EXPLORATION

= 1. EXPLORATION =

Since the underlying framework of this online learning design is ILDF, the three focal points of the design strategy, R2D2, have been classified under the three phases respectively. It should be noted that since one of the guidelines of R2D2 model is recursion and reiteration, the design process was as a result non-linear. The reader should appreciate that due to inherently non-linear structure of the design model, this narrative may seem to “fail” to meet the sequential/ linear structure of traditional design models. For example, whilst definition has been classified under the exploration phase, it is permissible for the developer to revisit the definition focus point at any stage in the design process.

**1.1. ****DEFINITION** There are three **focal points** of the R2D2 model: Definition, Design and Development, and Dissemination. //Definition// involves (i) creating a participatory team, (ii) progressive problem solution, and (iii) developing contextual understanding. For Willis and Wright ( 2000 ), the most difficult task in //definition// is creating and supporting a participatory team.

 **1.1.1.** **Creating and supporting a participatory team**

Willis (2009) argues that the “the beginning of the project is neither the best time to create specified detailed objectives” nor for complete learner, task, or concept analyses as this is when there is the least agreement about what should be learned. Rather, he suggests that instead of collecting data, the principle of R2D2 is that the online developer should rather become a facilitator of design process, sharing decision making and exploration issues with other members of the design team. The designer should instead understand that the specific details will “emerge across the design process and will be of much higher quality than information and perceptions gained primarily at the beginning” (Willis, 2009:315).

In the introduction page, I had highlighted that my work at the Writing Centre involves advocating for writing-for-learning in disciplines. We often send out invitations to lecturers to form partnerships with the centre, so that through collaboration we are able to propose ways that the lecturer can integrate writing as a teaching and learning strategy in his or her classroom. Even in this instance, I had sent an invitation to lecturers I knew had shown their interest in collaborating with the Writing Centre. In my correspondence I indicated that the activity would have to be online because this is what was expected for my studies. I was also aware that most of the lecturers would be reluctant for me to use their class time, as there had been student unrest that had lasted for almost four weeks. As anticipated, some of the lecturers were apprehensive about the timing of my request as they felt it would take time away from the students, who were expected to dedicate all their efforts in making up for lost time.

It was by coincidence that during a consultation with an Auditing II student, he raised concerns his difficulties to keep up with his studies because it seemed every lecturer was going the work at the fastest rate. Besides heavy lectures, the student felt overwhelmed by the number of tests he had to write within a short space of time. I subsequently approached the lecturer with a proposal to work with her and group of students on ways to encourage students to work collaboratively as a way of mitigating some of the challenges that the student had highlighted.

Creating a team was not as difficult as supporting and facilitating participation, especially with the lecturer. It is likely that the convenient sampling method of selecting students for the study had positive results because the students showed a lot of interest and were keen participants right from the beginning. However, the lecturer became the most reluctant participant in the team. Considering that this task was to be online, the lecturer voiced her dislike of what she termed “information overload” from the web. As a course lecturer and a‍ ‍ subject expert, she had to be coaxed to participate in order to provide expert support to the team. I believe that as much as the lecturer was interested in seeing her students develop to be independent learners, she had been of the impression that this would be one of those Writing Centre initiatives where the coordinator worked mainly with students, and as such would require minimal participation from her.

**1.1.1.** **Progressive problem solution**

R2D2 model views work of design as “a process of progressively solving multiple problems in context.” This requires all team members to have sophisticated knowledge of the context, and a full understanding that solutions to the problems that occur in one context need solutions fit for that particular context. As a participatory constructivist model, solutions will originate from negotiation and collaboration among all participants.

