Seeking feedback on Phase I of DBR

The design of an online program is definitely a massive undertaking. There are so many dimensions to think about that I'm amazed and awed by the design process, and all the research that it entails.

Please provide feedback on this Google Doc. After receiving feedback I will continue with Phase II. 

Thank you in advance. :)

Seeking feedback on my research proposal

In my quest to apply the principles of Network and Global Learning (NGL) to my practice, and perhaps transform it, I have engaged with peers, friends, family and clients to help me identify the challenges that I will face as my practice evolves, particularly as I begin to conceptualise providing my service to students beyond my local context, and delivering a writing program in an online format.

In contrast to an earlier problem about how to effectively deliver online tutoring, I have now reformulated my research questions to encapsulate the issue of how to engage my students in a comprehensive writing program that has been specifically designed to develop their writing skills. This program will be designed to prepare my students for higher education and will not require them to work with me in a face-to-face context. Therefore, my problem is how to deliver my writing program to students that are not able to come to my practice, and in particular, how do I deliver something that is just as engaging as if my clients were there beside me. The issue of engagement and effectiveness has been a real issue, as many of my students like working with me and are concerned about the effectiveness of online programs.

To reformulate my earlier DBR questions (as I am no longer only focusing on the issues with online tutoring), my research question, as informed by Bakker's (2014) list of criteria for creating a good research question, does address my current knowledge gap (i.e. how to provide an immersive writing program for clients that enjoy the benefits of face-to-face tutoring). It is also "pragmatically and theoretically" relevant as the development of a program of learning is something that I had been creating and refining for quite some time (as I have designed and created resources that I have been using with students for over four years and is something I really enjoy). For this reason I perceive an online program as not only beneficial to online students but will also improve my practice overall.

I think my research question will also be of use to other practitioners, particularly those who desire to deliver their own course or program online, and want it to be as engaging as face-to-face. My research questions are also "precise and anchored" in the literature as the majority of papers or articles that I have read on online learning discuss the issue of immersion, and how to create contexts where learners feel just as engaged as they would be with the teacher right beside them.  Lastly, my question is "manageable" as it is something that I can achieve, and something that I aim to implement and evaluate as my program evolves.

Thus, as suggested by Bakker (2014) the following research questions will guide the development of my proposal as they ask about the "characteristics" of my proposed intervention:

What are the design characteristics for practicable and effective online writing programs that enable students to learn as effectively as face-to-face learning?

and

How can online learning strategies and approaches, aimed at providing students with the same level of engagement as face-to-face tutoring, be structured?

I have also attached my Google Doc that illustrates the developing construction of my DBR Proposal. It is a draft copy (and is only in its skeletal framework) and any feedback on this post or the Doc will be very much appreciated. I would particularly appreciate feedback on the articulation of my problem, and whether it is clear and specific enough. I would also like any ideas about possible interventions (strategies or approaches) that help create engaging online learning programs, particularly your experiences and what worked or did not work and why.

Thank you kindly in advance. :)

References:

Bakker, A. (2014). Research Questions in Design-Based Research (pp. 1–6). Retrieved from http://www.fi.uu.nl/en/summerschool/docs2014/design_research_michiel/Research Questions in DesignBasedResearch2014-08-26.pdf

Using DBR and SAMR to transform my practice

I am now in the process of formulating my design-based research (DBR) project that will be focused on improving my practice. It is through engaging with my personal learning network (PLN), such as my students, peers and others in my network, that I have been able to ascertain what problems exist within my practice. It is this PLN that I intend to work with through the "life cycle" of my project, particularly in arriving at solutions. I also intend to use the SAMR model that I have previously discussed as an essential framework that will enable me to gauge where my intervention sit in the application of networked technologies.

