Increasing Students'
Participation
via Multiple Interactive Media
Chris Dede and Audrey L. Kremer (George Mason University)
Abstract: This article describes an ongoing informal study of a distance learning course that uses multiple emerging interactive media to increase and enhance students’ participation. (The co-authors are, respectively, the course instructor and a doctoral student in education who took the course and conducted research on students’ participation patterns.) First, we present the conceptual context underlying our vision of interactive media for learning; next, we describe the design of the course and the educational interactions this fosters; then, we analyze the learning outcomes that result from this instructional strategy; and finally we discuss the evolution of emerging interactive media. This structure parallels the "scholarship of teaching" framework presented in Randy Bass’s article.
© Copyright 1998-99 by Chris Dede (cdede@gmu.edu) and Audrey Kremer (kremer@mitretek.org). The right to make additional exact copies, including this notice, for personal and classroom use, is hereby granted. All other forms of distribution and copying require permission of the author. inventio is a publication of the Department of Instructional Improvement and Instructional Technologies (DoIIIT) at George Mason University, Fairfax VA.
The development of the Internet is fostering the development and proliferation of new interactive media, such as the WorldWide Web and shared virtual environments. A medium is in part a channel for conveying content; as the Internet increasingly pervades society, educators can readily reach extensive, remote resources and audiences on-demand, just-in-time. Just as important, however, a medium is a representational container enabling new types of messages (e.g., sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words).
Since expression and communication are based on representations such as language and imagery, the process of learning is enhanced by broadening the types of instructional messages students and teachers can exchange. New forms of representation (e.g., interactive models that utilize visualization and other means of making abstractions tangible and sensory) make possible a broader, more powerful repertoire of pedagogical strategies. Also, these emerging interactive media empower novel types of learning experiences; for example, interpersonal interactions across networks can lead to the formation of virtual communities [Dede, 1996]. The innovative kinds of pedagogy enabled by these novel media make possible evolving university instruction beyond synchronous, group, presentation-centered forms of education. beyond conventional "teaching-by-telling" and "learning-by-listening."
In Chris’s Spring, 1998 EDIT 611 course (Distance Learning via Networks and Telecommunications), he and the students explored a number of emerging interactive media for communication across barriers of distance and time. The conceptual framework underlying the course is "distributed learning": educational activities orchestrated across classrooms, workplaces, homes, and community settings and based on a mixture of presentational and "constructivist" (guided inquiry activities, collaborative learning, mentoring) pedagogies. Recent advances in "groupware" and experiential simulation enable guided, collaborative inquiry-based learning even though students are in different locations and often are not online at the same time. With the aid of mentors, students can create, share, and master knowledge about authentic real-world problems. Through a mixture of instructional media, learners and educators can engage in synchronous or asynchronous interaction: face-to-face or in disembodied fashion or as an "avatar" expressing an alternate form of individual identity.
Distributed learning demonstrates to students that education is integral to all aspects of life—not just schooling—and that many information tools scattered throughout our workplace can be used for learning across distance. Such an instructional approach also can build partnerships for learning among stakeholders in education (e.g., teachers and families, colleges and employers). In the long run, distributed learning can potentially conserve scarce financial resources by maximizing the educational usage of information devices (televisions, computers, telephones, videogames) in homes and workplaces. In addition, distributed learning enables shifts in the pattern of universities’ investments. Less money is needed for physical infrastructure—buildings, parking lots—and more resources can go into ways of creating a virtual community for creating, sharing, and mastering knowledge.
The goals of Chris’s EDIT 611 course are (1) to give participants hands-on experiences with the range of interactive media now readily available for distributed learning; (2) to develop an understanding of how each medium shapes the cognitive, affective, and social interactions of learners; and 3) to model and discuss effective instructional design in the use of each interactive medium. The creation, sharing, and mastery of knowledge is not simply an intellectual exercise; the emotional and psychosocial dimensions of learning are very important as well. These interactive media enable an extraordinary range of cognitive, affective, and social "affordances" (enhancements of human capabilities) of great power for distributed learning—while at the same time also potentially limiting expression and communication.
Much study is needed to develop the new kinds of rhetoric necessary to make these emerging media effective for learning, as well as to design distributed learning environments appropriate to specific groups of learners, for particular types of content and a given set of educational goals. While a great deal is known about instructional design in classroom settings to facilitate affective and social interactions, many emerging media are so new that little is understood about the emotional and collaborative affordances they provide—and lack. The EDIT 611 course provides a testbed for informal study of the potential and limits of emerging interactive media.
