Development of self-reflection

Learner-self interaction (Soo & Bonk, 1998, June) consists of "a learner's personal reflection on the learning-related content, the learning process and her personal understanding” (Bonk & Khoo, 2014, p. 86). Development of self-reflection was a peer scaffold present in nine postings (Students 1, 4, 6, 13). For example, Student 6 posted the next contribution about his experience of change:

When I first arrived at my current school the Health curriculum was taught in blocks (…) the more experienced staff (…) would often substitute these lessons for practical PE lesson (…) the Health area was not adequately resourced and we only had three timetabled lessons in a six day timetable. The consequence of this was students were receiving an often brief health education (…) More importantly, we were losing an excellent students to our subject, as their belief was that PE was all physical skills (…)

As the teacher in charge of the Health curriculum, I wanted greater buy in from the more experienced staff (…) [my] first step was to consult with PE staff and students about the essential elements and topics we deemed relevant to teach and learn. I then used these suggestions to develop comprehensive lesson plans

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and resources for the whole year. The second step, was to negotiate an extra timetable health lesson. The results was that the staff were more comfortable in teaching Health topics (…) the level one PE numbers increased and students were more settled in the classroom environment (…) I guess I went through Lewin’s process of unfreezing, moving and refreezing.

(SOD, Thread Your own experience of change, reference 26, Student 6)

Student 6’s narrative shows a workplace experience in which Lewin’s model of change is embedded throughout the process of change development. This instance of self-reflection assists not only the subject that shared the narrative to deeply comprehend the topic and achieve his learning objectives but also his peers, who are offered a unique real-world example of change and who may feel compelled to share their own experience of change with others.

A self-reflection can also unfold as a personal narrative, as seen in Student 4’s account:

After seeing your comment, and reflecting, I see and feel that I need much more experience in working with different contexts of schools and with different types of leader. I started teaching 8 years ago, have taught (…) at the same school all that time (...) Having been somewhat insulated in a 'bubble' I have missed out on learning from other types of leader. I think this is why I am enjoying this paper so much, as it is letting me learn so much from all of you (…) Thanks for making me think more deeply.

(SOD, Thread Challenges, reference 17, Student 4)

In addition to peer scaffolding practices in online discussions, students’ perspectives about peer scaffolding were explored. In the end-of-course survey, students were asked about how often they enacted different forms of peer scaffolding throughout the course (see Figure 10).

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Figure 10. Self-perception of peer scaffolding practices as perceived by students (the end -of-course survey).

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Posted a general invitation for peers to contribute In my postings, I responded to at

least one peer posting In my postings, I acknowledged peers' contributions Asked for clarification about peer postings When I disagreed with my peers’ ideas, I explained my own perspective Discussed the readings using real-world examples When posting about alternative perspectives, I explained new concepts Composed relevant postings Developed critical self- reflection Summarised content N u m b er o f st u d en ts ' r es p on se s

Self-perception of peer scaffolds used by students

Never (0%) Rarely (10%) Sometimes (50%) Frequently (70%) All the time (100%)

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Almost three-quarters of students (72.7%) reported to have sometimes used a critical self-reflection in online discussions, while three students (27.3%) indicated to have frequently composed a self-reflection. More than half of the students (54.5%) asserted frequently explained new concepts when posting about alternative perspectives as well as often composed relevant postings (relevant postings in this study refer to using references to support students’ arguments). The same number of students (six students) revealed that they sometimes acknowledged peers’ contributions and that they summarised content in their postings. Five students (45.5%) reported to have discussed frequently the readings using real-world examples and often having disagreed with peers’ ideas along with explaining their own perspective. In addition, four students (36.4%) indicated to have sometimes responded to at least one peer, whereas five students reported to have answered frequently to at least one peer in their contributions. In regard to posting a general invitation for peers to contribute, four students (36.4%) perceived to have implemented this scaffold sometimes, whereas three students (27.3%) reported to often have invited fellow students to participate in the discussion. Four students (36.4%) admitted that they rarely asked peers for clarification about their postings, whereas 63.7% of students indicated to have either sometimes or frequently asked fellow students for elaboration.

According to students, the most prominent peer scaffold occasionally used by them was the development of critical self-reflection. In addition, students frequently composed relevant postings and often provided alternative perspectives, along with explanation of new concepts. Acknowledgment of peers’ contributions and summarising content were also peer scaffolds widely practised by students.

In short, students exhibited eight subtypes of peer scaffolding: Agreement with others’ ideas, acknowledgment of peers’ postings, answering questions raised by peers, summarising content, asking for clarification, initiate questions, development of a self-reflection, and disagreement with others’ ideas.

To summarise, this chapter presented the findings of this study based on lecturers’ and students’ perspectives of online scaffolding. From the conceptualisation of this construct, several types of online scaffolding were observed during the online course, which included procedural scaffolding, social scaffolding, strategic scaffolding and peer scaffolding. The following chapter will

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provide a discussion of these findings using the lenses of the transactional distance framework (Moore, 2013) and other literature on online scaffolding.

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Chapter 5: Discussion