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ESP project work: The collaborative processes involved in students' learning experiences
- 1. ESP project work: The collaborative processes involved in students’ learning experiences Lindsay Miller & Christoph A. Hafner Department of English, City University of Hong Kong http://www1.english.cityu.edu.hk/acadlit CAES International conference, ‘Faces of English’, 11-13 June, 2015
- 4. Collaborative Learning Theory 1. Positive Interdependence. 2. Individual and group accountability. 3. Face-to-face interaction. 4. Interpersonal and small group skills. 5. Group processing. (Johnson & Johnson, 1994)
- 5. Collaboration/peer teaching “The collaborative group work project created a social context for learning which provided ample opportunities for peer teaching, either peer teaching of English or peer teaching of technology skills. Many of the students said that they turned to their team-mates for help in correcting their English while preparing the video” (Hafner & Miller, 2011, p. 79)
- 6. Context and course design
- 7. Background and context • University course in English for science students – Applied Biology – Applied Chemistry – Applied Physics – Architectural Studies – Computing Mathematics – Environmental Science and Management – Surveying
- 8. English for science project A. Digital video project B. Written scientific report English for science project A1. Reading/data collection A2. Scripting/ storyboarding A3. Performing/ recording A4. Editing A5. Sharing B2. Writing B1. Reading/ outlining B3. Editing/ proofreading
- 9. Sample topics Rubbish! Structure as science or art? Where have all the flowers gone?
- 10. Methods
- 11. Participant observation Lindsay/Christoph Se**** 1 2 Sa****** Ch****** Br*** Ed*** 3 4 5 6 7 8 11 12 9 10 Project artifacts Project communications (out of class) Questionnaire Focus groups
- 12. Participants • 12 groups, 48 students, 18-23 years old • 36 females, 12 males • Mostly year 1, undeclared majors • 43 HK Chinese, 4 Mainland Chinese, 1 Korean • 3 ‘mixed’ groups, 9 ‘homogenous’ groups
- 13. Data sources Video Images Audio Written text Communication Group 1 16 102 8 17 EM, FB, WA Group 2 38 17 2 10 EM, WA Group 3 1 76 52 8 FB, WA Group 4 19 7 1 28 FB, WA Group 5 7 1 0 7 FB, WA Group 6 32 38 22 12 WA Group 7 1 9 13 14 FB, WA Group 8 1 6 1 6 WA Group 9 10 38 13 3 FB, WA Group 10 44 29 11 18 FB Group 11 3 17 31 11 EM, FB, WA Group 12 1 18 0 9 WA
- 14. Findings
- 15. Kind/quality of online interaction CT uploaded a file. (unfinished) cut version.docx [filename] March 13 at 12:05am CW uploaded a file. 4R.docx [filename] March 13 at 12:42am CT uploaded a file. new new new new new****** (unfinished) cut version.docx [filename] March 13 at 12:47am AP ok !i will edit sth now>< March 13 at 12:51am
- 16. AP uploaded a file. TABLE!!! (but very ugly spacing...anyone can help?:(( ) Evaluation on solutions carried out by government policy and personal efforts.docx [filename] March 13 at 12:52am AP uploaded a file. new new new ~ ignore the one before Evaluation on solutions carried out by government policy and personal efforts.docx [filename] March 13 at 12:53am AP uploaded a file. UPDATED SCRIPT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (unfinished) cut version.docx [filename] March 13 at 2:04am
- 17. Roles and work division
- 18. English expert (1) Q: Did you help each other with any part of the project? Q: Yea C: Can you describe that? Q: Like my script was just rubbish. My script was in point form. Partly Chinese and was in bad English, just like what you are hearing. Angie has do half hour of correction for me, after the script writing…She didn’t write it. She was like a …she take the role of a teacher. I hand in the homework – I hand in my script to her and then she do the correction, rephrase my script, reorganize my script and we also reorganize my video because when we took our video, we did not organize our script… (Group 10, FG)
- 19. English expert (2) VFQ chi o eng pls == [You know my English. Please (use Chinese)] 2:03am VFQ check 022 5 mins later poor english 是硬傷 [Poor English is still a problem] 3:52am VFQ 我需要 ENG checker !! [I need an English checker] After having a breif Idea about the origin of the cathedral Shouldn't We take a look on the elementary design of the Church ? 正確與否！？[Confirm or not !?] 6:03pm (Group 10, FB Messenger)