In spring 1998, Chris’s course on learning across distance used six media:
Our study of each of these media was conducted in that medium (e.g., we met in a text-based virtual world to discuss learning in shared virtual environments). The class met six times face-to-face and all other times via distance interactions.
The first four of these interactive media are synchronous, the next is asynchronous, and the last a mixture of both. This wide range of media enabled distributed learning that incorporates the complementary strengths of face-to-face instruction, virtual synchronous interaction, and asynchronous expression and communication. Participants were able to contrast the amount of effort required to master the rhetoric of each medium, the instructional design strategies effective in each, and the ways each shaped individual cognitive and affective experiences, as well as group interactions. By utilizing "freeware" and technology provided by GMU (videoconferencing and the threaded discussion site), access to these media created no additional costs for the instructor and students.
In spring 1998, thirty-one graduate students in instructional technology completed the course. Most were in the 25-45 year old age range and employed full-time. The students had years or decades of professional experience in various aspects of education and training (e.g., public school teachers, instructional designers for industry, training managers for government, college faculty and administrators). Many had no prior experience with several of the media used in the course; however, as majors in instructional technology they became literate in each medium more rapidly than would a typical university student. While this group is not representative of most learners, the students are typical of professionals in many fields seeking in-service development to further their career goals. Their ability to rapidly gain fluency in new media is also characteristic of the next generation of university students.
That spring, EDIT 611 students had a choice of three out of six possible assignments. Some of these assignments involved extended experience with a particular type of distributed learning (e.g., telementoring and teleapprenticeships), then writing a reflective paper comparing their experience to claims in the research literature and to similar experiences by other students selecting this assignment. Other assignments involved preparing evaluations of existing distance education courses, full distance education programs, and devices and applications available through vendors. Course readings and learning interactions were sequenced to develop students’ capabilities to complete these assignments.
Specifically, educational experiences and students’ assignments in the course were designed to maximize participants’ reflective usage of all five distance media, building both their technical fluency and their insights into the rhetoric and affordances of each medium. Chris modeled effective instructional design by selecting interactive media based on the nature of the learning experience (e.g., groupware for collaborative design, threaded discussion for debate). Links to research on the educational usage of each interactive medium provided a comparative context for each learner’s individual experiences and responses. For more details about instructional design and educational resources, please see the Spring, 1999 syllabus at http://www.virtual.gmu.edu/EDIT611/syllabus.htm
To better understand distributed learning and teaching via multiple interactive media, Chris has informally analyzed the course along several dimensions. Three sets of findings from this case study were striking:
More Students Found A "Voice"
Students exhibited very different preference patterns for the six media utilized in this class. Lively debates ensued among those who liked--and hated--particular instructional media and found their rhetoric either intuitive or cumbersome. Furthermore, even though all agreed the class meetings on campus were valuable, a substantial proportion of students rated face-to-face interaction below some of the virtual means of communication. Beyond convenient access, the reasons these students gave for preferring virtual interaction suggested that they found this type of expression more fulfilling as a medium for learning.
An outcome striking to Chris as instructor was how some students found their "voices" in one of the virtual media. Even the best classroom instructor, expert in facilitating discussion, knows that a substantial percentage of students will "lurk" in face-to-face interactions. These learners are awake and listening, but do not become actively involved unless forced to do so—and then relapse into silent observation. These students may be shy, prefer time to reflect before answering, or feel at a disadvantage because of gender, race, physical appearance, disabilities, or a lack of linguistic fluency. In EDIT 611, some of these "passive" students came alive in the groupware, some in the text-based virtual world, some in asynchronous discussions—but almost all were active and fluent in at least one of the six virtual media. At the same time, those students adept at face-to-face interaction often reported their expressive and communicative abilities diminished in at least one virtual medium—they felt disenfranchised and "lurked" when forced to use that type of rhetoric. All the students were surprised by this outcome and often were unable to predict which media they personally would find empowering, which they would find disabling.
Because the vast majority of class participants found their voice in at least one of the media provided, each student was able to make a full contribution, thus increasing the overall learning experience for everyone. Also, those students who felt hampered by a particular medium could watch others model effective expression and communication. As a result, everyone’s fluency and comfort in all the media improved over time, although distinct preferences remained.
An extensive research literature has repeatedly documented "no significant differences" between various instructional media (e.g., videoconferencing vs. face-to-face instruction); for details, see http://teleeducation.nb.ca/nosignificantdifference/. However, all of these studies are limited in that the average performance of a group is compared for one single-mode-of-delivery versus another. This research does not recognize that, for each medium utilized, some students are empowered, others disenfranchised, and the net impact averages out.
