The Use of Social Media Technologies in Collaborative Learning in ...

International Journal of Conceptions on Management and Social Sciences Vol. 3, Issue. 4, October’ 2015; ISSN: 2357 - 2787

The Use of Social Media Technologies in Collaborative Learning in Higher Education Charles Kivunja School of Education The University of New England Australia [email protected]

Abstract— The advent of new information communication technologies (ICT), particularly driven by the Internet technologies of the 21st century, has created opportunities for new ways of teaching, learning, and assessing, which can help learners develop 21st century skills. Effective pedagogical practice in the 21st century digital economy can no longer be based on the traditional 3Rs and paper modes or individualistic, competitive learning models (Johnson & Johnson, 1978) but on the New Learning Paradigm which includes developing skills in the 21st century “Super 4Cs of critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration, creativity and innovation, and communication” (Kivunja, 2015a, p. 225). These Super 4Cs can be enhanced with the use of Internet driven collaborative learning structures if properly designed to allow students to learn together in digitally connected peer learning networks (PLNs). This paper describes a quasi-experimental design of the use of cutting-edge social media technologies called Google Circles Learning Communities (GCLCs) in the education of preservice teachers at a teacher training university in Australia in an attempt to harness the power of social media technologies to support students’ development of skills in the Super 4Cs. The research commenced with informal observations of a small cohort of five doctoral students in 2012, and the encouraging results led to a study of a much larger cohort of second year BEd students in 2013 and formal research projects with a cohort of 145 students in 2014, and then one of 30 students in the first trimester of 2015 and with 110 students in the second trimester of 2015. Students were asked to form PLNs of ten and then use these as the nucleus for a digitally connected collaborative classroom into which they were free to invite their peers and academic friends using GCLC technologies. Their participation in the GCLCs was voluntary. Participants were given a new topic each week, following the lecture schedule for the trimester.

opportunities for utilizing carefully selected selected social media technologies in pedagogy. Keywords-21st century Super 4Cs, critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, creativity and innovation, communication, social media technologies, Google Circle Learning community.

I.

INTRODUCTION

In Why don’t students like school? cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham (2009) with a PhD from Harvard University opens his seminal book with the following question: Most teachers I know entered the profession because they loved school as children. They want to help their students feel the same excitement and passion for learning that they felt. They are understandably dejected when they find that some of their pupils don’t like school much, and that they, the teachers, have great difficulty inspiring them. Why is it difficult to make school enjoyable for students? (Willingham, 2009, p. 3) His answer includes the explanation that if schoolwork is always just a bit too difficult for our students, we shouldn’t be surprised that they don’t like school much. And it is not only when schoolwork appears difficult that students won’t like it. If it is not interesting, relevant to their real life experiences outside school, challenging and motivating, why will they want to engage with it. This is why Willingham further says that unless the cognitive conditions are right students will avoid it. Willingham’s views about why students don’t like school and how we can improve the conditions for their cognitive engagement are shared by many other leaders in the field. For example, Bruner (1966) made Bybee’s (2006) 5E Instructional model popular in pedagogy by positing that students would learn best if they were given cognitive conditions which allowed for the five participatory processes of engagement with the learning activities, exploration of issues, elaboration of what was being discussed, evaluation and explanation of what was being learnt.

The results described here are drawn from the latest study which involved the cohorts of students in trimester 1 and 2 in 2015. The research found that when students were given the opportunity to learn collaboratively using these social media technologies, the majority took advantage of the power of digital connectedness to develop greater communication skills, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity, and liked the learning activities. This occurred as a result of increased participation rates, greater interaction, engagement, exploration, evaluation, interest, motivation, peer mentoring, and richer posts in the GCLC streams. The evidence encourages universities and other higher education providers to explore

This is where the use of social media technologies in pedagogy might be a great break through for us pedagogues as

