PREAMBLE
“Complex social networks have always existed but recent technological developments in communications have afforded their emergence as a dominant form of social organization”.
– Barry Wellman
INTRODUCTION
The Masters on ICT and Learning (MIL) is an academic master for professionals in Information Communication Technology and Learning (MIL) based on principles of problem and project based learning.
In this chapter we discuss processes involved in creating MIL as a productive networked learning community. In doing so we relate to the framework proposed by (Jones, Dirckinck-Holmfeld, & Lindstrửm, 2006; Jones, Dirckinck-Holmfeld, &
Lindstrửm, forthcoming). We are especially concerned with two issues:
How to understand productive learning within an academic master for professionals?
What are the challenges for a networked learning infrastructure to support productive learning?
MIL demonstrates best practice for a research based Masters program. An indicator is the average exams results. The results are for MIL through all the 7 years where the program has been running well above average. 398 examinations have been executed with the average result of 10,0 on a grade scale from 00 to 13 with 10,0 as excellent13. It’s therefore assumed that it will provide valuable insights for understanding issues related to the construction of productive academic postgraduate learning environments to look closer into MIL.
13 According to the scale of 00 to 13, the general proficiency is placed within the following four groups of marks: Excellent (13, 11, 10); average (9, 8, 7); 3) the just acceptable (6); hesitant (5, 03, 00).For further explanation of the Danish grade scale, please visit http://www.ciriusonline.dk/default.aspx?
id=3572
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In the introduction we will give some background for MIL and present the overall pedagogical design. This is followed by a discussion of the two main issues concerning firstly productive learning and secondly infrastructure. At the end of the chapter we consider what may be particular to the MIL case and what may be issues for networked learning more generally.
The presentation and discussion of the MIL learning environment builds upon the experiences of the authors, who are also the founders of MIL, as researchers, managers, and teachers. Furthermore it builds on previous analysis using primarily a qualitative approach. Our insider-relation to MIL has strengths and limitations. It has strength in the sense that we have in-depth and first-hand experiences from being participants in the learning environment, while the limitations may be that our involvement also restricts our critical reflection on the experiences.
BACKGROUND
Presenting MIL
The Masters programme in ICT and Learning (MIL) is an academic Masters for professionals. In order to enter to the program, students have to have at least two years of relevant practice and the formal requirements of a bachelor degree. The students have a very diverse background. Approximately two/thirds of the students come from the field of education (all levels) and one/third come from business (human resource and IT). The distribution between men and women is fifty-fifty.
The students come from all over Denmark (including the Faroe Islands and Greenland).
MIL was established in 2000. A unique programme within the Danish context, five universities worked (and still work) together in the realization of MIL: Aalborg University, Aarhus University, Copenhagen Business School, The Danish University School of Education, and Roskilde University under the umbrella of IT Vest14. The rationale behind the collaboration was multi-faceted: creating a joint and singular masters program would provide volume; it would increase the quality of the learning environment, engage students in different and leading research environments and provide a framework for the founders to work together.
Foremost amongst the reasons was that it would give an opportunity to explore on a long term basis the strengths, the challenges and the weaknesses of a virtual organization and of virtual learning.
14IT University West is an educational network between the four university institutions in the western part of Denmark; Aarhus School of Business, University of Southern Denmark, Aalborg University and University of Aarhus. IT University West was established in 1999 with the purpose of strengthening education and research within IT in Denmark. IT University West offers graduate studies and further education within a broad range of the information technological field.
Pedagogical design
A networked learning environment for problem and project based learning is not only a piece of technology consisting of software and computers (Tolsby, 2007). A networked learning environment is situated in practice and includes a number of social features. It includes people working together on formulating and solving problems, a curriculum to be studied, an organization and a learning infrastructure, and it includes a pedagogical design to tie all this together. Inspired by Winograd’s notion of design, a problem and project based networked learning environment may be described as “bringing the users, the context and the system together”
(Winograd, 1996).
Problem and project based learning (POPP/PBL)15 is a “productive pedagogical approach” in the sense that it is based on principles of collaboration, learning through and while producing, and object orientation. With problem formulation and the completion of projects as the core mechanisms MIL “borrows” the pedagogical principles from production practices as described by Friedrich Engels:
“The tool specifically symbolizes human activity, man’s transformation of nature:
production” (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, 1953 p. 63, quoted in (John- Steiner & Souberman, 1978). The core principle of POPP/PBL is that the students learn and acquire knowledge when transforming a problem area. This is not restricted to the transformation of nature in a narrow sense, but also directed towards social and psychological activities. This basic understanding of learning is in line with the socio-cultural approaches:
“Learning is mediated by tools, both symbolic tools such as language and physical artefacts.
