An Ecological Model of e-Learning in Chinese Context

---- Critical reflections of 5 years’ practice of e-learning management in IBOE

Yueguo GuBeijing Foreign Studies University

The Institute of Beiwai Online Education guyueguo@vip.sina.com

To appear in Journal of Studies in Continuing Education, No. 2, 2006

Main Headings

1. Preamble2. IBOE setup3. Courseware design samples4. Why sound theories, but

performances below expectations?

5. An ecological model of e-learning

1Preamble

IBOE: birth and state of the art

It was officially set up in 2000. Now its registered students: 15,000 Full time staff: over 140; Part-time staff: over 400; Local F2F tutorial centres: over 47 all o

ver China Top 5 in years 2002-2004 The top in 2005

IBOE’S Programmes

1 Orientation (1) 2 GE Elementary 3 GE Intermediate

4 GE Advanced (1) 5 ESP (inter)

7 Orientation (2)

10 ESP (adv.)

9 Culture and Literature

DiplomaDiploma

BABA

MA

6 Common (inter.)

12 Common (adv.)

8 GE Advanced (2)

13 Orientation (3)

14 Foundation 15 L. Awareness

16 Resource Dev. 17 Classroom research 18 Dissertation

11 Thesis

Issues

1. What have we learned from the five years’ experiences?

2. What are our “regrets” if any?

2IBOE SETUP

Background: The global context

The Chinese educational environment towards the end of the 20th century

1. the mass illiteracy problem ---Too many people with too little education

2. the inadequacy problem –Too many people with inadequate education

3. “Too many monks with too little porridge” problem

4. the iron rice bowl-broken problem

Background: CALL as Panacea and Some Fresh Problems Arising from the Initiatives

1. The instant return problem2. The fallacy of transferring traditional materials t

o online delivery verbatim3. The fallacy of equating online learning behavio

ur to online education4. The fallacy of technologicalization of instructio

nal resources5. The fallacy of over- or under- estimation of the

ICT’s role6. A critical retrospection of the existing practice

and attitudes badly missing

six keywords in English, or twelve Chinese characters (the Twelve-Character Guiding Principle).

They are: 1. Resource ( 资源 ),

2. service ( 服务 ),

3. process ( 过程 ),

4. monitor ( 监控 ),

5. quality ( 质量 ),

6. outcome ( 效益 )

The 6-keyword conceptualization (RSPMQO).

s uppo rt s ys te m s

2

s ys te m s o f pro c e s ss ta nda rdiza tio n a nd

re a djus tm e nts

3

s ys te m s o f pro c e s sm o nito ring

4

s ys te m s o f qua lityc o ntro l a nda s s e s s m e nt

5

sys tem s o fres o urces

1

o utc o m e a nds us ta ina bility

6

Conceptualization of sub-systems

Learner support system: a whole person

Tutor support system: three “new”s campaign

QA for admin: three ‘-zation”s: proceduralization, standardization and optimization.

QA for students: process and formative records TA’s and term exams

Conceptualization of quality(cf. Unhelkar 2004: 15)

3Courseware

Design Samples

Design 1: Print-textbook transfer design

Verbatim transfer of the content from the print textbook.

Web-page redesign of the major headings or tasks of the print textbook

Web-page redesign of the table of contents

Figure 1: Print-textbook transfer design

Design 2: Audio-supplemented

Figure 2: Audio-supplement design

Icon linking the audio clipping

Audio player controller

Design 3: Video-supplemented

Figure 3: Video-supplement design

Design 4: Classroom teacher-modelling

Figure 4: Classroom teacher-modeling design

Design 5: Multimedia and hypermedia -rich

Figure 5: Multimedia-rich design

Design 6: Learning process-modeling

Students’ study group, and their activities

Access to learning activities and tasks with

learning progress automatically

monitored.

Access tools for synchronous and asynchronous online activities are integrated

Space for key concepts, ideas, still images, and animations.

