Abstract:This article examines social presence in virtual asynchronous learning communities among foreign language teachers. We present the findings of two studies investigating cross-institutional asynchronous forums created to engage participants in online dialogues regarding their foreign language teacher preparation experiences in and out of the classroom. Both studies took place during Fall 2003 and were conducted between first-time teacher/graduate students in four methodology courses at three large state univers… Show more
“…The results of this study demonstrated that there was a high degree of social presence through interactive devices such as encouraging and giving support and advice, through affective devices such as humour, and disclosing information, which enabled bonding and community forming, and finally, through cohesive devices, using first names, or phatic comments. Within this study, they found that the students did construct a social community, where they shared experiences and supported each other, which in turn enabled reflection on their roles as teachers (Arnold et al 2005).…”
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confidence: 79%
“…A study carried out by Arnold et al (2005) investigated how online interactions can support community building and professional development. The research examined social activity within online discussions with the aim of highlighting social presence as an influencing factor in the development of cognitive thinking.…”
Reflective learning, a practice carrying relatively high educational value, has been with us for some time. Its popularity has grown to the extent that it is often adopted unquestioningly by educational practitioners. However, there are some important questions to be asked in relation to reflective practice. In reality, its impact on improved and enhanced learning and practice, and ultimately its educational value, cannot be known without further examination, research and consideration. This paper uses evidence from a range of spoken and written corpora to gain some insights into the discourse of reflectivity as it is used by students and educators. The data, collected in a third level educational context, involves students performing tasks widely believed to promote reflection. The spoken data comes from student teachers discussing practice language lessons and their general studies, and the written data comes in the form of student essays, online blogs and online discussions from student teachers, language students, and computer science multi-media gaming students. The corpora are firstly examined for engagement in reflection using levels of contribution and interactivity (quantitatively measured through word counts and utterance length). Secondly, comparative frequency lists are used to generate key lexical items (verbs, adverbs, adjectives, nouns) suggestive of reflective discourse. The analyses suggest that the amount and type of reflection is influenced by the discourse mode, the task, the participants and power dynamics. Ultimately, the objective of this paper is to take a first step towards suggesting a more tangible framework for examining the relatively elusive practice of reflection for educational purposes. In an attempt to do this, it raises some questions and generates further hypotheses for follow-up research investigation.
“…The results of this study demonstrated that there was a high degree of social presence through interactive devices such as encouraging and giving support and advice, through affective devices such as humour, and disclosing information, which enabled bonding and community forming, and finally, through cohesive devices, using first names, or phatic comments. Within this study, they found that the students did construct a social community, where they shared experiences and supported each other, which in turn enabled reflection on their roles as teachers (Arnold et al 2005).…”
mentioning
confidence: 79%
“…A study carried out by Arnold et al (2005) investigated how online interactions can support community building and professional development. The research examined social activity within online discussions with the aim of highlighting social presence as an influencing factor in the development of cognitive thinking.…”
Reflective learning, a practice carrying relatively high educational value, has been with us for some time. Its popularity has grown to the extent that it is often adopted unquestioningly by educational practitioners. However, there are some important questions to be asked in relation to reflective practice. In reality, its impact on improved and enhanced learning and practice, and ultimately its educational value, cannot be known without further examination, research and consideration. This paper uses evidence from a range of spoken and written corpora to gain some insights into the discourse of reflectivity as it is used by students and educators. The data, collected in a third level educational context, involves students performing tasks widely believed to promote reflection. The spoken data comes from student teachers discussing practice language lessons and their general studies, and the written data comes in the form of student essays, online blogs and online discussions from student teachers, language students, and computer science multi-media gaming students. The corpora are firstly examined for engagement in reflection using levels of contribution and interactivity (quantitatively measured through word counts and utterance length). Secondly, comparative frequency lists are used to generate key lexical items (verbs, adverbs, adjectives, nouns) suggestive of reflective discourse. The analyses suggest that the amount and type of reflection is influenced by the discourse mode, the task, the participants and power dynamics. Ultimately, the objective of this paper is to take a first step towards suggesting a more tangible framework for examining the relatively elusive practice of reflection for educational purposes. In an attempt to do this, it raises some questions and generates further hypotheses for follow-up research investigation.
“…Additionally, Dooly and Sadler (2013) found that telecollaborative formats can sensitize STs to different institutional settings and teaching environments, two important components of intercultural and socio-affective competence, and thus promote reflectivity. In terms of pedagogical competence, telecollaborative projects provide novices with an opportunity to share opinions, classroom contexts, and learning experiences (Arnold, Ducate, Lomicka, & Lord, 2005). In this study, engaging STs in collaborative task design with geographically distant peers aimed at exposing participants to the complexity of such telecollaborative contexts À especially with regard to pedagogical, technological, and collaborative factors.…”
This exploratory study contributes to the underexplored area of collaborative task formats in telecollaboration. The study investigates how English as a second language (ESL) student teachers in the US and English as a foreign language (EFL) student teachers in Turkey negotiated the design, implementation, and evaluation of technology-based English language learning tasks. The overall pedagogical goal of this spring 2014 project was to provide participants in different educational and institutional settings an opportunity to collaboratively explore and evaluate the affordances of technology tools in the design of joint learning tasks. This ethnographic case study triangulates questionnaires, telecollaboration logs, and computer-mediated communication data (blogs, emails) to examine the types of negotiation (personal, interactive, procedural) telecollaborative teams displayed at the project's micro levels (self, situated telecollaborative activity) and macro levels (institutional setting, political context). Findings indicate that one telecollaborative team, Global Team 2, effectively managed their learning as a group by making key decisions collectively about their work processes. The team's high number of procedural negotiation instances suggests a high degree of task-orientation, which may have aided their task completion. In contrast, the number of personal and interactive negotiation types was low. The latter, however, may have been called for midway through the project, when unexpected political developments in Turkey unfolded. Repercussions disturbed Turkish participants and affected social media, which were at the core of this telecollaboration. Implications focus on foregrounding personal and interactive negotiation via virtual Global Team check-ins, as well as on expanding collaborative tasks by incorporating perspectives on the wider institutional and sociopolitical contexts of participating institutions.
“…The asynchronous nature of the interactions seems to have also allowed for richer opportunities to collaborate in a nonthreatening and supportive climate—an important benefit of the online medium implicit in the literature (Arnold et al, ; Miceli et al, ; Oren et al, ; Paulus & Scherff, ; Rovai, ). As Student L explained, The online activities provided an avenue for us to slowly develop a relationship with one another throughout the semester.…”
This study explores pre-service foreign language teachers' (N ¼ 25) beliefs about the value and usefulness of employing technology-enhanced activities (discussion forums, blogs, wikis, e-portfolios, videotape recordings) in a methods course, and their perceptions of how these activities supported their learning. Likert-scale items from an anonymous questionnaire indicated that participants found those activities beneficial for bridging theory and practice, enhancing critical thinking, and promoting professional growth. A qualitative analysis of participants' reflections revealed that, despite technologyrelated challenges and preferences for other coursework activities, participants believed that the technology-based activities provided increased opportunities for varied and richer interactions, peer feedback, and reflection; helped develop their learner autonomy and sense of belonging to a community of learners; modeled effective technology uses; and fostered a deeper appreciation of technology-enriched practices.
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