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International Journal of Conceptions on Management and Social Sciences Vol. 3, Issue. 4, October’ 2015; ISSN: 2357 - 2787 we try to find ways to make our teaching, learning, assessment and curriculum interesting, motivational, challenging and also relevant to our students’ real life experiences outside school. It is my view that the ubiquitous use of new ICT, computer software and multimedia interfaces, particularly driven by the Internet technologies of the 21st century, has created opportunities for us to teach, assess and develop curriculum in novel ways which will promote learning in the digital age. I argue that in the 21st century classroom or lecture theatre, teachers can no longer teach effectively through the application of the traditional 3Rs and individualistic or competitive learning models (Johnson & Johnson, 1978). Rather, what is needed is collaboration among students as well as between students and teachers to teach students according to the New Learning Paradigm (Kivunja, 2014a). Internet driven collaboration transcends spatial barriers as it creates opportunities for people to work in virtual workplaces (Jackson, 2002), and for students to collaborate and to communicate creatively in peer learning networks (PLNs), which provide peer support and feedback in virtual classrooms (Howell, 2012) and thus enhance skills in the Super 4Cs, Yet the full potential of Internet driven technologies, particularly social media technologies, to support teaching, learning, assessment, and curriculum development is yet to be fully investigated. This paper describes the results of a quasiexperimental study involving two cohorts of 2nd year, Bachelor of Education students enrolled in a pre-service teachers award, who were given the opportunity to use Google Circle Learning Communities (GCLCs) social media technologies to complete their learning and assessment tasks in the School of Education at a University in Australia. One cohort comprised off-campus students (n = 30) in trimester 1 and the second both off-and-on-campus students (n = 110) in trimester 2 of 2015. Both cohorts received their instruction and assessment tasks via the Internet and also engaged in weekly activities which targeted their development of skills in the 21st century Super 4Cs over 8 weeks of each trimester. Our trimesters run for 14 weeks but students go on teaching practice for four weeks during which we don’t give them other learning activities and they also have two weeks of midtrimester break. The study was conducted with the approval of the Human Research and Ethics Committee of the University and complied fully with all the ethical requirements. II.

dynamics, is also supported by the work of leaders in the field of instructional strategies in post middle of the century such as Jerome Bruner (1966), Howard Gardner (1983), Spencer Kagan (1994), and by 21st century supporters of eLearning including Ted McCain (2007), Don Tapscott (2009), Kelly et al., (2009),Trilling and Fadel (2009), as well as Kivunja (2013; 2014a; 2014b; 2015a; 2015b; 2015c). Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980), to whom is attributed the cognitive developmental theory of learning, believed that individuals construct meaning of the world for themselves. Piaget (1954) argued that learners construct new knowledge from their experiences and as they interact with their environment through active knowledge discovery. Virtual social networking broadens and enriches these interactions and can therefore enrich and promote learning that is consistent with Piaget’s theory. Piaget’s (1954) theory aligned well with Lev Vygotsky’s (1929) developmental theory of social constructivism, in which he proposed that children’s cognitive development is influenced most by interaction with people. This understanding, that learners make meaning of their world through social interactions, adds impetus to the power of socially interconnected networks to promote learning. Further evidence in support of social learning is to be found in the studies of social psychologist Kurt Lewin (1948) whose work led to studies of how learning is influenced by cooperation and competition (Deutsch, 1949). His theory became the basis for several collaborative strategies, which were made more popular in pedagogy later by scholars such as Johnson and Johnson (1991) and Dr. Spencer Kagan (1994). As stated earlier, additional support for collaborative learning is to be found in the work of Jerome Seymour Bruner (1966) who also emphasized the importance of the constructivist principle of active learning. He proposed that learning was a “participatory, proactive, communal, collaborative construction of meaning” (Bruner (1996, p.84), rather than an individual pursuit of knowledge. This emphasis led him to embrace what is popularly known as The 5E Instructional model and to apply it widely in educational contexts. Developed by Bybee and others at Colorado Springs in the USA (Bybee et al., 2006), the 5E Instructional model postulates that children learn best if they are given opportunities to Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate; and, Evaluate. These learning processes are maximized when students learn in collaborative networks.

LITERATURE AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The literature on how children learn abounds with a plethora of theoretical frameworks from which we can draw an understanding that the use of social media technologies has potential to support and promote active learning in the 21st century classroom. What is particularly encouraging, is that these theories comprise both the orthodoxy theories of learning and the more contemporary models of how digital natives learn. For example, as outlined below, learning with the assistance of socially networked structures or peer learning networks (PLNs) which is consistent with the foundational cognitivist theories of learning first proposed in the early 1920s by Piaget (1923) and developed further by Vygotsky (1929) and Lewin’s (1948) work on group

Other leaders in this field such as Kagan (1994) assert that “Cooperative learning promotes higher achievement than competitive and individualistic learning structures across all age levels, subjects areas, and almost all tasks” (p. 3:1). This lends support to the use of PLNs which are the nuclei of networked social media interactions. As Sherman (2001) rightly points out, the discipline of social and cognitive psychology advocates the use of cooperative learning strategies, which are the basis for technologically enriched peer learning networks. The traditional approaches to instruction assume homogeneity in learning styles and we know from Howard

