Subject of Interaction

Today I have been trying to find information on the nature of interaction. I couldn't find much but I did find out some interesting things. I was reading Anderson (2004) chapter in the handbook and he made reference to Burnham and Walden (1997). It was just a conference proceeding but it gave me some good insight. The first is that what we have been calling nature he has been calling subject which I think in someway is more accurate. They also talk about Learner-environment interaction which Anderson said could include family. I think that this may be helpful when I talk about parent interaction. Anderson also talked about how he doesn't consider learner interface interaction to be a distinct types of interaction but a part of all other types of interaction. The following is my synthesis of what I found:

Burnham and Walden (1997) stated that "interactions have objects (things learners interact with that influence the learner) and subjects (things that the interactions are about). These two elements can and should play an important part of any classification of interactions" (p. 52). Several researchers have attempted to move beyond the types or objects of interaction and have tried to classify the different subjects of interactions. For instance Gilbert and Moore (1998) grouped interactions as either social or instructional. They defined social interactions emotional or informational communication that does not directly result in an improvement of student content understanding but can have a positive effect on the learning environment. Instructional interactions were defined as being content focused with the explicit goal of improving student content understanding including the direct presentation of learning materials and formative verbal assessments (Gilbert & Moore, 1998).

Similarly Huang and Wei’s (2000) review of social psychology literature found that group communications are commonly categorized as either task or social interactions. They also provided the following definitions, “Task interactions of a group are directly related to the group’s tasks and are involved in asking for or giving information, suggestions, directions, and possible ways of action, whereas social interactions are directly related to relations between group members or internal needs (or preferences) of members” (p. 183). Huang and Wei’s definition of social interactions differs from Gilbert and Moore (1998) in that it does not explicitly include informational exchanges regarding progress. Olson et al. (1992) added that interactions focused on the progress and procedures necessary are better grouped into a different category they term management or executive interactions.

In the context of a virtual high school setting, Hawkins (2011) grouped interactions as either social/supportive, instructional/intellectual, and procedural/organizational interactions. Social/supportive interactions are used to motivate, encourage, and create a sense of closeness. Instructional/intellectual interactions are centered on the course content and include providing clarification and feedback. Procedural/organizational interactions are focused on policies, procedures and progress.

The Normative Influence Theory

Huang WW, Wei KK. An Empirical Investigation of the Effects of Group Support Systems ( GSS ) and Task Type on Group Interactions from an Influence Perspective. Journal of Management Information Systems. 2000;17(2):181-206.

In class last time we talked about how 40% of interaction is off task. I was really interested in that so I looked up the article from the citations. Interestingly the article only made reference to another article that made the claim. However, I started to read the article and found an interesting paragraph.

"The normative influence theory posits that human beings often need to seek approval and a sense of belonging, and the aim in human social relations is for harmony and communality. There are generally four sources of normative influence: dominance, majority power, persuasiveness, and hierarchy status [19]. Informational influence theory assumes the centrality of being correct, of knowing and understanding the world, and therefore of needing and processing factual information. Sources of informational influence include factual information sharing [55], factual and task messages/rationales/ arguments [57, 67]. Hence, normative influence theory seems to focus more on interpersonal relationships whereas informational influence theory emphasizes more the exchange of factual information and the search for task truth, which conceptually corresponds to the main characteristics of social and task interactions respectively."

This supports our categorization of the nature of interaction. I was also thinking that their description of the normative influence theory supports the use of high fidelity interaction. I also feel that it can help explain the "energy" of a conversation.

Funny. I just wrote this and then as I kept reading I found this paragraph:

"In group interactions, conflict resulting from different values and preferences would
be better resolved in FtF talks with multiple social cues. For example, personal pref- erences can be better expressed simultaneously in the tone, speed, and content of verbal statements, and in the facial expression and gesture of nonverbal behaviors. However, the tone and speed of verbal statements and the facial expression and ges- ture of nonverbal behaviors do not exist within the electronic communication channel of a GSS. Only the content of verbal statements can be communicated in the form of electronically written messages. Hence many social cues are reduced or eliminated in GSS electronic communication [53, 91, 93, 99], which would in turn hinder the ex- change and understanding of personal preferences and values."

Using Facebook in Online Learning

Image location

Article Link:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/03/23/facebook.underage.users/index.html?hpt=C2

Yesterday in class we talked about how Facebook could be used to hold impromptu conversations between students. In some ways using Facebook makes sense in the upper grades because most students are using the technology already. This article says that "roughly 64% of 13-year-olds are social networking; between the ages of 14 to 17, that figure jumps to 82%." However, the danger is that these impromptu conversations can become too casual, blurring the lines between teachers and students.  There have already been lots of teachers who have been fired for inappropriate use of social media. For instance, here is one example at a school close to where I taught.  I recently talked to a high school teacher about her school district's social media policy.  I was shocked that they didn't have one.  The district simply tells the teachers to "be safe" and "don't do anything dumb."  I think that a "policy" like that is just asking for trouble.  Teachers need to have a better awareness of internet safety and privacy issues with using Facebook.