- 20. Peer teaching
- 21. Students’ reports • Teaching and learning specialized vocabulary • Proofreading writing for grammar errors • Adjusting scripts in response to comments • Getting or giving technical support • Correcting one another’s pronunciation
- 22. Implicit vocabulary teaching DL I personally think that, the church we choose would have such criteria in other words: 1. traditional historical building 2. structural components and design 3. aesthetics (美學) of its design... welcome any other comments : ) February 21 at 3:09pm (Group 7, FB)
- 23. Negotiating organization AL 宏觀--> 微觀？[General view to specific?] introduction should mention the flow first by saying we will look at the building from a macroscopic view to microscopic view..N speak out the flow...then adopt rachel's macro flow as listed above? And we consider our own flow in our part too..do u guys think this would make it more organized ?>< February 14 at 9:21 via mobile VFQ my part is totally 微觀 = = [My part is totally specific/about the details] but I still cant manage the knowledge behind I will ask my gf's dad in today's dinner February 14 at 11:06am AL thaxx>< February 14 at 11:09am (Group 10, FB)
- 24. Feedback on composition (1) 2013-03-12 1:06:50 AM: TH: I finally finished editing the video of the cross plan but its not yet included vocal, please help me check whether there is anything that i can improve I hv already posted thevlink on our fb group , please go tgere and have a look, thanks!! 2013-03-12 10:42:44 AM: R: T, I think the flow of your Vedio is ok, but some parts I think can change a little bit 2013-03-12 10:43:18 AM: TH: Such as??? 2013-03-12 10:43:32 AM: R: But I am doing the ppt of1501, so I think maybe we together make the changes tomorrow 2013-03-12 10:43:45 AM: R: It't not a big deal 2013-03-12 10:56:53 AM: PC: I have left somecomment 2013-03-12 10:57:02 AM: PC: Ob facebook (Group 1, WhatsApp)
- 25. Feedback on composition (2) TH [Posted a link to a YouTube video] March 12 at 1:07am RT 這是私人影片。-v-'' [This is a private video.] March 12 at 1:09am TH fixed, try again:) March 12 at 1:11am TH o ng ok?? March 12 at 1:19am PC For the first 18 second, it's better zoom in the picture slowly slowly and slowly. otherwise it will be boring March 12 at 10:41am PC same for the last few seconds March 12 at 10:41am PC or move from the top tho the bottom March 12 at 10:42am (Group 1, FB)
- 26. Benefits
- 27. Cultural exchange (1) V: Maybe through communication, we developed our friendship, because although we met before but we didn’t communicate at all. So also we have the trip to Lantau Island to interview the foreigners and it is maybe, except interview the foreigners, we experienced other things. Maybe we play together, we just sometimes between we discuss, we will talk about her life in Mainland, or our Hong Kong culture, and we just maybe a culture exchange. (Group 2, FG)
- 28. Cultural exchange (2) 2013-02-19 10:11:23 PM: +852: I called Ark Eden today. They will hv sth like forest restoration project. So they won't be in the farmland. They invite us to join n we can still interview them. Wt do u think? 2013-02-19 10:11:23 PM: +852: V, pls rmb to email PS 2013-02-19 10:28:13 PM: +852: 👌👌 2013-02-19 10:34:37 PM: N: It's ok to join them.Does the time change? 2013-02-19 11:03:50 PM: +852: Wt time 2013-02-19 11:05:53 PM: N: On2.23? 2013-02-19 11:17:54 PM: +852: 0910 ferry from central 2013-02-19 11:20:09 PM: +852: So let's meet at 0845 at central mtr 2013-02-21 10:48:28 PM: +852: Ok We will be going to the Latau island for doing interview this Sat 2013-02-21 10:48:39 PM: +852: That's the Ark Eden 2013-02-21 10:51:40 PM: +852: <media omitted> 2013-02-21 10:51:48 PM: +852: This is our schedule (Group 2, WhatsApp)
- 30. Summary Analysis of the online interactions discloses a very complex picture of the collaborative processes involved. • Multiple simultaneous conversations. • Hanging conversations: initiations without responses. • Exchanging media and scripts. • Interacting about structure, content and language. • Moving between online and offline spaces.