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International Journal of Conceptions on Management and Social Sciences Vol. 3, Issue. 4, October’ 2015; ISSN: 2357 - 2787 Gardner (1983; 1999) that this is simply not the case. Giving students the opportunity to work in their own networks assumes and provides for heterogeneity among learners. This approach can therefore be said to be better suited to providing for the diversity and inclusivity of students. Moreover, students learn with each other at times of their own choosing that are convenient to them on a 24/7 basis. Siemens (2004) agrees when he proposes the connectivist paradigm to extend an understanding of how learning occurs beyond the traditional behaviourist, cognitivist and constructivist paradigms, discussed above. The connectivist paradigm proposes that the construction of knowledge is enhanced through digital connectedness which enables learners to find information which enables them to construct their own meanings of the world. This sharing through PLNs is supported by Howell (2012) who directly advocates a collaborative epistemology in which learning is facilitated and amplified through collaborative activities using social media technologies.

B. Research Design To investigate these questions the research was designed as a quasi-experimental case study utilizing mixed methods to gather and analyze the data. The case was bounded (Smith, 1978), to consist of students enrolled in two cohorts of a 2nd year Bachelor of Education Unit in the 1st and 2nd trimester of 2015 at a University in Australia. The 1st trimester cohort consisted of 30 students all of whom were externally enrolled and received their learning instructions and resources via the Internet. The 2nd trimester comprised 30 internal students and 80 and external students (n = 110). This design was consistent with Yin’s (1994), definition that the “case study is an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (p. 14). The quasi-experimental design was chosen as the most appropriate because it would not have been possible to apply randomization procedures and have one set of students as a random experimental group and another as the control group to have a true experimental design (Burns, 2000). Both the internal and external cohorts enrolled in this Unit use the University’s learning management system called Moodle. Both cohorts receive the same lecture notes every week. However, while the internal cohort receive theirs in both the face-to-face mode and online, the external students get theirs delivered through a communicative software called Echo360, which delivers not only the PowerPoint of the notes but also the audios, videos and graphics that are presented in the lecture. The internal students can also access the Echo360 folder if they wish. The lecture is delivered early Monday morning but the lecture notes are available to both cohorts, online 24/7 following each lecture. Each lecture is followed by a series of activities given to all students to help them engage further with the contents of the lecture, and prepare for the various assessment tasks. However, whereas in previous years the internal cohort held a weekly face-to-face tutorial in which they discussed the topic for the week, and had no contact with external students, in this experiment, I set up a virtual classroom in Google using social media technologies called Google Circle Learning Community, into which both the internal and external students met and held asynchronous discussions on a 24/7 basis. For the internal students, the GCLC stream had the most traffic during the scheduled workshop. However, for the external cohort, their visits to the stream were completely asynchronous, and given that students enrolled in this Unit come from all over Australia and some are overseas, the activities went on, on a 24/7 basis. The mixed methods approach enabled the subresearch question to be investigated and answered through both a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the data. As the research is still ongoing, this paper reports the preliminary findings to date.

Trilling and Fadel (2009) say that working in teams, scattered around the globe and connected by technology are becoming the norm for 21st century work. Thus, the advent of technology in a global village means that students will grow up and work increasingly through interactions with other people rather than individualistically. Teaching them using social media in PLNs helps to prepare them for more prosocial learning and working environments. In those environments, the information economy will be driven by the ability to share knowledge with others rather than simply having the know how; and by ability to work cooperatively not just competitively. Similarly, Kivunja (2014a) argues that to have our graduates job-ready for employment in the 21st century digital economy we need to change to a “New Learning Paradigm” (p. 86) driven by digital technologies. What emerges from this brief literature review is a strong theoretical framework in support of the use of social media technologies to support the teaching of the Super 4C skills by providing students with opportunities to learn together in collaborative rather than competitive or individualistic structures which are less conducive to communication, critical thinking, creativity, higher-order learning and overall knowledge construction. III.

METHODOLOGY

A. Research Question The research was undertaken to answer one overarching question. How do students engage with learning, teaching and assessment activities when given opportunity to utilize selected social media technologies, namely Google Circles Learning Community, (GCLC)? A secondary question was, How does the use of social media technologies help to train students in the 21st century Super 4Cs skills of critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration, creativity and innovation, and communication?

