Pass the SoLT

In my previous posting I talked about the value of specific pedagogical interactions in promoting student engagement. On the whole I concluded that the value of interactions for distance learners is not rocket science. I continue with this theme as I share my reflections on another article from my weekly reading pile.

Kirkwood (2009), in a recent paper published in 'Technology, Pedagogy and Education', reinforces the importance of why we need to drill down to specific types of interactions. The paper makes a sweeping claim there is limited evidence that technology-led innovations within Higher Education have achieved the anticipated improvements in learning. While there is an element of truth in this conclusion it contains an important conceptual flaw as technology-enhanced learning is not a single entity.

From a conceptual and methodological point of view, the answer to the question of whether technology has transformed learning requires a much finer grain analysis. It's problematic to make sweeping generalizations about the effects of technology when interventions range from the use of automated multi-choice tests (student-content interaction) to engaging learners in online role-play (student-student interaction).

Again it's not rocket science that some pedagogic uses of technology are likely to lead to better quality interactions and learning outcomes than others. In this respect technology is not neutral as different uses and applications have different pedagogical affordances - although these are strongly mediated by the teacher.

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I'm finding it hard to maintain my professional reading whilst juggling a number of initiatives along with taking on increasing administrative responsibilities. Over the last couple of weeks, however, two journal articles have contributed to my thinking about current and future directions in blended and distance education. This is the first of a two part entry.

In the first article, published in the Review of Education Research, Bernard and colleagues (2009) provide a meta-analysis of three types of interaction treatments in distance education. Put simply, the paper finally puts to bed the value of crude comparison studies between conventional instruction and distance learning as there is little to be gained from this line of investigation. Instead, we need to better understand the different impacts of different distance education designs or intervention strategies.

The second largely univocal major finding of the meta-analysis is the importance of interaction. This is not a new finding and the value of interaction is not rocket science. The paper identifies three types of interactions in distance education: student–student (SS), student–teacher (ST) and student–content (SC) interactions. Importantly, it also acknowledges the need to differentiate within each of these interaction types between synchronous and asynchronous interaction, and hybrid or blended variations of the two approaches. Although meta-analyses often suffer from over generalising and losing a sense of the fine grain, the paper states:

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