In contrast, well-designed courses using several instructional media with differing characteristics (e.g., synchronous vs. asynchronous, high-bandwidth vs. low bandwidth, contextualized vs. decontextualized) enable all students to utilize their most effective ways of learning. For example, a text-based virtual world provides a low-bandwidth, contextualized setting, while videoconferencing enables high-bandwidth, decontextualized interaction. Mixed-media courses potentially enable better learning outcomes for every student than comparable courses taught via any single medium—including solely face-to-face instruction. While six interactive media is likely overkill for most types of learning experiences, in every course we believe that at least one synchronous virtual and one asynchronous medium should be used, plus (if possible) face-to-face interaction.
In addition to each learner finding a ""voice," students in Chris’s course found that their learning was richer and more profound than in comparable conventional classes because:
Some students spent many hours communicating asynchronously, having a much richer dialogue than could have been possible via the best face-to-face facilitation. (Because Chris’s students were experienced professionals with varied backgrounds, they had a lot to share with each other. The impact of student-to-student learning would have been less had the course population been novices in the course topic and similar in background.)
Historically, learning across distance has often been limited by low affective/social stimulation and purely presentational pedagogy, seen as intrinsically inferior to face-to-face teaching.. Now, the situation is reversed; face-to-face instruction alone cannot provide the range of resources and the empowerment of expression enabled by complementary interactive media. Within a decade, we doubt the terms "distance education" or "face-to-face instruction" will be used; all education will be distributed learning with varying balances of different media depending on the pedagogical situation.
Many students appreciated the richer, more inclusive types of interchange that occur in an asynchronous medium. Some learners found a voice they lacked in face-to-face settings, and everyone had a chance to say more since air-time was not limited. However, this deeper educational experience consumed more time and was less social than classroom or virtual synchronous settings, leading to diminished motivation for many students despite a sense of having learned more. Instructional design must carefully balance synchronous and asynchronous experiences to ensure that learners’ affective and social motivation is sustained over a course or series of courses.
Also, students felt this mixed-media learning experience called into question the seat-time-based methods by which educational institutions quantify the amount of learning and determine a sufficient level of credit-hours for matriculation. Many students engaged in substantial virtual synchronous and asynchronous interactions well beyond the requirements of the course or what would likely have occurred in a conventional learning experience. The three academic credits each received toward graduation were a poor measure of their true educational achievement. As we increasingly use multiple interactive media for instruction, performance-based measures will be central not only for assessing learning, but also for accurately assigning appropriate amounts of academic credit.
Four of the weeklong discussions were analyzed in depth.. Overall, we saw a relatively high rate of participation and commendable quality of discussions. The average number of postings per discussion was 105. This seemed a significant level of response given how much longer it takes to read others’ postings and craft a thoughtful response than it would take to make a comment in a face-to-face situation.
The depth of many of the postings showed the benefits of more time to reflect on the discussion at hand and the option for students to respond at their own pace, when it was convenient for them. As would be expected in a university course, there was a significant rise in the number of postings on the last official night of a discussion, typically the night prior to the next class session. The fact that the discussion database creates a semi-permanent record of the discussion probably affected all students in some way. Some students may have felt a need to be more accurate or thoughtful in their postings. Others may have been intimidated by the idea that other students at GMU could see their postings and that these would be available for others to reread later. As in a classroom environment, some students participated well above or below average rates; to some extent, this reflected their degree of comfort with the rhetoric of asynchronous, threaded discussion. In particular, the asynchronous nature of Townhall might have allowed students who tend to be quiet in class to participate more fully.
Students tend to participate in class in ways which are consistent with their personalities and background and which are in keeping with the nature of the classroom environment. There are often patterns to participation; for example some students dominate and others rarely participate. Many of these communication styles may be linked to gender or ethnicity. Researchers have posited that computer-mediated communication (CMC) might change the characteristics of communications and make them more democratic by giving all participants a greater opportunity to express opinions and contribute to the discussion.
In studying EDIT 611, Audrey examined gender issues in particular. Most researchers on gender issues in computer-mediated communication mention "flaming" (overly aggressive argumentation), sexual harassment, or adversarial relationships; this is where they saw most of the differentiation between men’s and women’s postings. We found no evidence of gender-oriented communication styles and no untoward arguments, acrimonious disagreements, or controversial or negative postings. The EDIT 611 Townhall discussions were characterized by respect, support, and often an interest in other’s contributions—a sharp contrast to the open chatrooms and listservs other researchers have studied.
The men in the class participated more frequently than the women, consistent with previous research that found males spoke more often both in classroom settings and in computer-mediated communication environments. But in EDIT 611 the level of imbalance was much smaller than previously reported (Cherny 1994, Herring 1993 & 1994). Women posted an average of 3 times per discussion while men posted an average of 3.5 times. There was not significant difference in which gender was more likely to start or stop a discussion or more likely to change the direction of a discussion. The typical response was about 180 words, 2-3 paragraphs in length; male postings were only slightly longer.
