摘要
在维果斯基社会建构主义理论的影响之下,当代的教育理念实现了由以个人为中心的时代到强调以共同体为中心的时代的转变。学习共同体成为了这一转变的表现形式。
网络正迅速地改变着包括教育在内的社会生活各领域,并给各个国家和地区的教育带来了巨大的影响,很多学校都在传统面授教学的基础上,提供某种形式的网络交互方式,作为师生面对面教学的补充。网络技术与英语教学的整合成为了一种必然的趋势。
在本研究中,笔者将是否成功建立一个在线学习共同体作为研究主题,并以西北师范大学网上语言学学习论坛为个案进行研究。根据学习共同体的概念,笔者从三个维度进行分析网络学习共同体:群体互动中的参与性特征,论坛谈论中的学术性支持特征以及知识建构质量。
首先,作者使用SNA中的凝子群分析、角色分析和中心度分析来考察群体互动中的参与性特征。结果显示,通过凝子群分析发现少数参与者出现在了超过6个以上的子群里面,他们被称之为“桥梁”,起联结不同子群的作用。角色分析发现在该论坛中,参与者可以被分为四类:核心参与者、积极参与者、非积极参与者以及隐客。中心度分析发现,参与者对于论坛交互的影响有所不同,影响力越强越处于中心地位。在本论坛的研究中发现,有些参与者是积极地“发起者”和“回应者”,他们处于权力的中心地位,而另外一些参与者则处于权力的边缘地位。其次,对于群体讨论中的学术性支持特征通过内容分析法用5个参数来分析:课程相关度、知识外延化、问题化、对话化以及动机。结果显示,参与者在讨论中,能够围绕语言学知识进行讨论,相互间具有学术性的对话关系,参与者也试图在与其他参与者讨论的时候,解决自己和别人在学习中遇到的各种学术性问题,并能整合来自各个渠道的资料,来支持自己的观点,对论坛讨论的参与不仅仅是外在动机作用的结果。此后,笔者利用Gunawardena的知识建构过程模型,对群体知识建构的层级进行了分析。研究结果显示,学习者之间知识建构的层级不高,多数帖子知识建构停留在信息的分享和观点的比较上。本研究结果不同于其他研究的在于,在协商阶段出现了大量的贴子。
因此,笔者据此得出结论,就本研究而言,西北师范大学网上语言学学习论坛部分成功的促成了学习共同体的形成和发展,但其总体知识建构水平还有待提高。最后,笔者还指出了本研究存在的不足,并提出了后续的研究计划。
The growing influence of Vygotsky’s theory of social constructivism leads to a movement from the“Age of the Individual to the Era of Community”. Learning communities are just the manifestation of this movement.
Internet is changing our social lives including education increasingly and engenders great influence on education in schools all over the world. Various kinds of online communication modes are provided as a complement to the traditional face-to-face teaching model. The integration of internet technology and classroom language teaching has become a burgeoning trend.
The present study investigates the factors contributing to the establishment of an online learning community, based on a case study of the postings of the online forum of linguistic course offered at Northwest Normal University. Based on the definition of the learning community, the present study investigates this online learning community by examining its characteristics through three dimensions: the participative characteristics of groups’interaction, the academic supportive characteristics of forum discussions and the quality of knowledge construction. The three dimensions were analyzed by social network analysis method, content analysis method and document analysis method.
Firstly, the author used social network analysis (SNA) method to investigate the participative characteristics of groups’interaction through three aspects: cohesion analysis, role analysis and centrality analysis. Results of cohesion analysis showed that a few participants belonged to more than six cliques, and they were“bridgers”to connect different cliques. According to role analysis, we can see there were four groups formed in this forum: core participants, active participants, inactive participants and lurkers. And then the results of centrality analysis showed that the more relations an individual or an organization possessed, the more central position the participants would be located. Hence, the more influence would be brought. The leaders were at the center and they worked as the“trigger”and“responder”. Someone less influential would stay on the margin of power. Secondly, the author analyzed the academic supportive characteristics of forum discussions by content analysis through five parameters: intersubjectivity, ontology, problematicity, dialogicity and motivation. The results showed that participants’discussions focused on the theme of linguistic course; the participants had academic dialogue relationship; they could integrate outside reference with new and enriching discussion topics to some extent; they attempted to use the forum both to define and address problem, and they were motivated beyond the extrinsic motivation of course requirements to participate in the forum. Thirdly, the author used Gunawardena’s Knowledge Construction Process Model to analyze the quality of knowledge construction. Results show that participants’level of knowledge construction wasn’t high, and the majority of the postings were primarily concerned with sharing information and viewpoints and many postings emerged at the negotiating stage. The latter is a significant difference between the present study and other studies.
To conclude, the online learning forum under investigation is partially successful in promoting and building an academic learning community, but the level of the knowledge construction was low, and further improvements were needed to promote knowledge construction. In the end, the author pointed out the limitation of this research and suggestions for further research.
引文
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