Learning is social, language and artefacts are cultural and social products not the property of individual minds.
Learning is historic, because we ‘inherit’ cultural tools we need to understand the history of their development.” (Jones, Dirckinck-Holmfeld, & Lindstrửm, 2007)
POPP/PBL is a dynamic pedagogy in the sense that students bring in new problem areas to be studied. The problems to work with are not defined by the curriculum or the professors, but brought in by the students. In most cases the problems to investigate are related to their work practice. Further more, it is problem formulation, as opposed to solely problem solution, which brings dynamics to the learning environment. It trains the students to critically rethinking the problem to be studied: What is the problem? Who has the problem? When did the problem become a problem? Why is it a problem? How can the problem be solved?
15The term Problem Based Learning was originally coined by Don Woods, based on his work with chemistry students in McMaster’s University in Canada. However, the popularity and subsequent world-wide spread of PBL is mostly linked to the introduction of this educational method at the medical school of McMaster University in the 1960s (de Graaff & Kolmos, 2007). If you search within Google for problem-based learning, you will find more than 1.180.000 search results. If you search for project-based learning, you will get about 154.000.000 search results (Google, 2007). Thus both problem-based and project-based learning seem to be quite widespread concepts
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MIL is based on a pragmatic concept of POPP/PBL adapted to the virtual conditions of the study programme. The MIL model (see below) incorporates a series of integrated didactical principles: problem formulation, enquiry of exemplary problems, participant control, joint projects, dialogues, interdisciplinary approaches, and action learning (Dirckinck-Holmfeld 2002). POPP/PBL requires that students and teachers (facilitators, supervisors, lecturers, professors) engage in a shared enterprise (the problem/and the thematic framework for the semester), and develop a shared repertoire of actions and discussions. As such, POPP/PBL is a vehicle for the development of ‘communities of practices’ and inter-dependencies among the participants. This is viewed as a mean for integrating the individual’s construction of knowledge and the construction of shared understanding through negotiations, confrontations and identification in relation to development and change of (professional) identity (Dirckinck-Holmfeld 2002. The basic structure is illustrated below (fig. 1).
A flexible and blended learning environment
MIL is organised as a flexible and blended learning environment with online module activities supported by residential seminars and workshops. The program is made up of four course modules, one project module and the thesis – a total of 60 ECTS-points16. Most students take two years part-time, however it’s possible to enrol as a full-time student – or to take a single module at a time. The online learning environment is supported by face-to-face interaction in three residential seminars, a one-day project seminar, and a single day for the final examinations (represented by the stapled lines in Figure 1) by turns of the partner universities in Jutland or in the Copenhagen area.
The overall design reflects some of the principles for dramaturgy as suggested by (Laurel, 1993). It has a clear marking of start and end, it has a clear rhythm instantiated through the face-to-face seminars and tasks (Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Sorensen, Ryberg, & Buus, 2004), and there is explicit guidance about the different roles of coordinators, teachers/supervisors and students.
16ECTS is the European Credit Transfer System to ensure transfer of credits from one study program to another and developed to enhance the mobility of students between universities in the EU member states.
Fig. 1. MIL – a problem and project based networked learning environment (first presented Dirckinck-Holmfeld, 2002)
The networked learning environment enables students to form groups according to their interests and they are not bound by geographical boundaries.
With respect to the concept of networking, the MIL-model is a combination of strong and weak ties17 (Granovetter, 1973). Students are organized in “big groups”
with 40 – 50 students in each year group, and these connect participants by weak ties, while project groups are intentionally connected by strong ties. At the ‘big group level’, the students connect occasionally with each other and share problems of common interests, while those in the project group work closely together, and develop strong ties. The relations among the students in the ‘big group’ can be seen as a ‘network of interest’, while the project groups become “communities of practice”, sharing a common enterprise (the problem and the project), a mutual
17Following Granovetter : “the strength of a tie is a (probably linear) combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie” (Granovetter, 1973 p. 1361)
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Supervisor
1 year / part time Resources
Coursework Resources
Project Work
Course 1 Course
2
Course 3
Intro semester theme and project
Proje ct
Proje ct Semester –
theme Preparation
phase 1st.
seminar
2nd.
seminar
3rd.
seminar
4th.
seminar
Proje ct
Project exam Textboo
ks, readers
WWW
Study guide CMC
Experiments
&
Assignment s
Video conferencing
Teacher
CMC/Group work
Case Textboo ks, readers Primary sources
WWW
Library
Tools for collaboration
engagement (academic and social), and a shared repertoire of theories and ways of working (Brown & Duguid, 2000); (Wenger, 1998).