Over the course of the last few months I have found that participation in NGL has provided me with new practices, tools and theories that has helped me address practical problems in my everyday practice, from how I tutor and coach students, to what types of skills I want my students to develop. However, what has been most valuable is the interaction with individuals in my PLN. This includes the students that I tutor through my service, to other tutors within my field, particularly online tutors, and peers within NGL. Without this network I would not have been able to discern what challenges or solutions could apply to my practice. For this reason, their input has been invaluable and something that I am continuing to seek as I progress further.

What I have discerned so far is that by using Google Docs and Skype to deliver my service I am "modifying" the traditional approach to providing tutoring. As I have mentioned in a previous post, although I think face-to-face tutoring is the ultimate approach for individuals that enjoy in-person interaction, tutoring online, particularly with the tools I have mentioned, is "the next best thing." It is amazingly close. I have noticed that when I am tutoring clients that I have already met in-person and then we move to online tutoring, we both feel that it is very nearly the same. There's still the ready intervention into the task, role-modelling and opportunities for a laugh (one of the reasons tutoring can be so enjoyable for both my clients and I). I see my new approach to online tutoring as one intervention that will be a focus of my DBR.

Throughout NGL I have acquired other skills and insights into how digital technologies and online networks can enhance, and even transform, learning and teaching. I have expressed in a previous post about the benefits of blogging for not only critical reflection and enriched understanding of ideas, but also for improving writing and creating connections with like-minded individuals who share a passion. This is a fundamental skill that I want to develop in my students. I have noticed after many years of providing a tutoring service that it is not enough to only provide traditional practical activities (i.e. question sheets and templates), although these are still valuable and necessary, it is also essential to provide students with meaningful opportunities to express their ideas, such as through creating their own blogs or other digital artefacts that express who they are.

I have also written about how the acquisition of tools, such as Feedly, Diigo and Mendeley, that have improved the way I "seek<sense<share" information, has revamped my research skills, and the way I use the Internet. I have been sharing the tools and processes that I have acquired with students, encouraging them to develop Personal Knowledge Mastery, a skill that I think is essential for 21st learners. These changes have enhanced my students research skills, such as using Mendeley for not only citation purposes but also as a tool to record notes when reading materials, and categorising materials that are needed for different areas of their research. Thus, these skills have expanded my role from providing instruction on how to write effectively to how to research the Net most effectively.

I think the issues that I have identified so far and the solutions are in alignment with Wang and Hannafin's (2005) definition of the five basic characteristics of design-based research. They are "Pragmatic, Grounded, Interactive, iterative and flexible, Integrative, and Contextual" (p. 7). The solutions are pragmatic as they are grounded in solving "real-world problems," such as how to tutor in a world where time constraints prevent in-person interaction. I find this aspect of design-based research appealing, as it is focused on applying theory and practice, something that is necessary for creativity and innovation, two pivotal areas that I'm mostly interested in, particularly within the education field. Wang and Hannafin's (2005) design-based research approach also highlights how my approach to transforming my practice is informed by my interaction with students, peers and others in my network. Through collaboration, and "continuous development and refinement," I am formulating potential interventions that are likely to effect changes in my practice, perhaps even transformative ones.

Tentative research questions that can guide the formulation of my research project is:

How can online tutoring provide learners with the benefits of face-to-face tutoring?

or

How can NGL transform online tutoring and coaching practices?

Thus, these two questions are guiding my research process at this stage. Following Bakker's (2014) criteria for Research Questions, I know that they are "good" research questions because they address my "knowledge gap," as prior to NGL I had not considered online tutoring as a viable option, particularly due to the absence of in-person modelling of writing and other skills associated with writing effectively. The questions are also "pragmatically and theoretically relevant" to my practice, rather than being something that is not immediately applicable. The wording of the questions are also "precise and anchored" in the literature that I have come across that discuss the issues and potential solutions to online tutoring practices. Lastly, the questions are "manageable" and not something that is far beyond the scope of my practice. It is indeed providing me with the opportunity to implement my research findings directly to my practice. This is one of the reasons why I chose to study with USQ, I wanted something that was practically-based but also informed by the latest in research.

