CHAPTER 8

SOCIAL LEARNING PERSPECTIVE OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

CHAPTER OUTLINE

Social learning •
Features of technology in social learning •
Building learning communities/group •
OBJECTIVES

By the End of This Chapter, You Should Be Able

To
• Clarify the definition of social learning
• Build and manage a learning community
LEARNING ACTIVITY
• According to your own experience, describe a
social learning experience and your own
perceptions as well as summarize the advantages
of social learning.
INTRODUCTION

Social media is changing communication between individuals and organizations. People can
now enjoy a new type of learning by integrating social media. With the aid of the Internet,
learners can get access to courses, instructional materials, and co-learners anytime and
anywhere. In addition, learning with social media can provide a high degree of interactivity
among participants who are separated both geographically, temporally, and culturally.
Social media afford students many of the benefits of face-to-face interaction without the
need to travel to specific places at specific times. In this chapter, we will introduce
educational technology from the perspective of social learning and discuss the roles of
technology in social learning, describe ways to build and manage learning community.
SOCIAL LEARNING

Definition
• Social learning was proposed by Bandura (1962), who believed
people learn from others through observation, imitation, and
modeling.
• Wenger (1998) describes social learning as active social
participation in a community of practice.
BENEFITS OF SOCIAL LEARNING

• Social learning emphasizes the fact that individuals learn from social interactions in
communities and groups.
• When students act as a part of a group, they can gain experience during collaboration and
develop the important skills of critical thinking, self-reflection, and co-construction of
knowledge (Brindley, Walti, & Blaschke, 2009).
• Specific benefits of social learning can be summarized into four major categories: social,
psychological, academic, and assessment as follows (Laal & Ghodsi, 2012):
Social benefits:
• Contributes to the development of social support system for students. Learners work in
groups or communities through social learning, so they could get suggestions and
information from others to deal with questions and problems.
• Helps to build various understanding among learners and instructors. The different
experience of learner would result in various understanding to same things. Positive
relationships between different kinds of people are encouraged in social learning to
develop broad perspective and understanding.
• Establishes a positive atmosphere for collaboration.
Learners participate in peer interactions usually hold a
positive attitude and motivation that lead to active
social responses to problems and results in a friendly
environment.
Psychological benefits:
• Student-centered instruction increases students’ self-esteem. In a social learning setting, instruction
is learner-centered; learners are responsible for conducting inquiries, applying knowledge, and
making meaning of new concepts.
• Cooperation reduces anxiety. In social learning setting, learners are usually in supportive
environments to manage conflict resolution and get help to solve problems.
• Develops students’ positive attitudes toward teachers. In a social learning setting, the environment
is open, which allows a teacher to have smooth conversations with students. In addition, teachers
can better know students and give proper guidance.
Academic benefits:
• Classroom results are improved. Compared with face-to-face teaching,
students in social learning deliver more complete reports, make higher
quality decisions, and perform better on complex tasks that require groups
to generate ideas and solutions.
• Critical thinking skills are promoted. When a learner interacts with others,
the learner can analyze information from a broader perspective, which
could improve his/her critical thinking skills.
• Students are actively involved in the learning process. The learner is the
center in a social learning context, so learners own the responsibility for
learning. They are actively involved in the learning process and more likely to
be interested in learning.
• Problem-solving techniques are enhanced. When students work in pairs or
small groups, one person is listening, while others discuss the question under
investigation. All involved are developing valuable problem-solving skills by
formulating and discussing ideas while receiving immediate feedback from
co-learners.
Assessment benefits:
• Collaborative teaching techniques utilize a variety of
assessments. In social learning settings, the instructor has more
chances to interact with students. Thus, instructors can assess
students based on the quality of interactions in addition to
exams and other artifacts.
FEATURES OF TECHNOLOGY IN SOCIAL
LEARNING
• Nowadays, technology plays a vital role in social interactions. Example technologies
include Facebook, Friendster, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Twitter, and WeChat. These
tools involve large-scale networks and the ability to interact in and contribute to large
groups. Blogs and wikis are also used but lack many of the benefits of social media tools
(Spector, 2015).
• Social media is beneficial in promoting social learning, such as providing community
platforms, learning resources and contents, and learning activities. Resta & Laferrière
(2007) summarize the features of technology in social learning as follows:
• To promote student collaboration and knowledge creation. Collaboration can be thought of
as the process of shared creation (Schrage, 1990). With the interactive nature of technology,
students can communicate with others conveniently and represent knowledge clearly, which
results in students’ active and deep engagement in collaboration.
• To enhance student cognitive performance or foster deep understanding. Social interaction
is considered as a source of cognitive advancement (Resta & Laferrière, 2007). With the
help of technology, students could get smooth communication with each other. For example,
mind management tools and concept maps can help present ideas clearly to support
reflective thinking and deep understanding.
• To add flexibility of time and space for social learning. The virtual workspace has been
increasing its popularity in people’s daily life. Students can finish their work in different
place and time; thus, they can overcome the trouble of place and time. For example, in
MOOCs, although students come from different countries, they can work together because
of virtual space provided by the course.
• To promote student engagement and keep track of student collaboration. Learning analytics
and big data are useful in monitoring learner progress. Many learning platforms can track
and analyze the behavior and learning processes to monitor and predict student’s
achievements and recommend interventions to promote learning.
BUILDING AND MANAGING LEARNING COMMUNITIES
AND GROUPS