Full text scripts can be activated

4Why sound theories,

but performances below expectations

“Evils” of traditional classroom against a virtual classroom

… the classroom poses many constraints to learners’ interaction such as teacher’s dominating the classroom talk, interrupting the students, stealing their turns, giving feedback usually on form, asking display questions and showing intolerance of silence. It seems, however, that virtual classroom interaction can offer an environment free from most of those restrictions. (Paiva, 1999 ： 253)

Virtues of Web-based learning

can broaden interaction among learners and teachers by providing them a channel of communication free from the restrictions of time and distance. Learners can access a wide variety of teachers – and other learners, both native and non-native speakers of the target language – throughout the world. (Hoffman, 1996:55)

Virtues: study while working

The Web-based e-learning is generally claimed to have another advantage, namely that those who are doing full-time jobs are able to remain employed while studying.

Learner autonomy

There are two major implicit assumptions behind the criticisms against the traditional class, and the praises sung for the virtual Web-based class.

One is that the more autonomy learners are allowed to have, the better they will perform.

More resources and more opportunities

The other is that the more resources learners are free to have access to, and the more opportunities they are given to interact with one another, the better they will learn. People working in ELT will readily accept their soundness, so did I.

Glossy surface ?

IBOE’s performance in general has been extremely good, and has been ranked by an independent assessing organization among the top five institutes all over China for the past three years on end. It was ranked as the top one in 2005

Failures

However, we find the Institute’s performance extremely unsatisfactory in one particular aspect, i.e. learners’ failure in making the best use of Web-based resources, and their low participation in Web-based group interactions such as synchronous forums, VOB discussions, etc.

Why lying wasted?

It is disheartening for resources providers to find that the heavily invested resources are being laid in waste.

It is everyone’s instinct to ask a question of why such e-learning programmes, being resources-based, and support-led, all high-tech, in many ways arguably superior to that delivered in a teacher-led classroom, have failed to meet our expectations?

The more learner-centred, the better?

In ELT, there is another God’s assumption, as it were, namely that more learner-centred, the better.

What we have failed to take into serious consideration about learners, at least I have failed to do so, is that there is an ultimate limit to any learner, the limit set by the human body and mind.

If we look at a learner by adopting an ecological perspective, a learner-centred educational programme will start from this simple arithmetic formula about daily resources expenditure.

Learner’s daily learning resources = Learner’s total limited resources – existence resources – maintenance resources – workload resources

An Ideal Educational Environment

An ideal educational environment, traditional campus or virtual e-learning alike, will be such that it will make the best use of the daily learning resources and at the same time it is energy-saving, or energy-renewable. The daily learning resources formula is the general circumstances for us to examine “the more … the better” assumptions

5An Ecological Model of

E-Learning

管 理 层

物 理 构 建 层

学 术 构 件 层

½Ì Îñ ´¦ ÈË Ê´¦Ñ§Éú ´¦

A n ec o lo g ic a l m o d el o f ed u c a tio n½Ì ÓýÉú ̬ ѧģÐÍ

¶Ô ѧϰ ÕßÐÐʹÁ½́ ó Ö° ÄÜ

¿ò ¶¨ fram in g

»ú Óö en ab lin g

ѧϰ ÕßÓÐÁ½́ óÀà ѧϰ ÐÐΪ

ÊÊ Ó¦ ÐÍ Ñ§Ï°a d a p tive le a rn in g

»ý ¼«ÐÍ Ñ§Ï° ac tivele a rn in g

Teacher

Learner

Textbook

Learning task/activity

Figure 7: Teacher-led, print textbook-based classroom learning eco-environment

Physical eco-environment

Admin eco-environment

T h e L e a r n e r

T h e p r in tt e x t b o o k

T h e t e a c h e r

T h e le ar n in gt a s k / a c tiv it y : 1

T h e le a rn in gt a s k / a c tiv it y : n

L e ar n in g p r o c e s s

a c a d e m ic ec o - e n v ir o n m en t

a d m in e c o - e n v ir o n m e n t t

p h y s ic a l e c o - e n v ir o n m e n t

Figure 8: Reconstruction of teacher-led, print textbook-based classroom learning eco-environment

