[Air-l] Listserv research

Sat Sep 23 17:49:29 PDT 2006

Steve,

As I said some posts ago, what I'm presently working onto are communities of
practice, mainly virtual ones.

And since my background (medical), I don't think there is any other way than
the equivalent to a working formulation to define groups. That is, one does
a literature review (or even a meta-analysis, but that's somewhat trickier
even though it could help in selecting - for example - those studies whose
"groups" were spontaneously emerging or artificially created rather than
comparing apples with oranges), select a number of characteristics for a
definition of "group" or "community" or "CoP" etc (and online it's way
easier because CMC can be tracked easily in terms of logs, email number and
metrics, etc) and defines the four men who meet once a month to play poker a
group IF and ONLY IF they satisfy the working definition.

Now, the peril in it is that you (generic) could end up selecting only what
you want to see, but the advantage is that with a working definition results
can be *compared*, ie if I define a virtual CoP as "more than three persons"
that "interact through collaborative software", for "work-related reasons",
and "at least 3 times a week" meanwhile they exchange "private emails or
phone calls at least once a week" I can be sure that this definition might
be inappropriate, only partially correct or even frankly off-base but the
study results from different researches and researchers CAN be compared and
findings MIGHT be applied to other groups fitting the same definition.

I am actually engaged into a taxonomy of online groups from an online
facilitation perspective. The approach that I adopted is the one above, the
"working formulation" (as in hematology, when nobody could understand
anything about non-Hodgkin lymphomas and their histology - it was before
monoclonal and recombinant antibodies: so they classified lymphomas basing
on some symptoms and their morphology into low-, intermediate- and
high-grade lymphomas... not perfect but allowed doctors to do diagnosis and
treatment while nothing more precise was available), classifies online
groups and how to facilitate them basing on some behaviours that are
displayed in the way their members do CMC.

Far from being perfect, it should allow (in my intention) to have a platform
for comparing various findings and hopefully will be amended as more
findings are added.

Rosanna Tarsiero

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Dr. Steve Eskow
Sent: sabato 23 settembre 2006 23.52
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-l] Listserv research

Perhaps the term "group" has become too large and vague for any research
findings to be useful. Are four men who meet one a month to play poker a
"group"? Are the students in the freshman class of the local community
college a "group"? Is the Women's Auxiliary of the local Episcopal Church a
"group"? Is each chapter of Rotary a "group"?

If a taxonomy of "groups" exist, it would be helpful to know about it. If
not, such a taxonomy seems needed.

Steve Eskow

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Alexander Kuskis
Sent: Saturday, September 23, 2006 4:23 PM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-l] Listserv research

Yet, the reasons for it would be inappropriate to apply Tuckman to a
group
of online learners are as much as an assumption as it is to say Tuckman
would be appropriate. Are the differences between therapy groups and
groups
of online learners proved? And in which ways? Furthermore, if
differences do
exists, are they relevant to the aspect(s) that is/are being studied?

------>I make no assumption either way. Tuckman's stages of group
formation might or might not be appropriate to online groups. (My own
experience and action research indicates that it is not). But before
stating that they are, the research needs to be done to prove it. You
don't just adopt a F2F group dynamic and apply it to online groups and
willy-nilly state that they're the same. Palloff & Pratt (1999) make no
claims for having based any of their assertions on research. By the time
they write 'Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom' (2001), they state
that Tuckman's stages exist for online groups, but not in the order in
which Tuckman placed them. And in 'The Virtual Student' (2003) they drop
the matter of group formation entirely. But, if you want a model of
online group development that is specific to online courses and is based
on action research, I suggest the model of Dr. Gilly Salmon:
http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/Articles/salmonmodel/index.htm . At some point,
I will publish my own research on this matter.

................................[snip]..................................
.................................
So to get back to the issue, what specifically do you think is the
problem
in applying Tuckman to groups of online learners? Does it have something
to
do with the unconventional models they adopt at Fielding? What
specifically
do you think is the problem in framing group life in terms of
cycles/stages?
Have you ever thought that the discomfort with models of groups lies
into
the cultural bias we Westerners have against group and in favor of
individualism?
Rosanna Tarsiero

--------->The problem is that the research needs to be done before
making claims of applicability to the online context. Tuckman has been
adopted uncritically for both F2F group formation, as well as online.
The words "forming, norming, storming, performing" have become a mantra
in all kinds of group dynamics literature (just plug them into Google,
and you'll see what I mean). But, whatever warrant there is for it F2F,
there is none online. I have no idea what models Palloff & Pratt adopt
at Fielding. And having taught university courses entirely online for
more than 5 years, employing collaborative and learning community
strategies, I have no discomfort whatsoever with group learning models.
I think that most online instructors recognize that the bias of online
learning is towards collaborative and group work, rather than the
individualism of classroom learning.........Alex Kuskis

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