C. Participants, Sample Size and Sampling Procedure As stated earlier, the study involved two cohorts of students, an external cohort (n = 30) students in trimester one and a combined internal and external cohort (n = 110; n = 30

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International Journal of Conceptions on Management and Social Sciences Vol. 3, Issue. 4, October’ 2015; ISSN: 2357 - 2787 internal and n = 80 external) giving a total population of 140 participants (n = 140) in the Unit over the two trimesters. Trimester 1 ran from the end of February to the end of May 2015 and trimester 2 from the end of June to the end of October 2015. Whereas each trimester runs for 14 weeks, participation in the study involved only 8 weeks because students were out on professional practice in different schools for four weeks and another two weeks were mid-trimester break. During those six weeks they were not required or expected to participate in the study.

D. Sampling Procedures As this was a new technology being tried out in pedagogy for the first time, most of the time in trimester 1, was spent on setting up the digital structures which would enable students to participate in the second trimester. As the software was being set up in trimester 1, only informal observations were made of students participation with no data formally being collected as per Ethics clearance. As can be seen in Figure 1, of the 30 students enrolled in the Unit in trimester 1, 27 started using the technology.

Figure 1: Participation in Google Circle Learning Community in Trimester 1, 2015

Figure 2: Participants in the GCLC in Trimester 2, 2015

The formal study commenced in trimester 2 and all students were invited to participate. Participation was voluntary. As a result, at the time of writing, (July 2015), 73 students had volunteered and ventured into the GCLC as illustrated in Figure 2.

created six samples with n values ranging between 4 – 6. There were only 7 male students in this cohort. These randomly assigned themselves to different samples, without influence of the lecturer. Each student was then asked to access the GCLC set up as a virtual classroom for both the internal and external cohorts.

The internal cohort (n = 30) were asked to form groups ranging in size n=4 – 6. These groups were treated as random samples, as any student could join any group, and they were in fact encouraged to do so. On this basis, the internal cohort

The external cohort (n = 80) were firstly randomly assigned to a PLN of 10 in Moodle. From within the PLN, each student was to access the GCLC which brought the

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International Journal of Conceptions on Management and Social Sciences Vol. 3, Issue. 4, October’ 2015; ISSN: 2357 - 2787 internal and external students together in one virtual classroom. Students from either cohorts could invite whoever they wanted to participate in the discussions that were taking place in the GCLC. There was no limit on potential participants in the GCLC. The GCLC was purposely designed like this, to allow for maximum participants and collaboration among the students utilizing the dynamics of social media – the GCLC. Participation in the GCLC was open to all students in both cohorts but by invitation to anyone else that the students wanted to participate their discussions. Initial access to the GCLC was via a link embedded in Moodle. This design made GCLC the preferred social media technologies over Facebook or Twitter because it gave all participants greater control of whom they interacted with in cyberspace, since all contact was initiated via their Learning Management System - Moodle.

IV. DATA GATHERING AND ANALYSIS The data comprise the postings made into the GCLC streams, including whatever resources the students embedded into the GCLC stream from whatever sources they wanted. These included resources from texts on pedagogy, teaching strategies, YouTube, and their own creations, such as photographs and graphic organisers. The analysis started by simply observing the posts in the GCLC, reading them, and making sense of the contents in the GCLC stream. Thus, the data included participation rates, apparent interest and motivation, likes and dislikes, frequency of posts, variety of posts, content in the posts, engagement, exploration of ideas, elaboration on what had been posted, explanation of what was posted and evaluation of others’ contributions. V. RESULTS As the study is still in progress at the time of writing, this paper presents the results of analyzing data that help to answer only the second question. The overarching question will be answered when the study is completed. Thus, these tentative results are presented in respect of the four components of the secondary research question, namely: impact on critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration, creativity and innovation, and, communication.

E. Ethical Considerations The researcher sought permission to conduct this study from the Human Research and Ethics Committee of the University at which this study was conducted. Permission was granted under Licence Number HREC-HE14-2014. This Licence stipulated several conditions which had to be met including that the names or identities of the participants were not to be identified. For this reason, the data presented in the next section deliberately blurs or blots out the photo images and surnames of the participants so that their identities are protected. Furthermore, students in both cohorts were given exactly the same opportunities, so that no student was disadvantaged.