In addition, R2D2 proposes an approach where objectives at the beginning are “fuzzy”, which directly influences design and development work. Solutions to the problems emerge across the design process. For example for this online intervention, I had set out without any clear objective of what the task would be. All I knew for certain was that it would have to entail some writing, possibly for learning. The responses from the lecturers whom I had invited to participate in the project were disconcerting. The main reason that most had put forward for not taking up my offer was that they needed to fully utilise their lecture time. None of them considered the possibility of integrating writing into their curriculum to foster learning; since most use writing mainly for assessment purposes. I could specualte that some lecturers would possibly have been more receptive if they had not been under pressure to cover most of their courses' curricula.

For the Auditing group, the challenges that the students had raised needed to be addressed; otherwise the lecturer's efforts would not come to fruition if students were left behind because they could not keep up with the hectic teaching schedule. The lecturer, on the other hand, was concerned that the students were “lazy” to read, and relied on her notes. Her goal was for students to start reading and preparing their own notes as a means of preparing for exams. Students craved more interaction, and to be given agency for their learning instead of depending on the lecturer’s notes, which she so religiously prepared for the class. As we continued with the work of designing and developing, the objective of the task became clearer. From our individual objectives we were able to define the team’s objective; for instance the task would be i) collaborative (constructivist pedagogy of the Writing Centre); ii) it was intended to allow students to take ownership of their learning (agency); iii) it would include students writing their own notes; iv) and as motivation, it would bein preparation of an assessment.

Regarding what content was to be learned, the final decision was also made after numerous revisions.When I first approached the lecturer, she had provided me with a [|list of topics and questions] that students were expected to read around and the [|course learner guide]. The students decided among themselves the distribution of topics, so that each member of the team would read and prepare notes on a specific section, whilst others were working on others. The list of topics submitted by the lecturer covered the curriculum for the semester. She had envisioned that the project would be conducted over the whole of the last term as I had failed to clarify this to her. However, the objectives had to be revised because students raised concerns that they could not start working on their topics, as they would rather spend their time getting ready for a class test, which was to be written in a few days. Therefore, after consultations with the lecturer, the task was revised to focus only on what would be covered in the coming test. This revision of content influenced the design and development work, since revisions also had to be made to distribution of responsibilities and the time frames to complete the task. This also directly influenced the choice of tools to complete the task at hand.

<span style="display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: justify;">**1.1.3 Developing phronesis / contextual knowledge** <span style="display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: justify;">R2D2 is “based on the assumption that there is much that is unique in each design context and thus the designer (as well as other members of the team) must have, or develop a sophisticated understanding of (“practical wisdom”) the particular context in which the design will take place” (Willis, 2009: 326). Willis further suggests several ways of obtaining this wisdom, which include: regular observations and interviews, conversations and collaboration with members. The investigations were done guided by some of the questions that had been prepared as part prepatory work for context analysis in [|EDN5101S 2011 on context]. <range type="comment" id="716750">Questionnaire items were also prepared for the [|lecturer] and [|students] for a better understanding of the context .Above all, my knowledge of the context and experience from working for the CLTD, a unit that drives the E-learning strategy at WSU was enabling in the production of a very comprehensive contextual analyisis.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: justify;">The campus in which this project was based, is one of the three campuses at WSU. As an institution, WSU came about after the merger of two technikons and a university. All academic programmes offered at this campus are Diploma programmes because of its legacy as a former technikon. Also, the admission requirements are less stringent compared to the other campus, which has always been a traditional university.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: justify;">One of the main challenges for the whole institution, which mainly contributed to the establishment of the Writing Centres, is low retention and throughput rates. The institution draws its students from poor socio-economic and educational backgrounds; and to most of these students, English is either a second or third language. The low retention and throughput rates have been attributed to the students’ academic underpreparedness, as well as lack of competence in the language of teaching and learning. Support services such as the Writing Centre are meant to aid faculties and academic departments to address these challenges, in order to improve throughput rates.