• The Five Stages of Group Development

Before building a group, how a group develops should be
understood. Effective group development follows a structured
process. Tuckman (1965), Tuckman and Jensen (1977)
summarized that process regarding five stages: forming,
storming, norming, performing, and adjourning (Fig. 7.1).
• Forming: People with same goals come together, and they need to know
the similarities and differences of the team members. The critical thing at
this stage is to let members becoming familiar with each other and their
task. Discussing the scope of the effort, formulating the methods to deal
with the task, and establishing the rules of engagement are relevant at this
stage.
• Storming: When the group attempts to accomplish a task, conflicts about responsibility,
division, or rules may surface. The important things at this stage are listening to others,
clarifying ideas, finding solutions, and testing ideas.
• Norming: When the group overcomes a conflict, the members become more actively
engaged and more involved in sharing information, maintaining community, and solving
new issues. The important thing at this stage is group awareness that the group is
effective. Indicators of group effectiveness at this stage are the clarification of interaction
processes and taking actions to address problems.
• Performing: When the group reaches this stage, members are genuinely interdependent,
and the group has developed a real unity. Group members are highly oriented to tasks; they
collaborate smoothly and play different roles according to the group needs. The important
thing at this stage is solving problems in the best way to promote group development. Not
all group can reach this stage.
• Adjourning: The group is not always active or developing. A group can be terminated
when the task is over or when the group disbands for any reason. The important thing at this
stage is concluding the achievement, recognizing member’s contributions, and giving
members the chance to say good-byes to each other.
• Group development is not always linear. The group process can loop back to storming
when there are unsolved conflicts, or when new members join or difficulties in
understanding tasks arise. Establishing rules of engagement in early stages of a group
development will help when the group encounters problems in later stages.
 PRESENTATION NEXT LECTURE

Building and Managing Small Groups : WIILASHA

Building and Managing Communities: GABBDHAHA

BUILDING AND MANAGING SMALL GROUPS

In a classroom environment, grouping has multiple possibilities. The person who will
decide the grouping (students, teachers, or randomly assigned), depends on the task
setting and group characteristics. Before considering the grouping, the group size should
be determined. The ideal size of the group depends on the purpose and content of
classroom teaching, but it is generally considered that four to five people are optimal.
Several issues should be considered in determining the number of groups (Dreyer &
Harder, 2009):
• How long does it take for a group to learn?
• How much experience have the students had?
• How old are the students?
• What materials are available for students to use?
• How comprehensive are these materials?
After the group size is determined, different methods can be applied. Dreyer and Harder
(2009) proposed four methods to build groups in classroom settings.
• Randomly
• According to scores
• According to interest
• According to feelings.
When students are grouped, there is often a situation where someone is not included; the
teacher needs to persuade the group to accept those students not already included in the
group.
• Therefore, the task of grouping is often done by the teacher. Whichever grouping method
used, students should be given a chance to change to another group. If students have the
opportunity to participate in the selection of partners, their acceptance of learning with their
partners will also increase. Thus, the freedom to change partners will play a positive role in
promoting student participation.
After the team has been identified, the role of each team member in accomplishing the task
needs to be clarified. Through this clear division of labor, the team can work together to
enhance their confidence. In addition, the role of team members can vary depending on the
task.
BUILDING AND MANAGING COMMUNITIES

• Learning communities provide necessary support for social learning. Learners interact
with others in learning community and group to form social relationships. However, the
establishment and management of a learning community need time and effort and follow
the group development law. Essential elements for establishing prosperous learning
communities are informality, familiarity, honesty, openness, heart, passion, dialogue,
rapport, empathy, trust, authenticity, disclosure, humor, and diverse opinions (Chapman,
Ramondt, & Smiley, 2005). According to the five stages to build a projected course by
Waltonen-Moore et al. (2006), we propose the four stages of building and managing
learning community:
1. Introductions—This step is a getting-to-know-you phase. Some methods, such as self-
introduction and ice-breaking tasks, can be used to create an initial and emotional connection
with others in the community.
2. Involved within the group—This step is a deeper understanding of group as a part of group. Some
methods, such as making group rules and clarifying task division, can be used to make a deeper
connection between individuals and the group.
3. Form primary Interact—This step is a normalization phase. The individuals in the group begin
sharing information with each other, for example, discussing the course contents. Some methods,
such as providing feedback on interactions, can be used to promote interaction between the groups.
4. Promote real collaboration—This step is a real collaboration
phase. The individuals begin to confirm their ideas and actively
reflect themselves. Some methods, such as writing reflection,
can be used to enhance group members’ collaboration.
..……END