Hand Games

My story of online interaction begins here, me, I am a social learner, social listener, and social interactor. Sitting back and thinking and asking myself, how do I learn inside of the classroom environment and how is that form of learning the same or different from how I learn as an online learner in that environment. 

One hot summer day as a child running around outside playing I remember stopping in my tracks when for the first time, I saw hand-games being played between two of my friends. 

The key-word being, "saw", I am a visual learner. As I watched the game in my familiar neighborhood a few times, immediately I wanted to try.  Learning in a social way is key for me but in relationship to learning online, the social constructivist perspective suggests that "all higher psychological processes have their origins in individuals' interactions with others" (Gavelek & Raphael, 1996 ). Learning happens when experienced learners share knowledge that moves nonlinearly to novice learners ( Bouling, Hough, Krinskey, Saleem, & Stevens 2012).  As I visually experience what I want to learn, I am not threatened during this interaction to learn, because I am comfortable and confident I can try to learn the new skill. 

As an online learner there is an importance for community interaction in online learning but are they completely necessary? Let's take a look. 

First I said, I saw the little girls playing the hand game. I can watch the video of the little girls playing the game and learn how to play today in my home. OK, no problem learning can take place for me. The next part was the little girls were my friends who lived in my neighborhood. Ummm! we may have a problem. Being familiar with the teachers, (my friends),  the new skill allows me to feel safe to interact while learning to learn a new skill. Socially I trust them because they are my friends and they have mastered a new skill that I want to learn. According to the Cognitive Apprenticeship Model, (CAM), one of the dimensions that encourage learning is sociology. Collins suggests that sociology is how students work on realistic tasks together as they communicate how to accomplish meaningful tasks, (Collins, 2006). Although the girls in the video are not personally familiar to me their faces are similar to mine so if I am a motivated learner I can accept this familiarity and trust them as my teacher. 

As an adult learner who is still visual and social, I need to trust the teacher to interact. The need for online student community is not relevant for me, I prefer individual work because of the lack of "neighborhood" friendship is a difficult task to create in an online environment. Although when I started in the LR grad program we meet in video meetings (visual faces) and I previously had established personal relationships with a few of the students in my classes so we were familiar with each other and it made collaborative work more successful. For me, as an online learner, the need for the neighborhood melted away and I was able to learn on my own because my goal was to complete classes to move to toward the goal, the degree. 

The importance of online interaction is important as an online learner but the interaction between me and my peers is not as necessary as me and the teacher. If I have a question or desire to reach out for clarification of the assignment then the teacher-student interaction is more important than the student-student interaction. Student interaction while interesting does not affect success in the online environment. Online student interaction seems to positively influence students perceptions but appeared to have little impact on actual performance ( Herring & Clevenger-Schmertzing, 2007). 

Although I enjoy and desire visual stimulus as a learner in the classroom and online I must admit that this type of interaction does not impede my progress in the class but I may not be able to recall the information I "learned" while in this community. Forty years later, as I reflect on how I was taught how to play hand games on the streets of my neighborhood, amongst friends, proves that I am a social learner inside and outside of the classroom and learning environments matter in all of my learning. Also, I can still run a good game of "hand-slide".

Sing-On
Ronda

References

Boling, E., Hough, M., Krinsky, H., Saleem, H., & Stevens, M. (2012). Cutting the distance in distance education: Perspectives on what promotes positive, online learning experiences. The Internet and Higher Education,15(2), 118-126. doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2011.11.006

Herring, L. C., & Clevenger-Schmertzing, L. (2007). Online High School World History: Does Interaction Make a Difference? Social Studies Research and Practice,2(3), 419-437. Retrieved October 31, 2018, from https://www.socstrp.org/.