管 理 层

物 理 构 建 层

学 术 构 件 层

½Ì Îñ ´¦ ÈË Ê´¦Ñ§Éú ´¦

A n ec o lo g ic a l m o d el o f ed u c a tio n½Ì ÓýÉú ̬ ѧģÐÍ

¶Ô ѧϰ ÕßÐÐʹÁ½́ ó Ö° ÄÜ

¿ò ¶¨ fra m in g

»ú Óö e n a b lin g

ѧϰ ÕßÓÐÁ½́ óÀà ѧϰ ÐÐΪ

ÊÊ Ó¦ ÐÍ Ñ§Ï°a d a p tive le a rn in g

»ý ¼«ÐÍ Ñ§Ï° a c tivele a rn in g

X

c on ten t h ig h lig h ts

Cl assroom eco-envi ronment Home eco-envi ronment

f rami ng enabl i ng f rami ng enabl i ng

physi cal

bei ng there on spot use of properti es shari ng space wi th fami l y

members use of home properti es

fi xed t i metabl e non- i nterference f rom other

commi tments open to other commi tments fl exi bl e t i metabl e

academi c

accordi ng to the

teacher' s schema

l et the teacher manage the

l earni ng process

extra demand on the l i mi ted

cogni t i ve resources

sel f -manage the l earni ng

process

teacher-control l ed

turn- taki ng

F2F i nteracti on wi th the T

and cl assmates

no F2F i nteracti on wi th the

T or cl assmates

asynchronous and i ndi rect

i nteracti on

enj oy the teacher' s i nterpretati on of the

textbook downl oad or upl oad fi l es

enj oy the teacher' s extra

i nput

i nstant answer key or

feedback

i nstant hel p no i nstant hel p

admi n

no temperi ng wi th

faci l i t i es f ree use of equi pment subj ect to power fai l ure

subj ect to l ost hyperl i nks

subj ect to i nterrupti ons by fami l y members or tel ephone

cal l s

Web-based CALL Teacher Training Design

TeacherAgent

PPTAgent

explaining Graphic aids

facilitating

StudentAgent

Listening and watching

ComputerAgent

Practise WebCT skills

GUI Interactions

GoalAgent

Understand some basic

terminologies

Video-based teacher training:

Multi-agent interaction diagram

TimeManagementAgent

<<uses>> <<uses>>

<<uses>><<uses>> Reinforce the understanding and apply

<<uses>>

<<uses>>

LearnerX

GUI_Agent

KeyboardAgent

MouseAgent

TouchpadAgent

MenuAgent

LayoutAgent

NevigationAgent

MikeAgent

WebcamAgent

EnablingFraming

Think, classify and group the functions the way MenuAgent does. This can be offputting.

Obtain the functionaries

provided

-respond to click/keyboard action

*

-click and select*

1. The ecological model provides a general guiding principle for critically evaluating and optimizing the operations of an e-learning institute.

2. In China, and perhaps also in the world, the three eco-environment systems have never been integrated and assessed under one general framework.

3. Mismatches of conceptions, misunderstandings in communication, and conflicts of interests are not uncommon.

4. The ecological model enables educational authorities at various levels to reflect upon the institutional setup in terms of its framing and enabling functions against the learner’s learning resources for adaptive and active learning.

5. With regard to learner autonomy it can be argued that the less framing effects the eco-systems exert on the learner, the more effective learning becomes.

6. In practice this is not the case. Our annual field studies consistently indicate that the framing function of the micro sub-ecosystem of administration should be maintained at a fairly high level.

7. Although this increases the demand on the learner’s resources to be spent on adaptive learning, it has a payoff of increased self-discipline, a property which is extremely valuable to learners with diversified commitments.

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