- 31. Issue 1 • Clear evidence of peer teaching and learning is often difficult to discern from the CMC record, though we can see evidence of negotiation and interaction. • Students often do not step into an overt teacher role, although some identify themselves as more expert users of English.
- 32. Issue 2 One potential problem in this collaborative learning process is a possible lack of: 1. Uptake, where learners respond to each other’s requests for help, e.g. to review a script or other artefact, and 2. Follow up, active reviewing of the specific changes that peers make in their editing (e.g. of a script).
- 33. Future directions 1. More in-depth analysis of the data. 2. More analysis of the collaborative nature of the project groups. 3. Social aspect of learning.
Editor's Notes
- CH This paper is about a project-based approach to ESP course design – we want to examine the kinds of collaborative learning processes that science students doing video projects engage in, on a project-based course in English for science.
- LM In terms of collaborative learning, the course design can be seen as providing the structure within which students can exercise agency and invest in their language learning. Our concept of structure is fairly straightforward – it refers to elements of course design like curriculum, syllabus and task. Essentially, control over these structured elements rests with course designers. By agency, we mean the students’ taking control over and responsibility for their learning. By investment, we mean the students’ desire to learn the language, based on their socially constructed relationship to the language task. Students will ‘invest’ in language learning if they see a genuine need to do so – e.g. to join ‘real’ or ‘imaginary’ communities. In the English language learning activity, power can be seen as being distributed between different participants: teachers and students. A course can be structured so that the ‘power’ is mostly held by the teacher, or course designer. It can also be structured so that the power is transferred to the learner. We’ll argue that in the various learning spaces that we will consider, power (and investment and agency) has effectively been transferred to the learners in those settings.
- LM 1. Positive Interdependence: Team members are obliged to rely on one another to achieve the goal. 2. Individual accountability: Everyone is help accountable for doing their share of the work and for mastery of the material to be learned. 3. Face-to-face interaction: At least some of the group work must be done interactively with other group members. This allows students to learn from each other, challenge and use their reasoning skills, and reflect and give feedback to each other. 4. Interpersonal and Small group skills: students are encouraged to develop social skills such as trusting, leadership, decision-making, communication and conflict management. 5. Group processing: Team members set their own goals and assess how well they are doing. They may change their ways of learning or of how to complete the task as they go along.
- LM: In our previous publications about this project we have noted that students reported various forms of peer teaching, which were apparently encouraged by the collaborative design of the project. In this study, we wanted to go beyond these reported perceptions to see what ‘traces’ of such learning we could identify in the online discourse of student groups and the textual artifacts that they produced throughout the project process.
- CH: As noted, since 2008 I have been working on a course in English for science: designing and evaluating curriculum and materials. The course is designed for students in their first or second year who are doing a science degree and aims to promote students’ discipline specific English language genre knowledge.
- CH: The course takes a project-based approach, involving students in the completion of a simple scientific experiment (these used to be designed by a member of the science faculty and were often carried out in the science labs), which is documented in two main ways – first, as a multimodal digital video scientific documentary, second, as a scientific report, similar to a lab report. In their video project, students work together in order to research their topic, collect data, design a storyboard and script, film, edit and share their work. Here, sharing means sharing with the world, by uploading their videos to YouTube and embedding the videos in a publically accessible course blog – this element, of making the videos public, is one that we have found to be particularly effective in motivating students to create documentaries that are novel and creative (and, as we’ll see, remix plays a part in that). Next, the students work individually to create a scientific report, like a lab report - taking the content from the video and reworking it as a written scientific report genre.
