Authentic activities and learning environments

Managing a social software teaching/learning environment: learning designs

Authentic activities using MediaWiki
Authentic activities using Drupal-SMF

Most people are familiar with the technique of using activities such as students would find in the 'real world' as the basis for collaborative problem-based learning activities. Many teachers use this technique as an add-on to a traditional, teacher-centred approach. However, there are advantages in building a whole unit - or a significant part of it - around the completion of a series of such tasks in a learning environment that is set up to reflect the critical characteristics of how students would use their learning in an authentic context.

Critical characteristics of authentic learning (Herrington & Herrington, 2006, 4-9) are:

• an authentic context that reflects the way the knowledge will be used in real life
• authentic activities
• access to expert performances and the modelling of processes
• multiple roles and perspectives
• collaborative construction of knowledge
• reflection
• articulation
• coaching and scaffolding
• authentic assessment.

Herrington et al. (2004) describe ways in which authentic learning environments may be created online to capture the critical characteristics of the authentic context that enhance learning.

Social software can be a particularly useful resource to create virtual environments in which students collaborate with others to complete complex, sustained, authentic activities in contextualised settings. Such an environment can create a feeling of immersion in a make-believe world that nevertheless reflects the real world in important ways. Adopting roles to complete tasks in such an environment can give students a feeling of safety to explore personal strategies they might not normally try. Students can become deeply engaged in such an environment and this can lead to powerful learning outcomes.

For more information on using online role plays as a teaching/learning technique see Wills & Ip (2002) .

Authentic activities using MediaWiki

Students in ALW739 Publishing work in and publish to a wiki set up to mimic a wiki a publishing association might use. Students are required to work as a mock publishing company and submit a group proposal for their company to become a member of the publishing association, including a company profile, success stories, staff profiles, advertising/marketing/distribution strategies and list of forthcoming titles; and then submit individual book publishing proposals to their company's pages on the wiki. Resources built into the wiki include broad instructions on the activity requirements and how to use the technology. The wiki activities form 50% of the assessment for the unit and include group and individual components as well as a reflective piece.MediaWiki provides a collaborative online planning and content creation space that may be able to support critical characteristics of authentic learning in many disciplines. Real-world organisations of all types are using wikis as a simple but effective knowledge management and collaboration tool. It should be possible to mimic many of the authentic tasks real experts complete within their own wikis in a learning setting.

Example

Students in ALW739 Publishing work in and publish to a wiki set up to mimic a wiki a publishing association might use. Students are required to work as a mock publishing company and submit a group proposal for their company to become a member of the publishing association, including a company profile, success stories, staff profiles, advertising/marketing/distribution strategies and list of forthcoming titles; and then submit individual book publishing proposals to their company's pages on the wiki. Resources built into the wiki include broad instructions on the activity requirements and how to use the technology. The wiki activities form 50% of the assessment for the unit and include group and individual components as well as a reflective piece.

The main page for the mock Deakin Publishers Association wiki

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Authentic learning environments using Drupal-SMF

Drupal-SMF may be used to create a virtual learning environment in which students can role play members of an authentic real-world organisation. They can refer to material on the organisation's 'intranet' set up in the Drupal site and use blogs or group threaded discussions to negotiate work on their collaborative, authentic activities. Resources such as schedules, key task stages, key criteria for assessment, etc. can be provided within the site in such a way as to mimic ways in which such items are provided in the real world. 

Example

SIT301 IT Practice has used both Drupal and Joomla!-SMF sites to mimic a telecommunications organisation website, intranet and discussion facility. The pedagogical framework for the unit is described in Goold (2004) and a prototype that was delivered in 2005 is described in Goold & Augar (2006). Students are required to apply for positions within the organisation, and then complete various authentic tasks in the teams that are formed in the site under the guidance of role-playing teachers. The tasks are typical large, open-ended IT problems that require teamwork.

The United Enterprises fictitious staff profiles page

Unit: SIT301 IT Practice (a wholly online unit). The unit has four discrete modules that focus on different aspects of the IT sector.

A typical task: Students work in teams as IT consultants for a fictitious telecommunications organisation. For one of the tasks in the module 'IT teams' they are given a scenario and asked to select a team of IT professionals from a number of staff listed in the organisation's staff profiles page. They use team forums and eLive meetings set up within the intranet of the organisation to communicate and collaborate, to develop a set of recommendations for the most appropriate team.

Activity objectives: The main objective is to ensure that students gain an understanding of the customary mode of work within the IT sector – the IT team. However, in working together as IT consultants they also practise skills in teamwork, collaboration and time management, and experience the process of team development and team dynamics. They gain an understanding of the tools that are used to facilitate team communication and collaboration. The activity gives students an awareness of the issues related to virtual (global) teams and cultural diversity.

Assessment criteria:

iLecture presentation

References

Goold, A 2004, 'Problem-based learning in an online IT professional practice course', in Janice Nall & Robby Robson (eds), Proceedings of E-Learn 2004: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate Government, Healthcare and Higher Education, pp. 65-71 <http://www.editlib.org/index.cfm/files/paper_11318.pdf?fuseaction=Reader.DownloadFullText&paper_id=11318>, accessed 30 March 2008.

Goold, A & Augar, N 2006, 'Prototyping a wholly online IT unit', in L Markauskaite, P Goodyear & P Reimann (eds) Proceedings of the 23rd annual ascilite conference: Who’s learning? Whose technology?, 3–6 December, Sydney University Press, Sydney <http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/sydney06/proceeding/pdf_papers/p85.pdf> accessed 10 January 2008.

Herrington, A & Herrington, J 2006, Authentic learning environments in higher education, Information Science Publishing, Hershey, PA.

Herrington, J, Reeves, T, Oliver, R & Woo, Y 2004, 'Designing authentic activities in web-based courses', Journal of Computing in Higher Education, Vol. 16, No. 1 <edserver2.uow.edu.au/~janh/Assessment/Authentic%20Assessment_files/JCHE.pdf>  accessed 14 January 2008.

Wills, S & Ip, A 2002, enRole, research, react, resolve, reflect: developing and using online role play learning designs, Learning Designs website <http://www.learningdesigns.uow.edu.au/guides/info/G1/index.htm> accessed 2 April 2008.

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