Within MIL, collaboration is the overall approach to learning. This is especially true for the first year project and for the final thesis. However, course modules are also based on smaller projects or cases to stimulate collaboration, and integration of theory and students’ practices. Due to collaboration and interdependence students negotiate meaning and challenge, help, stimulate, engage, and commit each other in the project work (Dirckinck-Holmfeld, 2002). Teachers and supervisors act as critical facilitators, supervisors, experts and teachers in relation to the project groups. They do not hold the authoritative meaning; however they facilitate and support the students’ inquiry process, the shaping of the project, and engage in the construction of meaning. The teachers does not give up their professional knowledge, however they contribute to the construction of knowledge related to the problems and projects formulated by the students.
A modular system and different methodologies
MIL is structured as a modular system, every module is weighted from 7 to 15 ECTS. Each course modules is sub-divided into 2 or 3 smaller courses. Our experience is that it should be possible to finish a course in a relatively limited time-span in order to keep the problem in focus. On the other hand a course must have a minimum time-span to secure the combination of knowledge adaptation, reflection and integration in practice but also to be flexible in relation to unforeseen problems for the students (travels, extra work, problems in families etc.).
The MIL-model applies different methodologies in the various courses. Some courses are built around a dialogue approach (Sorensen & Takle, 2003) in which students in groups are asked to present and discuss the course literature in an asynchronous environment. This course is very important in training the students in virtual asynchronous dialogues. Further more, it gives the students an opportunity to apply theoretical concepts to their practice as a kind of boundary crossing laboratory between academia and practice. Other courses are informed by a socio- constructionist approach asking the students to develop a product together, and in other instances by a case-oriented approach asking the students to investigate a real problem, for example from their professional life. In general all courses use a flexible approach in the sense that the students introduce and bring the problems, cases, and examples to be studied. In the spring semester the students form groups and make a kind of research/action learning project, integrating and going beyond the course activities.
The various approaches within the course and project work represent the teachers’
and coordinators’ interests in experimenting and researching the area of productive networked learning. These approaches also serve to inspire the students by showing a span of possibilities for networked learning. The students acknowledge the engagement from the five universities behind MIL, which provides them with
deeper insights into various research approaches and educational and cultural differences. It also provides them with a much wider base from which they can engage in the academic community.
From a methodological point the sequence of courses were originally chosen pragmatically, even though this has turned out to be very successful. The semester is introduced by a period, where the students familiarize themselves with the virtual learning environment, and with each other. This is followed by the first module of the first course, in which the students particularly explore the dialogue opportunities and challenges in the virtual learning environment (Sorensen &
Takle, 2003) This experience really widens the students’ imagination about how to engage in networked learning. It also provides all the students with a shared repertoire and netiquette for how to participate in the MIL learning environment.
This is followed by the second module and other courses using other specific methodologies.
The traces for a collaborative environment can be found in the number and quality of postings and the length of the treads, and in the students project reports. This is documented in a number of articles and theses (Dalsgaard, 2007; Dirckinck- Holmfeld et al., 2004; Fibiger, 2005)
DISCUSSION
Based on the MIL case there are a number of general problems to discuss regarding networked learning. We have chosen to focus on two issues in particular: How to understand productive learning within an academic master for professionals?
What are the challenges for a networked learning infrastructure to support productive learning?
PRODUCTIVE LEARNING
Learning trajectories and change of identity
In the previous section we defined productive in relation to production and the use of tool as transformation of nature. In the following we elaborate on the view that productive learning is related to transformation as change, and these changes take place on many levels:
Change of practice
Change of identity
Change of membership
Change of trajectory
The findings build on a previous article (Dirckinck-Holmfeld et al., 2004) which is based on students evaluation of MIL.