It's also important to note that Facebook can be addicting for adults and I would assume that the addicting effects would be even greater for young students who have lower self-regulation skills.  I believe that schools/teachers should work with parents and students to provide them with guidelines for using social media safely and responsibly.  The following video discusses some of the addicting effects of social media sites such as Facebook.

Disrupting Class

Christenson suggests there are two major forms of innovation: sustaining and disruptive. As consumer needs grow companies with develop products to meet those needs such as faster cars, higher resolution digital cameras, or c.d. players that can hold multiple disks. In fact companies will create products with more features than a consumer can use in an attempt to stay relevant. These product improvements are called sustaining innovations and the winners of sustaining innovations are almost always the current industry leaders.

Unlike sustaining innovations, disruptive innovations are not product improvements. In fact when disruptive innovations are first brought to the market they are not as good as the existing products. As a result the current customers have no need for them and the disruptive innovation’s original buyers are those who either did not have the knowledge to operate or the means to purchase the superior product. The first consumers of the disruptive innovation are what Christenson refers to as “non-consumers” because they were not purchasers of the original product.

In education one disruption is distance learning technology. I attended high school in a small rural school district. Like most rural schools we did not have the resources or the demand to offer many advanced placement courses. There was one option of taking an advanced chemistry course using synchronous video communication. Although this option was not as good as having an in-house teacher it was better than the alternative which was no class at all. The same type of distance learning courses is being offered in rural schools across the country.

Harris' presentation at NECC talked about how the surge of technology in classrooms has had little effect on how teachers teach. One possible reason is because they are largely crammed into the old ways of doing things. Teachers used them to help with administrative tasks such a keeping grades and taking role. Students would largely use them to write research papers. Although these are positive additions to the classroom it falls short of Christenson's vision of how technology should be used

Christenson also stated that technology should be used in a way that teaches students how they learn best. Christenson cites Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences believes that disruptive technology should replace standardized instruction with individualized instruction to meet the different intelligences that students have.

Christensen thinks that Web 2.0 technology will facilitate the creation of these instructional tools. Similar to iPhone applications, students and parents will build and share educational products that will meet the unique needs of individual learners. They recognize that these tools would not be as good as personal tutor or one-on-one teachers. However, these tools would not try to be better than personal tutor. They would be useful only to the consumers or those who could not afford a personal tutor. At first these tools only have to be better than the next available option which is no tutor at all. As this disruptive technology creates sustaining innovations it has the ability to completely disrupt the current model of instruction.

In Christensen's classroom the teacher will move away form the sage-on-the-stage and move closer to a guide-on-the-side role. Teachers will be needed to help students select and use these learning tools. Teachers will also need to adopt more of a cheerleader and motivator role in the classroom as each student uses the learning tools that best match their intelligences.
I agree with Christensen in a lot of areas. We can also see that technology is being used in a disruptive way with online education and the Khan Academy. However, the Khan Acadamy does not address individual learning styles. I am also not sure that students should or need to be taught according to their individual learning styles all of the time. I think that the Khan Acadamy model is similar to Christensen's vision, makes best use of the affordable of technology and the personal influence of the teacher, and is more practical to implement. I also disagree with Christensen's predictions of how fast public education will be disrupted. One prediction is that by 2019 half of all high school courses will be delivered online. He supports his prediction with several examples from industry such as the ipod, personal computers, digital cameras. However, public education is so highly regulated and resistant to change that I don't foresee that happening so quickly (not to mention that high school is used as a babysitting service).

The New Handbook of Methods in Nonverbal Behavior Research

I have been studying social presence and teacher immediacy. Both are established through verbal and nonverbal behavior. However, when you are looking at student’s video comments it is hard to separate the two. I just did a little experiment and watched several video comments with the sound turned off and I tried to guess their emotional state. At times the expressions and gestures allowed me to guess correctly and other times the video was little help at all. Once I was sure that the student was confused but when I turned on the sound and listened to what she said and the tone that she used when she said it I found that she wasn’t confused at all. In fact it was quite the opposite. I knew I needed help understanding nonverbal behavior and how to measure it. I found The New Handbook of Methods in Nonverbal Behavior Research eds. Jinni A. Arrigan, Robert Rosenthal, and Klaus R. Scherer (2005).
The chapter I read was Nonverbal Behavior in Education by Elisha Babad. She starts by saying that verbal behavior is most important for education. However, nonverbal behavior can facilitate or hinder learning. In a face-to-face environment teachers are often not allowed to express how they really feel—carefully choosing their words and sentences and it is the nonverbal communication that tells the truth.

History of Nonverbal Research

Stanford University Teacher Education Program began video recording teachers as way to facilitate self-inquiry. Although it wasn’t their original purpose they quickly discovered that nonverbal communication had an effect of teacher-student interaction and as a result on student learning. These behaviors included “teacher’s position toward the entire classroom, focusing on appearance, dress, poise, use of voice, body and hands, movement in the classroom, teacher’s enthusiasm, eye contact etc.” (p. 285).

