慕课学习者在线合作学习体验探究——以教师专业发展类慕课为例

Exploring Collaborative Learning Experience in a Teacher Professional Development MOOC

近年来,慕课进入平稳发展阶段,改进教学设计以丰富学习者学习体验逐渐成为发展的重点。其中,慕课在生生互动方面的不足受到越来越多的关注。不少课程实践者与研究人员开始尝试拓展慕课生生互动的方式。在此背景下,某教师专业发展慕课尝试组织在线合作学习活动,希望以此促进学习者之间的交流。课程团队征集了52位学员志愿者,将其分成9组,每组5至7人。活动共持续六周,参与者通过小组QQ群自发组织课程作业的讨论,为彼此提供改进建议。活动结束后,研究人员通过问卷(24份有效问卷)与半结构访谈(9位被访者),调查了参与者的在线合作学习体验,包括学习者对小组协同过程、合作学习产出和互动中面临的挑战三方面的感知。研究发现,学习者在协同过程中遇到不少问题,但是大部分学习者认可在线合作学习活动对课程学习与教学实践的促进作用。学习者面临的挑战主要包括:专业背景差异阻碍相互理解,领导者角色缺失影响合作推进,时间协调困难影响共同参与,动机差异引发期待冲突。对上述挑战的分析,有助于丰富慕课情境下开展在线合作学习的认识,为开发符合慕课情境特征的合作学习策略提供线索。

Recently,optimizing instructional design to improve MOOC learning experience is attracting more and more attention. One problem that significantly depresses MOOC learners' learning experience is the lack of interaction.More effort has been put on developing multiple ways to promote interaction in MOOCs. A program which aims to promote learner-learner interaction with online collaborative groups has been developed in a teachers' professional development MOOC. Fifty-two MOOC learners were recruited to participate in this program. They were divided into 9 groups with 5 to 7 people in each group. The course lasted for seven weeks,and the collaborative work took up six weeks.During these six weeks,participants were required to share their weekly assignments,provide feedbacks to their group members,and help each other to refine their individual work. They built their virtual groups online with QQ,an instant messaging tool broadly used in China,and had all the discussions in their QQ groups. Learners' perception of coordination within groups,as well as their evaluation of group interaction and its effect on their individual learning and teaching practices,is investigated with questionnaires from twenty-four participants. These participants took part in most of the group activities. According to their reports,group discussion being dominated by a few members,important ideas not fully explored,and some group members failing to follow the track,are the major problems they encountered in coordination. Although these problems impeded participants' interaction with their peers,most of them recognized that online collaborative learning activities had a positive influence on their individual learning and their teaching practices,and especially enhanced their motivation to complete the course. Semi-structured interviews with 9 participants provided more clues to understand problems emerged in the interaction process as some participants have reported in the questionnaire. The diversity of professional background,the lack of leadership within groups,the difficulty in time coordination,and the tension between collaborative-oriented motivation and self-oriented motivation are the most challenging obstacles for participants to overcome. Instead of contributing to the quality of interaction,learners' diversity sometime created barriers to mutual understanding. These findings provide valuable information for educators who want to apply collaborative learning or other interactive approach to engage learners in MOOCs,given that the heterogeneity of MOOC learners is more prominent than learners in traditional settings. The characteristics of learning environment and learners in MOOCs that influence online collaboration and interaction are further discussed.