I have been doing a lot of thinking since Paul's class last Thursday about a method of quantifying the strength or cohesiveness of an online community of practice. For my AR project I am formulating a method of increasing student retention in an online university using online Communities of Practice and in order to be able to measure "improvement," "success" or "failure" in my research I think I need a way to measure the strength or cohesiveness of the community.
If you imagine each member of the community as a "node" connected to other nodes (members) then one should be able to measure and illustrate the strength of not only the community but of each member within it.
The first illustration above, let's call it a bullseye, illustrates a community. The participation of each member may be measured by their proximity to the center of the community. The more texts, e-mails, tweets, etc., each member initiates or responds to increases their "score" and their proximity to the center. The strength of the community as a whole might be measured as a sum or average of proximity of all members.
Another method is illustrated to the left and looks more like a spider web. Members communicating with each other and with the community as a whole strengthens their bond with the community as well as with individual members. As each member interacts their connections to other members get stronger (thicker).
I envision that both of these scenarios would incorporate some type of deterioration of strength over time. For example, in the bullseye, inactive members would gradually move outward until they were no longer within the concentric circles of the community. In the spiderweb, inactive members' connections would deteriorate over time until they were no longer connected to any other members.
I welcome your comments and thoughts on this.
I spent last week with about 2500 other educators in Orlando at the Sloan Consortium Conference in Orlando. It was an interesting experience. I have been to other academic conferences before but never to one where almost every talk was of interest to me. One of those I attended was by Paul Koehnke from Central Piedmont Community College. This talk was titled "Does an Online Orientation Impact Student Retention and Performance in Online Courses." Interestingly enough the presenter called this an Action Research project he had undertaken. He began by explaining what an AR project was! It was fun to be "in the know"
I have been doing a lot of thinking about how to structure my AR project. As you may know I am working on increasing student retention in online learning through the use of appropriate technologies. The first draft of my literature review was just submitted and, in it I discuss the possible increased need for community with students from lower socioeconomic strata. Reading Wenger and watching his recent talk at Pepperdine on Communities of Practice, and studying CoPs in my Cog Tools class. . . I have come to recognize what I really need to create for my AR is a community of practice, or CoP. This is now the third iteration for my AR project, at least in my head. All are focused on the same intended result but I have been altering just how to go about using technology to impact retention. I think structuring a CoP may just be the way to go.
I've been thinking about my AR project and had hit a bit of a brick wall. . . until last Thursday night. You see, I just couldn't see why students would want to participate in my research and even if they did consent, what would make them attend the weekly video sessions? I was discussing this in Paul's Cog Tools hangout on Thursday night and people were throwing around ideas. I don't remember the exact statement but Paul mentioned the possibility of having students connect with a professional in their field of study rather than a school staffer or instructor. LIGHT BULB!! Of course I thought . . . students aren't in school to study, well most aren't. Students are in school to get a better job or a new career so as to make their lives better. So I'm still working on the video chat idea (Skype, Google Hangouts, etc) but now, instead of connecting with their dean or instructor, I am going to try to arrange a group of professionals who would consent to spending a couple of hours per week chatting with students! I am going to need to change my outline, the force field analysis, field of study, etc. but I believe it will be a more valuable study in the end.
That's my pet name for my Action Research project so far. I am working through the concept in my head, if not constantly, at least frequently. I am concerned that I won't be permitted by my employer even though there is an ever-present pressure to find methods and practices to improve student retention. I am worried that I won't be able to get students to participate even though they volunteer. Also, a student who volunteers for the study would likely be one who already has a motivator to succeed and less likely to drop out. . . . thus skewing the results. I am also concerned about the technical approval to run the study. I have tested google hangouts between staff members and it works great. Not sure yet at this point if student accounts have the same access.
At some point, Project Struggle will become Project Retain. Lots of things to work through first however.
Aside from the fact that I am slow getting started on this blog. . . I am starting to see how this is all starting to come together. Reading Invent to Learn today by Martinez and Stager, I was surprised to see the diagrams on pages 48 and 49. "That's Action Research" I thought to myself. "You mean that learners in a Maker environment are really participating in Action Research?" Of course they are, of a sort. The cycles within AR of constructing, planning, taking action, and evaluating are the foundation of any Maker's process. Making is AR. . . AR is Making.
I feel an epiphany coming on as AR blends with Cog Tools blends with Design. IT'S THE PROCESS!!!!!
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