A slideshow presentation of how Activity Theory can be used to study changing pedagogical practices and attitudes/beliefs

1. MOOCs and open practices: an activity
theory view
Michael Glover
7 April
PGDip Educational Technologies, guest lecture
University of Cape Town
Michael.glover@uct.ac.za @mjgresearch

2. Research question
How do educators’ openness-related practices and
attitudes change or not change after teaching
on/creating a MOOC?
http://roer4d.org/sp10-3-impact-of-oer-in-and-as-moocs-in-south-africa

3. What is a MOOC?
Massive (thousands of participants)
Open (no entry requirements)
Online (digitally mediated)
Course
•6 week course, each week divided into steps
•Videos, text, links, quizzes, peer-reviewed assignments

4. What is a Mind? Mark Solms

6. Those are photos of a MOOC!
Show me a real MOOC…
https://www.futurelearn.com/

7. What are open practices?
Beetham et al 2012
Opening up content to students not on campus/formally enrolled
Sharing and collaborating on content with other practitioners
Re-using content in teaching contexts
Using or encouraging others to use open content
Making knowledge publicly accessible
Teaching learning in open contexts

8. What are open practices?
Hodgkinson-Williams 2014
(1) Technical openness – e.g. interoperability and open formats, technical skill and resources, availability and
discoverability.
(2) Legal openness – e.g. open licensing knowledge and advice.
(3) Cultural openness – e.g. knowledge (on a continuum between homogenous and diverse) and curriculum (on a
continuum between institutionalised and autonomous).
(4) Pedagogical openness – e.g. student demographics and types of engagement (who is the imagined audience? Is
it conventional or imagined as diverse contextually differentiated. e.g. pedagogic strategy (choices around how one
teaches and facilitates learning – dialogic, didactic, collaborative, experimental).
(5) Financial openness (should OERs be free or come with a modest financial price tag?).

9. What are open practices?
1) Sharing
- Sharing ideas, content, technology (through networks)
- Reviewing, rating resources
2) Learner Inclusion
- Modify resources to meet learner needs
3) Growing Open content commons

10. Methodology
Qualitative
Activity theory (framework)
Semi-structured interviews, group interviews, reflection sessions
Artefact analysis
Longitudinal: just before MOOC is live, 10 months later
Coding themes with Nvivo 10
Link to annotated bibliography

11. Methodology
Activity Theory, Engëström 1987
Heuristic, conceptual framework
Object-directed systems
Subjects strive towards and consider an object
Locate educators’ practices and perceptions in context of mediating artefacts
Track and describe the introduction of new mediating artefacts
Observe the system at different time intervals (T1 T2 T3)
Always characterised by tensions/ contradictions/ disturbances
Contradictions: tensions or disturbances indicative of change, innovation or concern
Locate opportunities for change
Link to poster illustration of AT and changing practices

12. Object: advancing interdisciplinary field
“my pedagogical goal always is how do I speak to two different
audiences at the same time. How do I make the neuroscience
accessible to the psychologists, and how do I make the life of the mind
accessible to neuroscientists.
I think that this MOOC is trying to do the same thing”

13. Object

14. Mediating artefacts
1) MOOC design
the design of the MOOC, which includes the learning design
aspect, and the MOOC platform characteristics
2) Creative Commons licences

15. Activity Systems

16. Activity Systems

17. Difference between Activity systems
1) Thousands of participants have entered the system
2) MOOC design and CC licensed materials now live and
accessible

18. MOOCs and CC licences @ T1
None of the subjects were knowledgeable of CC licences or legal aspects of openness
I didn't know about MOOCs. I knew nothing about online learning. - MS
I’ve never done an online course before the MOOC, or before I knew about it – AD
But I think that there’s just been a dawning realisation that, you know, the
ownership of this intellectual property is antithetical to what we are trying to do.
We are not trying to own ideas, we are trying to disseminate ideas maybe. Trying
to advance knowledge. So I think it is a jolly good thing and I don’t know why we
never did it before and I am all for it

