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Online teaching in networked learning communities: A multi-method approach to studying the role of the teacher

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study the online teaching styles of two teachers who each tutor a networked learning community (NLC), within the same workshop. The study is undertaking empirical work using a multi-method approach in order to triangulate and contextualise our findings and enrich our understanding of the teacher participation in these NLCs. We apply social network analysis (SNA) to visualise the social structure of the NLC, content analysis (CA) to identify learning and teaching processes, critical event recall (CER) to gather the teacher’s personal experiences and intentions. This paper reports some of the current findings of our work and discusses future prospects. This study is part of a continuing international study that is investigating networked collaborative learning as a way to develop a rich descriptive body of evidence of tutoring and learning processes in e-learning.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of Exeter, St Luke’s Campus, Heavitree Road, Exeter, EX1 2LU, UK

    Maarten De Laat

  2. Centre for ICT in Education IVLOS, University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Maarten De Laat & Robert-Jan Simons

  3. Networked Learning Research Group, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK

    Vic Lally

  4. Department of Applied Sciences of Education, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Lasse Lipponen

Authors
  1. Maarten De Laat
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  2. Vic Lally
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  3. Lasse Lipponen
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  4. Robert-Jan Simons
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Correspondence to Maarten De Laat.

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Laat, M.D., Lally, V., Lipponen, L. et al. Online teaching in networked learning communities: A multi-method approach to studying the role of the teacher. Instr Sci 35, 257–286 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-006-9007-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-006-9007-0

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