There are several possible explanations for why this education course’s CMC may have shown atypical gender communication characteristics. Education tends to be a female dominated field (two thirds of the students in the class were female), and this may create an inherently more supportive environment than more male-dominated topical areas. Education as a field may also attract men with atypical characteristics, more interested in collaboration than competition. The class population is, after all, a self-selected group of individuals who have an interest in learning and teaching, environments where social skills are highly valued. The female majority, and the education-oriented environment created an unusual situation that may have encouraged women to be more vocal and to establish discussions with a tone consistent with women’s ways of communicating.
"Entire lists can become gendered in their style as well. It is tacitly expected that members of the non-dominant gender will adapt their posting style in the direction of the style of the dominant gender. Thus men on women’s special interest lists attenuate their assertions and shorten their messages," (Herring, 1994, p 5). This informal study does not answer the question of whether women in EDIT 611 posted more (than predicted by the research literature) because they were more comfortable, or men posted less and acted less competitively because they were emulating the postings of the dominant group. Also, the experiences we report on the discussion database are likely to be different for different student populations, different course contents, and different instructional styles.
Overall, these case study findings offer considerable promise for improved educational outcomes and for the transformation of conventional instructional settings by use of mixed interactive media for distributed learning. Moreover, many other faculty working with these media report similar insights. However, case studies are only suggestive; and extensive, rigorous, and generalizable research is needed to further elucidate the cognitive, affective, and social affordances—and limits—of new Internet-based media for learning. From such research will come instructional design methodologies more sophisticated than those currently in use. These strategies will require more complex pedagogical planning from instructors, but can lead to more powerful learning outcomes.
The National Science Foundation has a multidisciplinary research initiative centering on "knowledge and distributed intelligence" (http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/kdi/default.htm). In science and many other fields, new ways of learning and knowing are emerging that involve creating a community of mind, a new type of "cognitive ecology." Through sharing disparate data and diverse perspectives via emerging interactive media, a virtual group of professionals develops an evolving understanding of a complex topic. Over time, the group’s conception of the issues involved continually expands and deepens, at times broadening the range of disciplines seen as relevant. During these times, the membership of a knowledge networking community grows to include participants who bring new perspectives and backgrounds. An ever larger cast of members redefines how to conceptualize the topic; this involves a constant collective acculturation into new ways of thinking and knowing via communal learning. Emerging interactive media are crucial to knowledge networking through providing rich sources of data; rapid information exchange; sophisticated analytic tools; and—most important—the collective intellectual capacity to tackle larger, more complex, and multidisciplinary problems at low cost.
In contrast to Chris’s "Leave-It-To-Beaver" generation being prepared for a mature industrial workplace, today’s students face a global economy in which knowledge networking and mastering the rhetorics of multiple interactive media are crucial skills (Dede, 1998). Distributed learning is vital for preparing students for this future. Within a few decades, we believe refusal by a university instructor to use multiple interactive media will be considered professional malpractice.
Cherny, L. "Gender Differences in Text-based Virtual Reality." Proceedings of the Berkley Conference on Women and Language. April 1994. Available at: http://www.eff.org/pub/Global/America-US/Net_culture/Gender_issues/cherny_gender_differences.article
Dede, C., ed. Learning with technology (1998 ASCD Yearbook). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1998.
Dede, C. "Emerging Technologies and Distributed Learning." American Journal of Distance Education 10.2 (1996): 4-36.
Herring, S. "Gender Differences in Computer-mediated Communication: Bringing Familiar Baggage to the New Frontier." 1996. Available Internet: http://www.cpsr.organization/cpsr/gender/herring.txt
---. "Gender and Democracy in Computer-mediated Communication." Electronic Journal of Communication, 3.2 (1993). Available Internet: http://dc.smu.edu/dc/classroom/Gender.txt
CHRIS DEDE (cdede@gmu.edu) is a Full Professor at George Mason University, with a joint appointment in the Schools of Education and of Information Technology & Engineering. His research interests span technology forecasting and assessment, emerging technologies for learning, and leadership in educational innovation. He is the Editor of the 1998 Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) Yearbook, Learning with Technology. He currently has a major grant from the National Science Foundation to develop educational environments based on virtual reality technology.
AUDREY L. KREMER is a doctoral student in Education at George Mason University focusing on Instructional Technology and Workplace Learning. She is employed as a full-time training consultant by with Mitretek Systems, a not-for-profit government consulting firm.