Pedagogy in Cyberspace: The Dynamics of Online Discourse

Cindy Xin, Andrew Feenberg
2007 E-Learning and Digital Media  
This article elaborates a model for understanding pedagogy in online educational forums. The model identifies four key components. Intellectual engagement describes the foreground cognitive processes of collaborative learning. Communication processes operating in the background accumulate an ever richer store of shared understandings that enable the forward movement of the conversation. The collaborative process requires a moderator to coordinate communication and learning in a group. The
more » ... tor in online education is usually a teacher who shares knowledge in the process of leading discussion. Finally, a successful discussion generates intrinsic motivations to participate, which keep the discussion going. This framework is designed to bring out the complexity of online discussion and to provide a basis for advising teachers and evaluating applications and software. Résumé Cet article élabore un modèle pour comprendre la pédagogie associée aux forums éducationnels en ligne. L'engagement intellectuel décrit les processus cognitifs d'avant-plan de l'apprentissage collaboratif. Les processus de communication fonctionnant en arrière-plan emmagasinent pour leur part des compréhensions partagées encore plus riches qui permettent de faire avancer la conversation. Le processus collaboratif requiert un modérateur pour coordonner la communication et l'apprentissage dans le groupe. En éducation en ligne, le modérateur est habituellement un enseignant qui partage des connaissances tout en menant la discussion. Finalement, une discussion réussie génère des motivations intrinsèques à participer qui soutiennent la discussion. Ce cadre de référence est conçu de manière à faire ressortir la complexité des discussions en ligne et pour offrir une base afin de conseiller les enseignants, et évaluer les applications et les logiciels. CINDY XIN and ANDREW FEENBERG learning in asynchronous forums can contribute to overcoming this bias and refocus efforts in online education on the teacher-student relationship. The Complexity of Online Discussion By engaged collaborative discourse we mean group dialogue in pursuit of shared understanding and convergence. The term engaged is used here to emphasize that the participants interact with each other around substantive issues. In our view, engaged collaborative discourse is the best use of online forums for educational purposes. It should play a significant role in both blended and distance learning. However, we do not claim that it is the typical or standard practice of online educators and learners. It is a challenging and time-consuming activity for teachers and students, but well worth the effort. Like its face-to-face counterpart, online discussion seamlessly combines many speech acts in each utterance. For example, acknowledging receipt of a message carries at least two kinds of information back to the writer: information about the material process of communication-the message got through; and information about the human relations of communication-someone noticed the message and judged it acceptable. If the exchange is semantically rich enough, content-related information may also be conveyed by the response, advancing the communication process in which the interlocutors are engaged. These interactions have a further dynamic import: writing a message that is delivered and accepted encourages further activity in the forum. Such condensations of discursive functions are no exception to the rule; on the contrary, they are typical of the multilayered complexity of human communication. In education, the complexity has an additional layer not usually found in other contexts, that is, the construction of knowledge through intellectual exchange in a pedagogical community. The social relations of communication are entangled with the learning process in ways that, though difficult to analyze, are grasped to some degree intuitively by teachers and students who draw on a lifetime of educational experience. The educational literature does not always reflect this entanglement of human communication. Much of the existing work classifies various communicative actions into one category or another depending on whether the interpreter focuses on the social, instructional, or cognitive aspects of discourse. In fact utterances often serve multiple purposes that can be distinguished analytically. We identify four such layers of communicative interaction in online discussion. They are (a) intellectual engagement, (b) communication and common ground, (c) dialogue and motivation, and (d) group dynamics and leadership. Analytical distinctions such as those we make here are invaluable for understanding the complexity of phenomena; however, they do not always correspond to neat distinctions in PEDAGOGY IN CYBERSPACE 3 4 CINDY XIN and ANDREW FEENBERG Intrinsic Motives Moderating Functions Stimulate 14 CINDY XIN and ANDREW FEENBERG 20 CINDY XIN and ANDREW FEENBERG
doi:10.2304/elea.2007.4.4.415 fatcat:ljprkdrylvhnvoqovrlks3gvji