To focus my research even further I could ask about the "characteristics," as suggested by Bakker (2014), of my online tutoring intervention:

What are the design characteristics for practicable and effective online tutoring and coaching strategies that enable students to learn as effectively as face-to-face tutoring?

and

How can online tutoring strategies and approaches, aimed at providing students with the same level of engagement as face-to-face tutoring, be structured?

Thus, it is these questions that I will be using to guide further research and the early stages of writing my project. It is only after I have answered these questions will I be able to discern where I sit along the SAMR spectrum below. The model is certainly a useful guide for understanding where my intervention/s will sit along the technology integration spectrum.

   by  tim.klapdor 

At this stage I think that through my DBR project I will produce a "practical education intervention" that others in my field may be able to follow or improve upon. It is my goal, as informed by Edelson's (2002), that my approach will reveal a "design framework" - where my proposed "design solution" may provide an outline of a potential approach to challenges or issues within tutoring and coaching practice.

Identifying problems and solutions for online tutoring

After writing my post about the difficulties in finding an innovative solution to a problem in my practice I decided that through my discussion of the issue (i.e. with clients, peers, friends and family) combined with the reading of educational literature, I would eventually identify a problem, although whether my solution will be innovative will yet to be resolved. Through writing on my blog about a paper by Herrington et al (2007) on what design-based research should include, I identified an issue I was having with online tutoring.

It all began with an interesting point that Herrington et al (2007) cite from Reeves (2006) about how educational technology research has been and continues to be "largely pseudoscientific" and "socially irresponsible." I thought, and agreed, that there has been a tendency for some individuals to make revolutionary claims about ICT, particularly networked learning, and even to espouse it as essential to innovation. I, myself, have often posited technology as a panacea to educational problems.

I believed and still do, although there are many benefits to using technology to facilitate learning, conventional methods, such as face-to-face instruction, is invaluable. There is, I would say, something deeply personal about being with a knowledgeable or well-skilled "other." One of my clients recently spoke with me about the importance of seeing me in person and the beneficial effects it has on her learning, particularly being able to discuss the practice and have opportunities to discuss issues with me in person. For this reason, I was finding it difficult to conceptualise how networked learning could transform my practice, particularly when I believed that what I was doing was working. However, some of my clients, including the one above, began asking for online tutoring, something that I had dabbled in as a owner of a tutoring centre, where I would tutor through Skype, and as a course lecturer, but only in a question and answer format.

Therefore, I decided to do some research on online tutoring to see what others were saying about it on the Web. As I expected there is an abundance of articles citing the practice as "impersonal," and not as "constructive" or "beneficial" as in-person tutoring, whereas others were espousing the "practicality" and "convenience." This coincides with my earlier beliefs about online modes of learning. Prior to 2014 I never imagined that I would be completing my Masters online with USQ, or even enjoying the process. This is not only because of the convenience and practicality of the option, where I am not required to travel to an institution each week, sometimes on multiple occasions, and organise other face-to-face meetings with fellow students. It is because it allows me more time to spend with friends and family, and juggle work commitments. I have found this to also be the case with several of my university clients, who have opted to use Skype as a tutoring method.

However, I have found that although Skype is an excellent tool (as both the teacher and student can see who they are talking to and even are able to share a screen, enabling the teacher to provide immediate instruction or assistance that both can see) there are issues with clarity. This is one of the issues with online tutoring in Australia - the issue of bandwidth causing disruption to connection, particularly live streaming. Although I have unlimited broadband access, when sharing a screen and speaking at the same time, even with the video capturing mode disabled, there can be issues with connection, sometimes causing the screen to be blurry or speech to be intermittent due to slow connection or other issues. This can happen on both sides, for either the teacher or student. There has also been the "echo effect" or a "tinny sound" that can sometimes be heard whilst using Skype. These sounds can become annoying, and in worst case scenarios, can cause sessions to cease, either momentarily or indefinitely. I understand that this is not as much an issue in other "first world" countries, or even other neighbouring countries. Both my sons who upload videos to YouTube constantly talk about issues with Internet speed in Australia in comparison to other countries, particularly the United States.

