Alevizou, P. Distributed Mentoring: Peer interaction and collaborative learning in P2PU. Paper presented at the OpenED2010: Seventh Annual Open Education Conference, 2-4 Nov 2010, Barcelona, Spain. http://openedconference.org/2010/

1. Distributed Mentorship: Peer Interaction &
Collaborative communities in P2PU
Panagiota Alevizou
OpenEd 2010, The Seventh Annual Open Education Conference
, Barcelona, 2-4 November 2010
CC-BY-SA

2. Overview
 Brief overview of P2PU
 Notions of mentorship & collaborative learning
 Theoretical & perspectives
 Indicators for Inquiry Communities?
 Mentoring models and peer interaction activities
 Analytical insights
 Open Creative Non-fiction writing
 Copyright for education
 Conclusions and implications for evaluative work
 Community indicators
 Activity and performance in OER

3. P2PU overview
 Community of volunteer
tutors and OpenEd/
OpenContent Activists
 Boutique courses
 Orientation
 Collaborative development
 User Actions
 Contribute
 Discuss
 Share & reflect
P2PU blog http://blogs.p2pu.org/

4. Theoretical perspectives: online learning
1. “Communities of Inquiry”
Garrison and Anderson, 2003
Garrison and Arbaugh, 2007
1. “Communities of Inquiry”
Garrison and Anderson, 2003
Garrison and Arbaugh, 2007
3. Design
framework
for sociality
(tutor/studen
t)
Enabling
practice
Mimicking
reality
Building
identity
Actualizing
self
Bouman et
al., 2003
3. Design
framework
for sociality
(tutor/studen
t)
Enabling
practice
Mimicking
reality
Building
identity
Actualizing
self
Bouman et
al., 2003
2. “Mentoring and facilitation modes”
Hierarchical
Cooperative
Autonomous (e.g. Heron, 1993; Boud and Miller,
1996)
Instructor Behaviour
Contribution
individualized and content related messages
Technical feedback
Discussion management
 providing structure & pacing
(expanded from Burge, 1994)
2. “Mentoring and facilitation modes”
Hierarchical
Cooperative
Autonomous (e.g. Heron, 1993; Boud and Miller,
1996)
Instructor Behaviour
Contribution
individualized and content related messages
Technical feedback
Discussion management
 providing structure & pacing
(expanded from Burge, 1994)

5. Theoretical perspectives: social media
 Evolving communities in a
public learning space?
 Dispersed individuals and
relational networks engaging
through shared interpretation of
resources?
 Is P2PU ‘a productive networked
learning environment’ (Jones and
Dirckinck-Holmfeld 2009)?
 Object of analysis:
 Dimensions of self-representation
 Peer behaviour models:
 Participation in assigned activities
 Experiential perspectives
 Affective feedback & critical
interchanges
Galley, Conole and Alevizou, forthcoming/2011

6. Observational methodology
Participation Identity Cohesion Creativity
Sustained &
measured overtime
Self-representation Reciprocity or
competition
purposefulness
Roles and
leadership
Group & self-
awareness
Supportive
exchanges &
playfulness
Contradiction and
evolution
Participants’ core
commitment
Shared
vocabularies, media
outputs, genres
and non-verbal
community
Speech acts of
curiosity, respect,
willingness to
learn, empathy or
antipathy
Diversity of
perspectives
Genre and
informational
diversity -
Adapted from Galley, Conole and Alevizou, 2011

7. Instructional dimensions & tutoring by design (or
explicit teaching presence)
1. Identify main generic headings for core content
2. Search relevant open resources, cases, scenarios or narratives
3. Select format for sharing
4. Write pedagogical designs, design activities and instructions that
contextualize and support the learning resources
5. Add own new materials to the open pool of content and in the learning
space
6. Run course for six weeks
7. Refine and update before the a new round of the course based also on
learner feedback and output(s)

8. Context: OCN from cycle 1 to 2
http://archive.p2pu.org/OCN%C2%A0Outline
http://www.p2pu.org/creative-nonfiction-writing-v20-exploring-conflict-through-open-writing-mar-2010

9. Context: Copyright for Educators cycle 2

10. Structure and evolution of the Copyright for Educators course: A visual
map

11. Self-representation, role trails & cohesive tones
 In OCN Reflection combining the empirical, and the anecdotal, the
confessional and the professional:
 I was on vacation last week and in the library of the hotel, someone had left a
copy of Sherwood Anderson’s collection of short stories,“Winesburg, Ohio”….he
was so gifted at throwing in some deep thought or philosophy that left me
thinking for days …. Can I please write like that?
 Tutor presence: consistent focused messaging; professional tone,
authoritative voice vs. humor and familiarity
 ‘I love this narrator; she’s funny’. …’you’re very brave to write about your
struggles.What makes it work as a narrative right now is the honesty of
the first person narrator
 Student presence:
 Level of interaction / mode of participation / role assumption
 Leadership: Here's something that I found helpful, and that we may need for future
scenarios
 Tone: affective, personal and emotional
 ‘Excellent point…Thanks for putting this all together’
 ‘I have used this with for xx…why don’t you try xx’
 Humor

12. Analytical themes & challenges
Mentoring patterns
 Ad hoc vs. organized
 Co-presence and reflection
 Peer Interaction patterns
 Informational (sharing resources, annotating)
 Practical
 Social
 Discursive (affirmation, support, alternative PoV,
deliberations)
 Humor
 Challenges
 Representing analytical insights
 Generalizing insights

13. Evaluation
 Instructor presence & course genre:
 explicit and implicit learning design to entice sense of purpose and
promote student agency
 ‘Technical’ & Interface clarity: Participatory interface to entice 'positive
narcissism’ and explicit ‘activity trails’
 Student expectations and assumptions about accreditation or value
 Distributed mentorship and peer learning:
 Explicit leadership: but open to user agency and experimentation
 Do participants understand purpose and what they are doing? What
makes drawn to participate and get involved?
 Is learner output sufficiently mapped out/promoted? (OER value)
 Mapping relations between the cognitive and social network

14. Credits
 Images
 Front Image: P2PU Cartoon by Alison Cole, @johnbritton,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johndbritton/4170987860/
 P2PU values: P2PU Blog, http://blogs.p2pu.org 19/04/2010

15. Thank you
Email: p.alevizou@open.ac.uk