They also talked about the controversial “Doctor Fox” studies in which a charismatic, interesting, and funny actor played the role of a lecturer to a group of in-service teachers. Although the lecture lacked any substance the actor received great reviews on his expertise and grasp of the content. This was used to show that student ratings lacked validity but others disputed that contention.

They also talked about teacher immediacy and teacher enthusiasm research. I was very familiar with teacher immediacy but I had not heard of teacher enthusiasm research. It turned out that they are nearly identical but teacher enthusiasm came from research on student evaluations in higher education. Both fields of research showed that nonverbal communication produced higher course outcomes.

The chapter also mentions that students nonverbal behavior is important because it “provides the teacher with information about a student’s comprehension, motivation, and involvement at a given time, enabling him/her to handle the student in the most appropriate and effective way” (p. 291) They talk about this in a synchronous context in the “flow” of the lesson but I obviously is important in asynchronous learning.

They also talk about how skill training is important for teachers. I think that an interesting article would be how to effectively use asynchronous video to establish presence or immediacy. I know that Rick published a similar article in tech tends on how students can develop community in an online course.

Methodological and measurement issues in nonverbal research in education

Mostly educational research uses “low-inference measurement.” This happens when the researchers has operationalized the behaviors and records to behaviors that they observe. This made research less practical and expensive. High inference is much more practical and cost effective. It is where “the observer not only records the classroom behaviors but also makes inferences and judgments about their meaning and about what occurred in the classroom” (p. 293). In addition you can use student surveys to make judgments about the class climate.

How can Nonverbal behavior be measured?
1. Ask participants their impressions
2. Conduct behavioral observations
3. Videotape ongoing behavior

After the data is gathered researchers will use a theory to measure it. On page 298 it has some lists of what immediacy looks like.

What this didn't have was guidelines for coding video. I know that Rick and Peter have done some of that and I think that I will talk with them. Coding video is also low inference which is good but it feels like the field no longer does that because of cost and practicality issues. I that is the case I'm not sure how helpful a video coding paper would be.

Clayton Christensen

I really enjoy reading Clayton Christensen's writing. Here are two articles I recently found.

Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen tells college chiefs their institutions may not be around in 20 years

Online learning for student-centered innovation

Khan Academy

I have heard of Khan Academy before but this video gave me new insights. This video touches on blended learning, humanizing learning, collaborative learning, community, interaction, motivation, etc. It really reminds me of the discussion we had at the start of the semester on letting teachers do what they do best and letting computers do what they do best.

I did my reflection on Facebook.

Giving life

I really enjoyed the devotional today on interactions with others that are motivated by love and by doing so we give them life. How do we do that in Distance Education?

Thoughts on a K-12 Framework

What:
Parent Presence--

• motivates students to have high cognitive presence and quality learner-content interaction. This can be done through clear expectations, incentives, adding structure to the the student's time
• sets the physical environment i.e. does the student have school supplies, other basic needs, and a place for effective learner-content interaction

Instructor Presence--

• Motivates student to have high cognitive presence and quality learner-content interaction. This is mostly done through grades, prompts, and verbal encouragement.
• Selects the content and delivery methods.
• Helps the student apply their knowledge through assignments and other assessments both formative/summative and formal/informal
• Sets the virtual environment. This is done by setting expectations of interaction and selecting communication tools (high fidelity vs low fidelity)
• Influences student social presence

Social Presence

• The ability to be seen as a real person

Cognitive Presence and other positive course outcomes

• Cognitive presence is high level thinking.
• Positive outcomes can include grades, disposition, enjoyment, perceived learning

How

• I am still working on the how. This is basically the same Garrison's framework. However, one difference is the interplay between parents and instructors. If parent presence is low instructor presence must be higher.

New Outline

Introduction

K-12 Online Learning is Growing

• 1,000,000 K-12 students are involved in online learning
• 47 states have significant K-12 programs
• Michigan and Alabama require high school students to take online courses
• Several other states including Idaho have proposed similar requirements
  

One drawback to online learning models is a lack of quality interactions which can contribute to:

• low sense of community
• sense of isolation
  
• higher dropout rates
• cheating
• others?
  

Although interactions have been correlated with positive course outcomes in a higher education setting, little research has been done on the K-12 setting. Differences in the K-12 environment make it difficult to generalize higher education finding to the K-12 setting.

• Lower self-regulation abilities
  
• less motivation
• need for more social interactions

The purpose of this study is to examine how interactions affect positive course outcomes in a K-12 setting.

Literature Review

Moore’s Three Forms of Interaction

• Forms

§ Learner-instructor

§ Learner-content

§ Learner-Learner

§ Need for two additional forms of interaction: Learner-Parent and Parent-Instructor

• Nature of Interaction
  

§ Social

§ Procedural

§ Content

Benifits of interactions (review research studies)

Gaps in the research

• K-12 context
  
• parental interactions
• account for self-regulation abilities

Research questions

•