- CH: Here are some examples of topics – these are sometimes designed by me, sometimes by me in consultation with a colleague from the College of Science and Engineering.
- LM: We adopted a kind of participant observation method in this project, with 12 teams of students engaged to act as participant observers to their own out of class learning processes and collect data on those processes for us. In addition, five student researchers helped to co-ordinate with the groups and archive and store the artifacts and communications that they were generating. Through this method, we were able to limit our own intervention in the process, and as a result a lot of the data collected is ‘naturally occurring’, what students would have created in the course of the project anyway. Note the range of out of class data sources that were collected in this way: project artifacts, out-of-class project communications, focus group interviews. Also note that all students provided their informed consent for this process and that, because of the intense nature of the study, participant observers were hired as student helpers to provide some incentive for the amount of time we expected the project to take out of their schedules. The data was collected over a 9 month period covering 2 semesters – with a pilot study (2 groups) followed by a full study (10 groups).
- LM
- LM: Videos could include footage (shot or found on the internet), final video. Images could include charts/graphs, images to serve as footage (shot or found on the internet). Audio could include soundtrack, narration, sound effects. Written text could include hand-written notes, drafts of scripts/narration, storyboards, typed notes (including cut and paste items from the internet)
- LM
- CH: The quality of interaction in the online context was very variable, with some posts attracting replies from a number of group members, while other posts did not attract any replies at all. Indeed, the analysis itself is problematic because of the nature of online asynchronous interaction, which allows an interactant to initiate multiple topics before replying to a previous student’s post. This means that 1) not all posts will be taken up by other group members; 2) multiple conversations can exist simultaneously.
- CH:
- LM: Helping each other with their English language was repeated mentioned by most groups. In Group 10, one student was particularly concerned about his English. He commented on this in the focus group interview, and we can see him referring to this issue several times on his Fb page.
- LM
- CH
- CH: Glossing ‘aesthetics’ here could be seen as a kind of implicit teaching of vocabulary. There is no evidence of any uptake in this case though, i.e. there are no responses to the post and so we can’t tell whether the post has reached any of the other students, let alone succeeded in this ‘teaching’ function. One point to bear in mind though, is that this kind of attempt at peer teaching may be valuable in and of itself, that is, it may benefit DL to have made the attempt at teaching here – perhaps ‘aesthetics’ is a new word for DL as well, which she is now more likely to have learned.
- CH:
- CH:
- CH:
- LM: Students obviously benefited on making their digital video by sharing the work and helping each other. Some groups commented that their relationship with their group members went beyond simply doing a project together. Group 2 talked about the developing friendships and sharing cultural knowledge. One of the group members was from the Mainland.
- LM
- CH:
- CH: The collaborative process of completing a digital video project is a complex one which encompasses both online and off line spaces. Clear evidence of peer teaching and learning is often difficult to discern from the CMC record, though we can see evidence of negotiation and interaction. Students often do not step into an overt teacher role, although some are identified as more expert users of English. If we assume that interaction provides a basis for learning then this is at least a good start. One potential problem in this collaborative learning process is a possible lack of 1) uptake, where learners respond to each other’s requests for help, e.g. to review a script or other artefact, and 2) follow up, active reviewing of the specific changes that peers make in their editing (e.g. of a script).
- CH:
- LM: Further analysis of the mediated communication and the scripts to see how they are jointly constructed. More analysis of the collaborative nature of the project groups to determine that roles each person played and evidence of learning from each other. In future, it would be interesting to consider the way in which some groups use their CMC interactions as a kind of hybrid space, where academic learning and negotiation of the academic task co-exists with personal interactions that are often humorous in nature. Perhaps establishing social relationships in this way is an important part of the collaborative learning process, providing the necessary social foundation for collaborative learning opportunities to be taken up. [Kind of speculative]