Considering all the challenges I have mentioned that our students bring to the classroom, the Writing Centre embraces the view that encouraging the students to read more widely and write more extensively on their own or in collaboration with others will aid their quality of learning as well as retention and throughput rates. This is the philosophy we are promulgating in all our interactions with academic staff. Whilst, many of the academic staff agree with this ‘ideal’, many struggle to integrate writing in their course. Opportunities for writing are limited to class tests, assignments, or exams. We believe that if writing is only limited to these few instances; it may contribute to poor and surface learning where students only read to pass exams.

<span style="display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: justify;">As an institution, Walter Sisulu University (WSU) has [|**The Institutional E-Learning Strategy (2009**)] that was formulated in response to the Institutional Access, Retention, and Throughput Strategy (2006), which recommended integration of technology into teaching and learning to improve throughput. At our campus, there are two e-learning labs that together are housing ninety (90) computers. These computer labs are open for student use from the morning to the evening during weekdays. Students are encouraged to use the labs for research and assignment writing skills. Training on using Blackboard, which is a university ladopted LMS, for students is usually done at the request of the lecturer; but all courses and students have accounts. <span style="display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: justify;">The institution has also adopted a non-coersive approach to e-learning as it has proven successful in other institutions such as the University of the Western Cape, where they attest to marked voluntary buy-in by academics, who thereafter take on the role of e-learning champions.The adoption rate of e-learning is still remarkably low in our campus.

<span style="display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: justify;">I believe that ICT integration at WSU is at its emerging phase, although others, especially from the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology (FSET) have argued that we are at the reflection stage. The e-learning project was piloted at the CLTD and FSET; hence FSET has successfully integrated e-learning. However, for the rest of institution, training for lecturers and students only began in earnest in 2010. At this stage, lecturers are mainly oriented to the LMS and encouraged to upload their course material such as lecture notes, PowerPoint Presentations, etc. mostly without any input from an e-learning instructional developer. Any prospective online learning intervention would have to consider how ICTs were used in the course, and hopefully build on that.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Considering that the institution has an e-learning strategy, the lecturer was asked about how she integrated ICTs in her course, especially her use of the institution’s LMS. The lecturer confessed to not having used the LMS, and her limited use of the Web. On visiting the course site on the LMS, it was found that the course site had never been used even as a content management site. In designing and development work, I had to take into consideration that this would possibly be the first time for Auditing II students to engage in an online activity for the course, and this would have implications for scaffolding that students would require.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Further probing about the reading list of texts for the course revealed that the lecturer used limited resources to prepare her lecture notes, and that there was no encouragement for the students to read beyond the prescribed textbook. The lecturer mentioned her fears about students’ volatility if she were seen to be imposing more work to the students; she had decided not to impose any more work. Regardless, the lecturer still wished for her students to develop as independent learners who read beyond the textbook, and could relate what they learned in the classroom to real life auditing practice. <range type="comment" id="280287">An [|e-questionnaire] was prepared for the lecturer in order to acquire comprehensive information about the lecturers’ perceptions about the needs of her students, her pedagogical and epistemological underpinnings, and how these inform her practice in the classroom to which [|responses] were received.

<span style="display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: justify;">Furthermore, Dabbagh (2007) suggests that determining the characteristics and educational needs of the online learner helps the instructional developer to understand a) who is likely to participate in online learning, b) what factors or motivators <range type="comment" id="163190">contribute to a successful online learning experience, and c) the potential barriers that may hinder full participation in an online course.

<span style="display: block; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: justify;">[|Questions] relating to the ICT skills of the students [|revealed] that all students were familiar with both word processing and the web tools. It was also established that the students had strong academic self-concept; hence they had agreed to become part of the pilot project. Their expression of the need for agency and more interaction among themselves and with the lecturer revealed that the students understood and appreciated collaborative learning. Whilst none of the students had apersonal computer, they all had easy access to a computer and the internet at the university labs as they lived within the university residences. In the designing and development of the task, students further demonstrated their self-directed learning skills, as they fully participate in the decision making about distribution of work and the time-frames for completion