Grant program: Teaching and Learning Development Grant (TLDG)

Grant recipient: Linda Harasim, School of Communication

Project team: Julia Araujos de Freitas, Anizio Ferreira Neto, and Jillian Skeet, research assistants

Timeframe: June 2016 to December 2017

Funding: $10,000  

Course addressed: CMNS 453 – Issues in the Information Society

Description: I plan to study learning effectiveness in online seminars using Student-led Online Seminars (SOS). I will develop and refine a pedagogy and a research/evaluation methodology based on Collaborativist Learning Theory. This theory defines learning as intellectual convergence and identifies 3 processes as contributing to learning: Idea Generating; Idea Organizing; and Intellectual Convergence. I will use this theory as the basis for a pedagogy and a research/assessment methodology for online education activities in my CMNS453 course at SFU.

Final report: View Linda Harasim's final report (PDF)

Interim report: View Linda Harasim's interim report (PDF)

Questions addressed:

• What research/evaluation methods can be developed and/or applied to study learning in online post-secondary courses? What specific learning processes can be demonstrated?
• What is the quality of student discourse when using a SOS pedagogy?
• What moderator designs are employed to design and facilitate SOS?
• What do learners report as effective strategies by Moderators and discussants in SOS?

Knowledge sharing:

Harasim, L. (2018). Learning about online collaborative learning: The methodology of discourse analytics. In B. Khan, J.R. Corbeil, and M.E. Corbeil (Eds.) Responsible analytics and data mining in education. New York, NY: Routledge.

Harasim, L. (2018). What is online collaborative learning? Why is it important? And how to (easily) enhance online medical education courses with these new pedagogies. Workshop delivered at the 15th Meeting of the Asia Pacific Medical Education Conference (APMEC), Technology: Enhancing Education for Improvement of Patient Care, Singapore, SO.

Harasim, L. (2018, January). Online collaborative learning for medical educators. Keynote address, 15th Meeting of the Asia Pacific Medical Education Conference (APMEC), Technology: Enhancing Education for Improvement of Patient Care, Singapore, SO.

Harasim, L. (2018, January). What is the role of the technology in learning? And what does that mean for medical education? Paper presented at the 15th Meeting of the Asia Pacific Medical Education Conference (APMEC), Technology: Enhancing Education for Improvement of Patient Care, Singapore, SO.

Harasim, L. (2017, October). Artificial intelligence and online collaborative learning. Keynote address, E-Learn 2017: The Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) Conference, Vancouver, BC.

Keywords: student-led online seminars (SOS); assessment instrument; instructor handbook; Online Collaborative Learning (OCL) theory, online higher education courses, learning analytics, discourse analytics, online collaborative learning pedagogies, assessing online collaborative learning, collaborativism