19. Findings @ T1
Multimodal affordances
Act as a kind of textbook, where “readings and additional
materials” can be “immediately accessible” (vs f2f)
“You can see little case studies, and read selected
publications…and you could never do that as a mere human
being (vs f2f)

20. Findings @ T1
Sharing, reuse, opening up
“it’s more bang for your buck…once the material is there, once it’s open access, you
can multiply [the] effect” MS (reuse, opening up, sharing)
there’s just been a dawning realisation that, you know, the ownership of this
intellectual property is like antithetical to what we are trying to do. We are not
trying to own ideas, we are trying to disseminate ideas… I don’t know why we never
did it before and I am all for it
(sharing, opening up, publicly accessible)
MOOC “reduces geographic and economic impediments to access” (opening up)

21. Findings @ T1
Sharing, reuse, opening up
So even if it wasn't the case and it's happening anyway, I would
be keen on it happening. I like the fact that people can just use it
however they like. (reuse)
Various [recorded] lectures I have given all over the place… and to
me it is no different from people sitting in the audience.. You are
talking to people because you want to explain something and the
more the merrier (sharing, publicly accessible, reuse)
Summary: learn while working; avoid geographic and economic
hurdles

22. Findings @ T1
Teaching and Learning in open networks
what I did learn is talking… is trying to convey – this I've never
done before – trying to convey really complicated material in
seven minute chunks. That's something. And it can be done
(Teaching and Learning in ON)

23. Findings @ T1
Pedagogic openness strategy
To ask what is a mind. That's a pretty good starting point. So it's a
fundamental question which is not daunting, doesn't look too
technical. Can be talked about in a way that's interesting. But then also
it provides you with a point of entry into the more technical,
complicated aspects (pedagogic openness)
So the idea is to sort of remove resistances by making it simple,
conversational, and of general applicability. And then you have a
platform from which you can gradually seduce people into learning
the technical complexities of it (pedagogic openness)

24. Contradiction @ T1
“we were a bit constricted by the fact that the material… not the
content of, like, the videos, but the extra resources, that there is
permissions and licensing and those sort of issues” AD
“it would have been nice to include more things, but then we’re
constrained by this, by possible licensing or copyright issues.” AD

25. Contradiction @ T1
there wasn’t really much difficulty in terms of licensing because there
wasn’t all that much, sort of, more published elsewhere, material. So it
wasn’t, it didn’t pose too much of a problem. I mean the authors on the
academic articles, they were very happy for it to be used, but it, you
know, because it was, it’s published already, you know, that comes with
its own thing, so. Even when the authors were very happy for it to be
open, open source, you need, you have to take into account that there’s
other people involved. But it didn’t, it wasn’t too much of a problem.

26. What happens 10 months later (T3) ?

27. Findings @ T3
Advancing the field
If …you have something to say, then obviously the more people
that you can communicate it to the better….both in terms of
influencing your field, in terms of spreading your knowledge. So
it’s done very well, from that point of view. (object, T&l in open
networks)
I'm referring to a wish to break down barriers in particular
between the neuro sciences and the sort of softer approaches to
psychology, psychoanalysis in particular. And I think it’s achieved
that (object, T&l in open networks)

28. Findings @ T3
Advancing the field
And at all of them…notwithstanding the variety of different subjects
that those conferences are devoted to…I find large numbers of people
who’ve done this course and who know it’s about…they mention the
world neuro-psychoanalysis which I'm not sure that they would have
come across otherwise (sharing, object, T&L in open networks)
really everywhere I go in the world I'm surprised at how many people
A, have taken this course, and B, have appreciated it. (sharing, object,
T&L in open networks)

