Abstract
Online learning environments are a vulnerable space, for learners as well as for course instructors. Online environments are frequently pre-designed spaces in which traditional and non-traditional learning experiences occur, removing the natural ability to pivot and shift the instructional process that is naturally occurring within traditional face to face learning environments. Recognizing this, the importance around course design towards learner engagement and underlying motivational supports become stronger imperatives. The authors come together as instructors, learners, and instructional designers, to discuss the experienced strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats towards motivational collegial engagement in online course design. An aligned Unalome reference supports the progressive journey of motivational collegial engagement, from beginnings of motivational engagement through the path that leads into collegial engagement and future potentials.
TopIntroduction
Embedding the ability of the learner’s cognitive transformation within an online environment is motivational and engaging, for the learner as well as for the instructor. The energy and excitement around positive online environments is motivational for the online learner, but equally engaging and energizing for the instructor. The learning community that is developed through humanist engagement and cognitive engagement can be palatable, equally strengthened by the collegial learning community that reflects the supports of implicit cognitive vulnerability as a theoretical construct (Crawford, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019; Crawford et al., 2019; Crawford & Semeniuk, 2016; Crawford & Smith, 2015) within learning landscapes of practice process (Wenger-Trayner, et al., 2014; Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2015, Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2020) that reflect:
…an understanding around value creation within the bounds of more socialized elearning spaces that are inherent within the hyperconnected world of the Internet, or the Web of Things (WoT) that has been embedded within the Digital Age’s immediacy of information and the socialization that occurs as inherent within the learning process. (Crawford et al., 2022b, p. 1)
Yet within online environments, the natural engagement of a learning community desires a more creative consideration; specifically, the collegial community opportunities must be more fully integrated into the online environment so as to motivate the learners. Specifically, a learner’s self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986, 1994) that is as guided by Bandura’s work associated with social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986, 1994, 1997, 2001, 2008; Bandura & Walters, 1977) and self-regulation (Baumeister, 2014; Zimmerman, 2000) are inherent elements of an online environment that supports motivational collegial engagement environments.
Within online environments, the consideration towards an embedding of a curiosity, a wondering, around the subject matter as well as the creativity associated with the ability to realize information in novel and diverse ways (Baruah & Paulus, 2019; Henriksen et al., 2016; Paulus & Brown, 2007) is motivational, burgeoning excitement for learners as well as an excitement associated with the instructor’s engagement towards learner success. This recognition of the intentionality and the collaborative synergistic, symbiotic information-focused metaphoric dance within online environments offers an excitement that emphasizes motivational creativity and reciprocal engagement. As suggested by Henriksen et al. (2016):
Creativity can be viewed as a process and/or a product, and is generally thought of as the production of useful solutions to problems, or novel and effective ideas (Amabile, 1996). An idea that has novelty, but lacks in value or effectiveness to other people, cannot be considered “creative” (Cropley, 2003). (p. 28)
Key Terms in this Chapter
Learning Experience: A course is designed to not only impart knowledge to the learner, but equally important is the engagement of the learner in the experiences associated with learning the new information. This may include interactive activities within the learning environment, formative assessments, summative assessments, and other forms of simulated and real experiences around the focused learning objectives that may be competency-based or capability-based.
Self-Efficacy: A component of motivational learning theory, wherein the learner has a sense of belief in one’s own ability to be successful. Within a learning environment, this is the suggestion that the learner has developed a sense of ability and comfortability that attempting to learn something and successfully complete an assigned task will be successfully achieved.
Landscape of Practice: Beyond the bounds of the four walls of the traditional classroom learning experience, metaphorically inherent within the potential traditional silos of online learning environments, the emphasis upon learners engaging their personal and professional environments towards formatively evaluating the learning that has occurred in-course is important and impactful towards conceptualizing the learned knowledge within real world situations.
Instructional Design: The systematic design of instruction process, that is implemented to move through the generic process associated with designing and developing instruction: analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation.
Implicit Cognitive Vulnerability: This is a theory that has been under development by one of the authors. The recognition that long-term memory may be impacted by the learning environment’s ability to be supportive and equally allowing the cognitive vulnerability of each learner. Learning environment trauma may impact the learner’s ability to maintain and retain new knowledge and information in long-term memory.
Self-Regulation: A component of motivational learning theory, self-regulation is the ability to control oneself and one’s learning process towards successful completion. This may be designed into the learning process by a course instructor or instructional designer (extrinsically), or it may be implemented (intrinsically) by the learner.
Cognitive Transformation: The process through which learners journey, during which learners obtain new knowledge, analyze and work with the new knowledge towards integration into long-term conceptual frameworks of understanding, and the potential towards transforming the way that a learner conceptualizes information, the way that the learner views occurrences within the real world, and the enhancement of understanding through interacting with academic learning experiences, while equally embracing engagement with personal and professional real world environments in which the learning is formatively evaluated as viable, correct, and useful. Transformation occurs through the learner’s obtainment of new information that flows into prior knowledge, while equally offering the potential to re-analyze and rethink the world in which the learner is embedded.