A. Impact on critical thinking and problem solving (Super C1) To shed light on this question, the analysis looked at how students critiqued each other’s contributions in the GCLC stream, how they answered questions posted by their peers and the questions they themselves raised for their peers to answer. The data showed that students took the trouble to think deeply about what their peers had posted. Where their peers had raised questions, students tried to provide an answer that represented solution of the problem. What’s more, the posts were conceptually deep and extensive in discussing the points raised in the stream. Participants’ responses that demonstrated this included the following.

F. Information to Participants and Participant Consent Students were informed of the study and its purpose through an announcement in Moodle. Detailed information was given in a special page posted in Moodle. Students were invited to participate in the study using GCLC, and it was made clear that participation was entirely voluntary, and that if they chose not to participate in the GCLC, they would not be subjected to any disadvantage. They were to give consent by opening a Google account and sharing their email address with their peers. As evident in Figures 1 and 2 above, not all students participated. Identity protected

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International Journal of Conceptions on Management and Social Sciences Vol. 3, Issue. 4, October’ 2015; ISSN: 2357 - 2787 Identity protected

B. Level of collaboration (Super C2) Willingness to collaborate was initially evidenced by participation rates. For the trimester 1 cohort this was 90% (n = 27 of a maximum of 30). For second trimester participation rate by the internal students was 100%. Total participation rates including external students could not be analyzed reliably at the time of writing since not all external students had had the opportunity to participate in the GCLC. Some light was shed on collaboration through an analysis of how often individual students visited and revisited the GCLC to make a post in the stream. This revealed that students made several visits each week to participate in the GCLC discussions but there were significant variations in the patterns. Some students posted quite frequently, whereas others did so less often. The high frequency of posts in the stream and the extensive nature of the discussion was interpreted to indicate a high level of engagement and collaboration as students explored the topics that were being discussed. Students expressed strong feelings of connectedness as they explained and explored further, the posts made by their peers in the GDC streams. Posts that demonstrated this experience included the above figure.

Identity protected

D. Level of communication (Super C4) The data that shed light on this attribute included apparent interest and motivation, statements of likes and dislikes, frequency of posts, variety of posts, content in the posts, exploration of ideas, elaboration on what had been posted, explanation of what was posted and evaluation of others’ contributions. The data contained many examples demonstrating students’ interest in learning using the GCLC technology. They also contained expressions of anxiety but willingness to embark upon the challenge of learning with social media technologies. One of the many examples that contributed to an understanding of this attribute was the following:

C. Level of creativity and innovativeness (Super C3) The analysis of this attribute looked at how students’ posts demonstrated their ability to come up with new ideas, concepts and resources and share these in the GCLC streams. Additionally, the way they responded to the posts of their peers with new suggestions demonstrated their conceptual understanding of the issues raised and their creativity. Their innovation was demonstrated by new concepts which they introduced in the discussions, and as they engaged with and elaborated upon the points raised. The best examples of these were contained in the data that embedded new digital resources into the GCLC for all participants to view and then comment on them. Such data are exemplified by the following post from an external student.

Identity protected

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International Journal of Conceptions on Management and Social Sciences Vol. 3, Issue. 4, October’ 2015; ISSN: 2357 - 2787 VI. CONCLUSION While the results presented here are tentative, since the study is still in progress, they appear to support the hypothesis that learners in the 21st century, digital age, communicate mostly using digital technologies, particularly social media technologies, including GCLCs. As Prensky (2001), Jukes, McCain and Crockett, (2010) say, “children of the 21st century – the digital generation, ... spend most of their time texting people on their cell phones, chatting with friends using instant messaging, interacting with people on Facebook or MySpace, playing games on Xbox or Wii and surfing the Internet” (Jukes, et al., 2010, p. 20). This leads me to believe that it therefore makes a lot of sense for us pedagogues to communicate with our students using the media that the students prefer. What’s more, there is evidence that graduates who will be successful contributors to employment in the 21st century will be those well skilled in the 21st century Super 4Cs analyzed in this study. It would appear to me, based on this experiment, that the use of social media technologies in teaching, learning and assessment can enhance the Super 4Cs skills as students critique each other’s posts, collaborate by adding to the GCLC stream, creatively add new resources to the streams and communicate effectively with their peers. As they communicate, they learn to extend their own understanding, to question and critique that of their peers and to challenge their peers to engage in critical thinking and active innovation as they contribute new ideas and products to the GCLC stream.

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