29. Findings @ T3
Teaching and learning in open networks
Because there are very few people in this specialised sub-field that I'm working in,
neuro-psychoanalysis there are very few people who really can teach in that
domain now. I mean, hopefully it will change in future. And those few of us that
there are, we’re scattered around the world.. This has taught me, and encouraged
me, to use online platforms for teaching people in and about that field. (T&L in Open
networks, opening up)
it’s clearly getting a message across to those disparate audiences. Of a positive
kind, regarding what neuro-psychoanalysis is

30. Findings @ T3
Teaching and learning in open networks
I think that to be able to explain your point of view to people who
don’t share your educational background you really have to have
clarity of thought in order to convey complex technical arcane things
to a non-technical, non-specialist audience
In order to be able to speak to a massive audience of god knows what
educational background, cultural background, what sort of
assumptions and so on they come with, you have to really pare your
ideas down to the core essential content

31. Findings @ T3
Teaching and learning in open networks
When you have to teach in that way, it clarifies your own thinking process. (pedagogic openness)
I'm aware that many people are about, you know, this dumbing down and this is not... It’s mass
learning rather than personalised learning, and you know, there’s something lost in terms of the
human contact and... I’m... Whatever doubts I might have had, if I did it’s a sufficient measure of how
reassured I’ve been that I don’t even remember having the doubts. That I think it’s a jolly good thing
(encouraging others)
there’s a hell of a lot of... A hell of a lot, I would say the vast bulk of what we do, especially at
undergraduate level at the university, I don’t see why it can’t be done in this format. I don’t even see
why it can’t be enhanced by this format. Or versions of this format. So I'm all for it. That’s speaking
about it in general (NOT SURE if this is openness related)

32. Findings @ T3
Reuse
Mark really liked the answers he gave for our Ask Mark
sessions…he felt was really useful knowledge…to give to… the
users of the site. Who are basically the same cohort that, you
know, the same… he feels that his answers for the questions, for
the Ask Mark sessions were too much of a good resource to
waste. So he wants that included as well (T&L in open networks,
reuse, sharing)
I was thrilled to not have to redo it (reuse)

33. What is Ask Mark ???
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avE-TECsDYo&list=PLqSYUJvxD-
UAWU4FKCCT9qivDRJiUP_TE&nohtml5=False

34. Findings @ T3
Reuse
Something…you’ve recorded for one purpose can then be redeployed for
another purpose…I think the word is viral…that’s something good, you’re
supposed to be happy about. So if anything we’ve done goes viral, that
would be great. (reuse)
there are ways in which we’re now... That project, that Talking Heads project
is taking an entirely different shape from what I originally had in mind,
because of what we’ve learnt in the MOOC
He [a professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona] used it as an
introductory seminar for his psychiatry registrars. And he wrote rave reviews
of how well it went. Really got them engaged in... Interested in the field, and
engaged with an interesting topic, conversing with each other…So he was
delighted with it (reuse)

35. Contradiction @ T3
SP1 we had a guy in America, he’s a well known psychiatrist. He had
signed up for the second run but he wanted to quit the
course he was doing at the time and wanted to show the
video to his students. So I was able to send him... So we have, we were
in correspondence about that, and I was able to send him the videos
so he could the videos to his students.
SP2 Is this for the MOOC?
SP1 Yes, because it was in between the two runs and...
SP2 Okay. Okay.
SP1 He wasn’t signed up for the first one, so he couldn’t access it
and the second one hadn’t started yet. So...
SP2 Okay.
SP1 So, so that was a really cool aspect of having access, you k now,
being able to send him those videos, and then... He did the
MOOC when it actually came about.

36. Conclusion
Advancing the field
Include more learners
Real learning can take place
Multimodal affordances
Reuse
Learn to communicate ideas better (teach)
Future use at UCT?

37. References
Beetham, H., Falconer, I., McGill, L. and Littlejohn, A. (2012) Open
practices: briefing paper. JISC.
Engestrom, Yrjo. "Learning by expanding." Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit
Oy(1987).
Hodgkinson-Williams, C. Degrees of ease: Adoption of OER, Open
Textbooks and MOOCs in the Global South OER Asia Symposium 2014.