Reflective Summary 1

Virtual learning communities (VLC) are becoming the new forum for learning. Technology has advanced to the degree where a great deal of traditional classroom learning can now take place online. Belonging to a VLC gives the opportunity to broaden horizons from different cultures, styles and awareness that was once not readily available in the conventional classroom. The style of learning in the VLC can be asynchronous (by posting at one’s leisure) or synchronous (real time chat, live communication). This is an initiative that gives those in rural areas greater access to obtaining a better education.

Concept

I teach first year nursing students. When they begin their clinical rotations, the time spent in the classroom is diminished. Often times I find myself needing a way to communicate with my clinical group between clinical times. I would like to work on developing a site for asynchronous learning for my group. I want to develop a format similar to Desire 2 Learn or Angel that will be a secure site. On this site, we will post announcements for the coming week and share general information with each other. The main purpose of the site would be to discuss scenarios that were encountered during the rotation and give feedback on varying ways to handle the situation. The site would include drop boxes for which care plans would be submitted for grading, upon completion. This would speed up the turnaround time for the students receiving their feedback from the instructor. As part of their clinical grade, case studies would be posted which would require students to address and develop their critical thinking skills.

Each student would be responsible for submitting their work in the prescribed time frame. Grades and some instructor comments would be available for only the individual student to access. All other postings would be available to all students who are enrolled in the clinical group. Students would be responsible for obtaining their own computer with internet access from either home, library or school computer lab.

While this would be a task-based learning community for the students, I would hope the faculty would embrace it and it would develop into a knowledge-based learning community. Task-based communities are communities that come together for a specific time to produce a specific product (Riel & Polin, 2004). This would be true for the students. They are involved only for input into that particular clinical setting and then they leave that site and move onto other areas of knowledge. Knowledge-based learning communities are committed to keep and share knowledge with the community (Riel & Polin, 2004). The faculty would be aimed towards knowledge-based learning as they would need to commit to the project and continuing it on from clinical to clinical. My hope would also be that the faculty would be able to present our idea and concept one day to encourage other schools to incorporate such learning into their programs.

Strategies

Most important would be to have all other clinical faculty in agreement with adopting this type of learning with their clinical groups. Students are notorious for comparing notes with other students, so to assign this type of assignment, such as additional case studies, to one group and not another would not be fair. Once faculty was in agreement with using a web portal, a format design would need to be created. For the first time the program was implemented, it would be a labor intensive process. The formatting and instruction strategies would need to be critiqued and programmed into the program. Trial runs would need to be performed to work out as many kinks as possible before running the program “live” with the students.

Each clinical instructor would be responsible for facilitating their own group. Each group would have their own login and password, as well as their own assigned site. No two clinical groups would be allowed to lurk onto each other’s sites. Weekly assignments would be made by the individual instructor. Especially with the first clinical run, much time would need to be given to monitor, update and critique the site. Students would be expected to participate by adding knowledge and sharing with their peers to increase thought provoking ideas.

Barriers

Setting up the site and proctoring the clinical group is a time consuming process. Human nature is such that one wants to be compensated for their time. If faculty is not willing to donate their time to this endeavor, funding would need to be provided from the school. This is not always possible, so the program may end up being scrapped. In this techno savvy generation, younger students may thrive at the opportunity to participate in an online study community. Students who do not have immediate access to the internet or those who feel they are technology challenged may have difficulty adjusting to a required online VLC.

Conceptual Development

By reviewing the literature regarding the different types and styles of online learning, I have had the opportunity to gain insight as to which approach may be more effective in instituting my plan. Originally, my plan to was to form a blog page but through the work I have observed and learned about through this class so far, it appears that using a learning site would be more efficient and in the long run would be a tool that could be used to develop critical thinking in the students. For this program to be a success, I would like to see that students are stimulated by the experience and that their exam scores show an improvement in critical thinking skills, but more than that, I would like for this to become an experience that is replicated and used by other schools. If the students consider this to be another task in a series of tasks, the program cannot be successful and may end up cast aside, such as programs like MediaMOO (Renninger & Shumar, 2002).

References

Renniger, K. & Shumar, W., (2002). Building Virtual Communities: Learning and change in
cyberspace. (pp.21-33). Cambridge University Press.

Riel, M. & Pollin, L. (2004). Learning communities: Common ground and critical
differences in designing technical environments. In S. Barab, R. Kling & J. Gray (Eds.),
Designing for Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning. Cambridge, MA:
Cambridge University Press.