As a potential solution I have recently found with one of my clients that turning off the video camera mode does provide better screen clarity but it is not reliable and does change throughout the session. A better option is to share a Google Doc, as both client and student can share the same document and edit it at the same time, and use Skype only for audio. There are other tools that are very effective, such as Blackboard's Collaborate and Citrix's GoToTraining, although they require a paid subscription and do not provide the ready intervention of Google Doc.

I realise the truth of the claim by Herrington et al. (2007) that a crucial first step to design-based research in education is the "identification and exploration of a significant educational problem." Now that I have identified a problem in my practice, along with possible solutions, my task is to illustrate how this will transform the future of my practice, particularly if I desire as a practitioner to be an active participant in the transformation economy, such as illustrated in the continuum below.

   by  jeanbaptisteparis 

References:

Herrington, J., McKenney, S., Reeves, T. & Oliver, R. (2007). Design-based research and doctoral students: Guidelines for preparing a dissertation proposal. In C. Montgomerie & J. Seale (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2007 (pp. 4089-4097). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Challenges in redesigning my practice

One of the most challenging aspects of any endeavour is thinking of innovative or creative ways of doing things. When one thinks of what he or she can do that has not been done before or, at the very least, is different or an improvement to what has been done there is a period of initial "staring into space." This is my current dilemma, particularly when faced with bell curves like the one below that places innovators as only 2.5% of the population. Rather than speculate about how these statistics are ever possible to discern, I have realised that it is essential to begin thinking about problems, and through identifying these I may be able to imagine possibilities.

   by  Wesley Fryer 

Many entrepreneurs and business leaders have frequently said that it is through thinking about problems that one can find innovative solutions. In the market place, they say, if your product or strategy provides a solution, it will be successful, if it does not, people with have no use for it. I think this applies to educational practices as well. Any research problem that I decide to try and solve will need to provide my clients with a solution. Therefore, I need to also ask is there a "market" for my solution. It would be absurd to redesign elements of my practice if my clients were not interested in that type of service. For this reason, my design-based research will be informed by the advice by entrepreneurs, particularly those in the growing area of educational entrepreneurship, as well as educators within the field and my peers.

I have been reading the blogs of some of my peers, such as Brendon, Anne and Mari, who are sharing their ideas about redesigning their practice. Through reading the identification of their "problems" I have been exposed to a wealth of ideas on what issues currently exist within their contexts, something I appreciate having access to. Brendon has provided access to his research proposal via Google Docs, a powerful tool that I am currently using in another subject to collaboratively write a paper about learning futures. He is looking at how new digital tools can increase collaboration and social learning within his classes, such as using blogs to develop ePortfolios. Anne is focusing on the implications of online learning for students from primary to middle years, and how schools can leverage the potential of online learning to improve student achievement and engagement. Mari, who is teaching in the senior years and working with the IB program, a program that I was also involved in in my later years of teaching, finds the program's assessment process as problematic, mostly because it is "static" and does not resemble real-world of creation, where individuals do have the opportunity to seek feedback whilst they create. I agree, as the assessment process in IB is not authentic, and something I also find problematic.

My major challenge is how to apply networking learning, particularly through an online medium, to my practice, particularly when I feel that the main focus of my service is in-person interaction rather than within a network. In my practice I use ICTs to communicate and research with clients, and most writing is done using a laptop. I also encourage the use of iPads to support learning, with the one that I provide having apps and tools that students can use, such as readers or a dictionary. Some of my students have even begun creating their own blogs to communicate and express themselves. To help them develop their blog I have integrated activities to coincide with what they are writing. Not all their activities will be posted to their blog but many tasks work towards improving their writing and self-expression. I think that keeping a blog is also purposeful as it provides many a reason to practice the writing craft.

I have not reached the writing stage of my design-based research but intend to over the next week. My challenge is now to move from staring into space and begin researching and thinking about what problems need solving.