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MIL consists of a complex pattern of interwoven professional identities and memberships in a diversity of practices. Through the engagement in course discussions, project work and assignments the students are confronted with a mixture of professional identities, which urges the students on to negotiate and renew their current multiple practices and experiences. “Fellow students with different experiences make the shared ’database’ big and increases the value of discussions, group work etc.” (Student evaluation 2003)
MIL also provides an environment to negotiate a new shared practice within the academic field, which for some of the participants is unknown, whilst for others it is challenging. In MIL the students are transcending traditional boundaries between humanities and engineering/science involving analysis, conceptualization and construction. Theoretical work in connection with the firsthand experiences in MIL develops a social and technological imagination on the application of ICT and learning. “The exemplary structure of many of the courses e.g. when we work with portfolios we do so in a portfolio environment” (Student evaluation 2003)
Moreover training in problem formulation gives the students methodological skills, which are applicable in their professional practice. “Freedom of choice in relation to assignments/projects ensures that everybody can select something that is relevant to them” (Students evaluation 2003)
In order to change identity and membership conscious effort is put into involving students in other academic activities beyond the ones they encounter as ‘ordinary’
study activities e.g. students are invited to familiarise themselves with academic contexts such as conferences, international research projects and publishing. In this way students gradually become members of the academic community. “It has certainly been an education that has moved me forward. I have gained insight in working methods at an academic level and thereby I have overcome my educational feeling of inferiority (in the daily life I am associated with a lot of academics). I have become ready to take on tasks that I would never before MIL have dared to accept (e.g. doing a presentation on Problem Based Learning)”
(student evaluation 2003).
Furthermore MIL is engaged in current social and political realities, and seeks to strengthen critical, democratic and change oriented values and awareness in relation to ICT and learning. Most of the students adopt this aspect, which results in changes in their professional practice towards having a greater focus on collaborative pedagogies and socio-constructivist understandings of learning. “To me MIL has to a very large degree been a process of formation – for good and worse :-)” (student evaluation 2003)
The above mentioned examples illustrate that change of identity are an inherent potential of the learning trajectories enabled by the pedagogical design of the MIL masters education. The changes in identity and trajectory of the students are however, not only due to the pedagogical design of MIL but rest firmly in the
students’ and teachers’ level of engagement in dialogues, course discussions and project work cf. also (Goodyear, Jones, Asensio, Hodgson, & Steeples, 2001;
Jones, 2007).
Following Goodyear et. Al (2001) we argue that learning can never be directly designed, only designed for, (see also Wenger, 1998). Learning itself is only indirectly related to what we design and plan. The activities, spaces and organisations we design rely on being inhabited by others, the particular teachers and learners who ‘enact’ our designs. Goodyear et. al. have summarised this as an indirect approach to learning (see fig. 2 in (Jones et al., 2007)this volume).
Goodyear et. al. argue that we can design the tasks, the organisation and the space, in which learning may take place, however we can’t be sure how the tasks are carried out, organisation becomes community or spaces become places.
We agree with Goodyear et. al. that learning is “ungovernable”. However, we also believe that it is possible to create more insight into what works, in order to stimulate and facilitate learning. In doing this we believe it is productive to focus on pedagogical principles, for example the principles of problem and project based learning, and not only on tasks.
THE LEARNING INFRASTRUCTURE
Building MIL up as a networked learning environment, in “nowhere”, between universities spatially distributed, requires a very robust and lively learning infrastructure. For MIL and other networked masters programmes, the virtual environment is the primary infrastructure – not the buildings.
Bygholm and Nyvang, and Jones et.al. (this volume and 2006) reflect on learning infrastructures. In common usage infrastructure refers to the generally subordinate and relatively permanent parts of an undertaking. In a city we might think of the sewerage system, the water supply, the electricity or gas utilities and the communications systems such as roads and telephony as infrastructures.
Nyvang and Bygholm (this volume) draw on the works of (Star & Ruhleder, 1996) and suggest that we interpret ICT in use as infrastructures that both shape and are shaped by practice. They go on to propose that we understand infrastructure as a relational concept. Thus we ask, when – not what – is an infrastructure (Star &
Ruhleder 1996, p. 113). In line with this approach Guribye (Guribye et al 2003) suggest that infrastructure should be understood as relational and as an ecology (see also (Nardi & O'Day, 1999)), and ((Jones et al., 2007) suggest that infrastructures are complex environments rather than singular tools or artifacts.
The MIL infrastructure serves as a good example of a complex learning environment. The complexity in tools, organisations behind and support staff is described in Table 2:
Infrastructure Organisation Support Comments
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