure is receptive learning (Clark & Mayer, 2003). Receptive learning requires assignments to be based on theoretical constructs and expanded by the learner. Receptive learning enhances learning by being context-based, this encourages active learning and enhanced cognitive processing. In terms of blogging, students do not simply read information, but they apply knowledge in order to present it, therefore increasing understanding.

Another feature of Kerawalla’s four-factor framework is community. Community refers to the enhancement of the social aspects of learning. Glogoff suggests social components of learning derive from Vygotsky’s (1978) theories of social cognition and Lipman’s (1991) community inquiry. Blogging encourages social and peer interaction that allow students to apply personal meaning to theory, and it also directs students to further resources that may enhance their knowledge. The community aspect of blogging allows student-centered learning without removing the aspects of feedback that can be benefited from traditional learning environments.  The literature suggests constructive feedback enhances student ability (Nesbit & Burton, 2006); as students comment on each other’s work, they provide critique and additional resources, thus providing information that will enhance relevant knowledge, and in addition, provide information that encourages learning beyond that required (sorry for being so brief about feedback, it’s a big topic and there are plenty of blogs on it if you’re interested).

Before I conclude, I would like to first draw your attention to Bloom’s Taxonomy. Bloom in the early 1950’s stated that people can’t understand information that they don’t remember.  In addition,  people can’t apply or analyse this knowledge if they don’t understand it. To cognitively learn we need to apply, analyse and understand. The structure of blogging allows students to firstly remember information, understand it, then apply and analyse what they have learnt to produce effective learning.

Overall, blogging has been shown to be an effective learning tool, a tool that enhances both engagement and understanding. Blogging allows a peer learning environment to thrive in the context of education-based discussion. Ask yourself this … Why are you blogging? What have you learnt from blogging?  It may be the case you start each week blogging for this assignment, but find yourself lost in a world of science and information. Jay Cross says 90% of information in learnt informally. Social media (such as blogging) encourages learning, and the [majority of] literature to date supports this… Why else would we be here?!

 

References 

Downes (2004): http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/educational-blogging

Kerawalla (2008): http://www3.interscience.wiley.com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/cgi-bin/fulltext/119880599/HTMLSTART

Glogoff (2005): http://studentcenteredlearning.pbworks.com/f/Instructional+Blogging.pdf

Calrk & Mayer (2003): http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/222/designing-for-mobile-learning-clark-and-mayers-principles-applied/page2

Nesbit & burton (2003): http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02602930600760868

Blooms Taxonomy: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html

Bog #3: Totally Tumblr Teaching

Hello Fellow Bloggers,

Thrilling to see you all again and welcome to week 3!

Today’s talk has sparked from an interesting find by Childers and Houston (1984) that human beings have a remarkable ability to remember images, an ability far superior than our ability to remember textual or verbal information. This is referred to as the picture-superiority effect, and incorporates learning strategies such as mnemonic illustrations.

A Mnemonic image is an image that combines illustration and text to increase recall by encouraging deeper processing. For example:

The research I am about to discuss is becoming dated,  perhaps because applications of mnemonic illustrations are growing sparse? But, the modern student comes across images every day through social media (such as Tumblr), could this be a successful application of mnemonic illustrations to improve learning?

So Tumblr, may be a foreign concept to some of you. The concept is simply this; to blog and reblog images, videos, text and questions. Tumblr is mostly used for images ranging from inspirational (or corny…) to funny – for example;

As you can see such blogs are similar to mnemonic illustrations by combining text with images to provoke an emotional reaction. Dretzke (2006) found that students can improve recall of key words and terms by matching  terms with images. In addition, Dretzke suggested recall improves regardless of image relevance, however recall was more significant when relevance occurs. Dretzke’s research found significant improvements across age groups, and this suggested creating mnemonic illustrations could be implicated from primary to further education. Dretzke and Levin (1990) argued students could successful recall numerous facts about US presidents when merely being presented mnemonic illustrations. A combination of the two findings suggests there is a benefit to recall when being presented with and creating mnemonic illustrations.

But does simple recall of key terms demonstrate learning?

Arguably the benefits of mnemonics are limited, they can’t be used to solve math problems or write essays. However, Shuell (1990) suggests mnemonics are a good strategy for creating a foundation to learning.  Shuell suggests that learning occurs through stages, firstly acquiring factual information to create cognitive schemas, and once schemas are created, information can be incorporated into them. Cognitive schemas are our mental representations of the world, they help us distinguish the ‘what’ before we understand the ‘why’. It is this concept of ‘why’ that typically demonstrates learning (Ip, 2003). Such research suggests that mnemonic strategies can define and refine cognitive schemas, thus aiding future learning processes. Levin (1990) suggested mnemonic images can improve understanding of terms, and is a skill that continues into the working environment. In addition, Levin argued that mnemonic strategies create meaningful links between information and different schemas, improving analytical reasoning.

So could Tumblr be used to set assignments to create mnemonics? Mnemonics that would create initial understanding to built upon and expanded in class? The culture of Tumblr encourages re-blogging and sharing, this would encourage students to learn from each others’ images as well as creating their own.

So, mnemonic illustrations is a useful yet primary learning strategy used to clarify and define key concepts. Although the research is fast becoming out-dated, the rise in social media could make such research more relevant than ever.  If students go home and spend time (even hours!?) on Tumblr, should we not bring the information to them? A class Tumblr blog would be beneficial for educators, as they could use mnemonic images to clarify information and encourage students to employ their own mnemonic images, as well as encoring  students to share each others’ thoughts and ideas.

Thanks for reading, and as always, I look forward to reading your comments.

P.S. please don’t take this to be a recommendation to peruse Tumblr over blogging…

There’s a lot of rubbish on there…

****

*(NM)*

If you fancy a perusal, here is my corresponding talk to this topic:

A few Questions that were not captured include:

1. How can we moderate tumblr?  Understandably parents may worry that their children will get distracted  by non-class material. Other social media sites such as YouTube are introducing an EDU system, this allows restricted content, so children only see pages approved by their school. As we all learning resources,  social would need some adaptation/restriction to be implemented into education.

2. Will this not be extra work for teachers? Yes, but not too much extra. Teachers can still mark work as usual, and set any foundation or clarification mnemonics at the start and end of each day.

****

References

Childers and Houston (1984): http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2488971?uid=3738032&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21101652920123

Dretzke (2006): http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0360127930190602

Dretzke & Levin (1990): http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0361476X9090014R

Shuell (1990): http://rer.sagepub.com/content/60/4/531.short

Ip (2003): http://www.cdtl.nus.edu.sg/success/sl20.htm

Levin (1990): http://aer.sagepub.com/content/27/2/301.short