Blended learning environments hold much potential for expanding learning opportunities and services for professional education and information access. Libraries and LIS programs are increasingly connecting people across distance and time, using the capacity of technology to augment or replace face-to-face encounters. Two major areas influence the quality of these interactions - computer-mediated communication and the characteristics of the learning environment.
Creative Tensions: Face-to-Face and Online Presence
Herbert Clark's (Clark & Brennan, 1991) theory of common ground provides a theoretical basis for understanding the creative tensions of the face-to-face/online duality through the inhibiting and enabling factors characteristic of different types of communication media. The theory posits that common ground must be established for effective communication to occur. One of the key tenets in grounding is least collaborative effort. Eight "constraints" or enabling factors affect communication efficiency (Table 1). Face-to-face communication allows the greatest communication efficiency because it provides the richest array of enablers, while email and letters are the most restrictive.
| Enabler | Description |
|---|---|
| Copresence | Communicators share the same physical environment. |
| Visibility | Communicators are visible to each other. |
| Audibility | Communicators can hear each other. |
| Cotemporality | Communicators receive messages at roughly the same time they are produced. |
| Simultaneity | Communicators can send and receive at once and simultaneously. |
| Sequentiality | Communicators' conversation turn taking cannot get out of sequence. |
| Reviewability | Communicators can review each other's messages (i.e., messages are permanently recorded). |
| Revisability | Communicators can revise messages for each other (e.g., letters, email). |
| Based on Clark & Brennan, 1991. | |
Establishing common ground for communication entails costs, including: (1) formulation costs - effort needed to formulate utterances, (2) reception costs - effort needed to process communication received, (3) understanding costs - effort needed to understand communication, (4) start-up costs - effort needed to start up new communication, (5) delay costs - adverse effects of delaying one's communication, (6) speaker change costs - effort needed for turn taking, (7) display costs - effort needed to gesture and indicate, and (8) fault costs - adverse effects of committing a communication mistake. The type of medium influences the techniques used to compensate for the costs of establishing common ground. Four media that I use in my blended courses are wikis, email, chat, and face-to-face sessions. These offer different configurations of enablers and costs (Table 2). Though more costly in most areas, the online media allow reviewability and revisability, which support learning in ways not possible under face-to-face conditions. Notably, the online media uniquely support reflection and co-reflection through the persistence of online communication.
| Medium | Enablers | Costs |
|---|---|---|
| Face-to-face meetings | Copresence, visibility, audibility, cotemporality, simultaneity, sequentiality | Communication costs are minimal, making communication very efficient. However, face-to-face communication lacks the benefits of reviewability and revisability. |
| Chat sessions | Cotemporality, simultaneity, sequentiality, reviewability | Higher costs exist for all categories compared to face-to-face, but chat provides the benefit of reviewability lacking in face-to-face. |
| Wiki pages | Reviewability, revisability | Higher costs exist in most categories compared to face-to-face. Writers of wiki pages who pay higher formulation costs may lower the reception and understanding costs of readers. |
| Reviewability, revisability | Higher costs exist in most categories compared to face-to-face. Writers of email who pay higher formulation costs may lower the reception and understanding costs of readers. | |
| Source: Yukawa, 2007. | ||
Characteristics of Professional Development Programs
Numerous studies have shown that effective professional development focuses on reflective practice and involves: (1) personal commitment; (2) building trusting relationships through collaboration; (3) opportunities and ongoing support for continuous learning; (4) inquiry-based, practice-based learning in authentic settings; (5) recognizing and respecting differences in practitioners' theoretical backgrounds, prior knowledge, experiences, and expertise; (6) risk taking; and (7) evaluation and feedback. However, typical professional development activities are often: (1) focused on individual learning; (2) one-time events (e.g., lecture or workshop) or formal classroom instruction (e.g., semester-long course); (3) conducted away from authentic settings; (4) based on artificial exercises or independent practice without guidance; (5) focused on action rather than reflection; and (6) focused on answers rather than inquiry (Yukawa, Harada, & Suthers, 2007). These weaknesses can be addressed through using a CoP-based framework for learning.
CoP-Based Framework for Learning
Studies that colleagues and I have conducted on online professional development programs indicate that the communities of practice framework can be an effective diagnostic tool and guide for improving goal achievement through social learning. We examined how reflective practice can be fostered in a blended professional development course in which K-12 librarians and teachers collaborated on K-12 information literacy instruction. The study allowed us to refine the CoP framework for use by others developing similar courses (Yukawa, Harada, & Suthers, 2007).
In our model, the foundation for learning that supports all other aspects is relationship building, because the community is its relationships. Participation, the second dimension, encompasses the actions that are valuable in an emerging community of librarians and teaching faculty. Participation begins with a commitment to engage, involves taking risks with new ideas from other CoPs (such as a global community's knowledge of best practices), and builds toward mutual accountability through alignment. Three creative tensions were most prominent in the study. (1) Participation-reification: Co-reflection on action results in reifications that are used to guide future action. (2) Designed-emergent: Planning is essential, and plans should be continually adapted to emerging conditions. (3) Face-to-face/online: When time and/or distance inhibit participation, face-to-face and online communication can be leveraged to take advantage of the enabling factors of each.
References
Clark, H. & Brennan, S.E. (1991). Grounding in communication. In L.E. Resnick & J.M. Levine (Eds.), Perspectives on socially shared cognition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Yukawa, J. (2007). Factors influencing online communication style in LIS problem-based learning. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 48 (1), 52-63.
Yukawa, J., Harada, V., & Suthers, D. (2007). Professional development in communities of practice. In S. Hughes-Hassell and V. H. Harada (Eds.), The School Library Media Specialist and Education Reform (pp. 179-192). Westport: Libraries Unlimited/Teacher Ideas Press,
