Nicholas Bowskill

Hi Nellie,

Sorry to have missed your message. I did see it on my phone but it's difficult logging on by phone and then typing so I failed to reply to what was an interesting message you posted.

I was interested in your mention of supporting reflective practice and also the use of technology etc. I have to confess portfolios are my pet hate but that doesn't mean they're not useful. I know some people -staff and students love them. Part of my pet hate for portfolios is that it is reflecting alone and it misses a much needed conversation. The other reason is that my work is centred upon collaborative and collective approaches to reflection so in that sense it's slightly in opposition to writing alone. I actually talk about it as mutually informative. I think doing one helps do the other better. So, on a good day I'm not really hostile to them :-)

Do you have any collaborative approaches to reflection that you found useful? I'd be very interested to hear about that and I'm certainly open to sharing my experiences if that was of any interest. I think reflective practice has some very strange models and so many are based around cycles or spirals. I made it my aim and personal project to get away from them. :-)

Nick 

Hi Joyce,

You make a very interesting point about different names applied to this kind of learning. And I would very much like to explore the idea of self-directed learning and its relationship with EBL. This is something I keep rolling round in my mind - self and relational and socially directed learning etc. I still haven't resolved the issue but maybe I could share my current thinking to see if it offers any links to the thoughts of others here?

I see self-directed learning as something that may happen within an EBL framework. Then I think of it in different ways -

1. As situational - for the way the possibilities to be self-directed are partly to do with the conditions

2. As situational - for the role and involvement of others that may have an impact on your autonomy or activity

3. Cognitive  - for the way you perceive your self, the others, the possibilities and the environment 

4. Cognitive - for the way you form a view upon which to operate and mobilize your learning

5. Situational - for the way you sample the environment and the perspective of others

I could go on at length here but I think I'm really trying to say that the notion of self-direction in learning seems to be encouraged more and more. People talk about developing the abilities and skills of people to be more autonomous in general. They advocate EBL partly to develop these attributes. However, I'm not at all convinced that these are all down to individual psychology despite the way they're often portrayed.

I see all kinds of models with stages of autonomy or cycles and levels of development. But all these assume an individual carries these across all situations and that they are independent of the social context. Perhaps some could be more portable than others but this area still seems problematic to me. So I'd be interested to hear the views of others on this whole idea of self-direction in learning. What do others think? And how does EBL facilitate this to good effect?

Have a good weekend wherever you are. We've had some sunshine this week so it feels like Spring is in the air at last. Hope its good with you.

Nick,

UK 

Hi Everyone,

I clear Joyce of all responsibility for the statement about unknown outcomes. I was the culprit but I still defend the point and Joyce's statement of her objectives makes my case, at least partially. She has a different starting point to myself or the other 'Nick' for example. Therefore she will almost inevitably have different outcomes that can not be known by me, if by herself at this starting point.

I think that a course can make statements of broad outcomes from enquiry based learning such as 'you will have a greater understanding of the issues and experiences and practice of EBL' etc. And the course team can set criteria by which that might be judged such as 'evidence of an awareness and understanding of the issues for tutors and learners, is able to describe learning theories that relate to EBL and so on.

However, within this there is no reason why participants cannot and should not develop their own assessment criteria that address their own agenda within the enquiry process. For you Joyce, that could mean a greater awareness of OER issues, an awareness of how to network to good effect or whatever.

So, my point remains the same. Although the institution can provide a framework for investigation - alone or together - the starting points and endings are only known in very general terms such as the known date and the first module duration etc. The outcomes, based on Constructivism or a variety of other theories, would be unknown. This may of course be true of any course but I feel it is highlighted to a greater extent in models of learning that allow learners to define and enact their learning agenda.

The Western 'Nick'

Joyce, I think what you say is perfectly reasonable. Who is anyone to judge you anyway?  I think the key thing I take from what you say is the idea of who determines the learning goals and the details of the activity.

For example, if I understand you correctly, you say that you are defining the structure and activities in your self-managed learning. So, on that basis would you agree that you are engaged in enquiry based learning that is under your own control, ownership etc.?

I guess it could be useful to have an overall framework provided for learners as a kind of orientation. Then within that 'shell' I suppose you might support learners to work under their own direction. SCoPE does that in my mind. They provide an environment and structure it with spaces to interact, resources and open sessions. Within that we are free to interpret and to exercise our interests broadly as we see fit.

One key point seems to be how people conceptualise their learning - either alone or together. For instance how do you understand or think about your use of those OER-U resources and how do you do that in relation to the use of this kind of setting? How we read opportunities and settings must surely influence how we act towards them.

Joyce, I guess from that OER perspective you are choosing the way you go about your learning. You have set the aims and resources to use as you see is appropriate. So, although the resources have set structures and *might* be regarded as quite closed for some applications they could equally be seen as very open if you work with them according to your own wider goals. To my mind that is indicative of characteristics of enquiry based learning. Would you see that as a fair view?

I would also say that the activity we are sharing at the moment is also enquiry based learning as we explore what it might mean together and to each of us individually.

So, I would think this might raise an additional question to all of us. That is, what issues and benefits do we see from engaging in enquiry based learning on our own and in collaboration with others?

Nick

Scotland

Hi Sylvia/Everyone,

In a way it seems appropriate that we should not have a leader for an investigation on enquiry based learning doesn't it? ;) This way we are carrying out IBL as a way of looking into the same - i.e. experiential learning.

One of the issues for me is structure. How much and what kind of structure should we offer or put in place? Too much may constrain and too little may leave people struggling with process to the detriment of the focus. I guess a key question would be how should we addess the issue of structure?

I guess another issue in my mind is openness. In this kind of learning we can't have a set starting point and a set end-point. Known outcomes would defeat the whole idea of enquiry based learning wouldn't it?

One final point for now that might be of interest to this group/community could be the issue and role of technology. This could point to the online environment as it relates to EBL. It could, as in my own work, point to the network-mediated classroom. In either case there is an interesting issue of how and why would we use technology to support enquiry based learning.

How's that for starters? Can anyone develop these or any other points further?

Regards,

Nick,

Scotland