Prior to starting the ARP unit, I had made the decison to focus my research on the online element of my teaching. In thinking about the challenges of online learning and topics I would like to address, I landed on student participation and how to encourage more of it in the online environment with an international cohort. 

During the earlier units, I took note of Paolo Freire’s (1970) concept of tutors as facilitators rather than the more out-dated ‘banking’ model of education. From an idelogical standpoint, I fully subscribe to this model. I work on a blended teaching course and I programme my in-person teaching weekends with a focus on interaction, group work and student contribution. However, in the online classroom environment I have found that this is much harder to recreate. Students often participate with camera’s off, it tends to be the same voices responding to the questions posed and we have limited time to get through the content.

There is a pre-requisite for students on the course (MA Arts and Cultural Enterprise) to have a certain level of work experience so theoretically students have a lot of valuable experiences to share from their own contexts. I work with them over a 10 week period which represents the half way point of their 2 year Masters course. 

My initial idea was to test a variety of ways to encourage students to contribute to the class including inviting student presentations on a paritcular topic, utilising digital tools such as Padlet and Miro and using breakout rooms to discuss pre-determined tasks. Utilising the action research cycle, I could test each method over a 3 week period and then seek student feedback to determine which method is best for facilitating learning, sharing and interaction. 

My starting points were: 

• Online learning environment with an international cohort
• Finding ways to encourage meaningful engagement 
• Tackling a social justice challenge – Inclusion and Belonging and equity of access- fostering a sense of community within online classrooms for international cohorts.

During the second workshop of the ARP unit, we spent time in groups discussing our ideas and the scope of the research we planned to undertake. I realised that testing a variety of methodologies would be challening given the timeframe and my limited contact time with students so it would be necessary to narrow the focus or change direction with my research.

The next iteration of my idea came as I relayed a story to a classmate who utilises object based learning in her role at the CSM Museum and Study Collection, about my recent success using object based learning during a trip to Hong Kong to work with a student group face-to-face. I wondered whether it might be possible to trial this methodology in an online setting as a way of engaging students and creating more interaction between students. My ideological starting point for this work is the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000, 2001) which sets out how teaching presence, cognitive presence and importantly social presence are required for online learning to take place. I set out to test whether the use of object based learning in the online classroom environment could foster community and facilitate teaching of a particular topic

References:
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Garrison, D.R., Anderson, T. and Archer, W. (2000) ‘Community of inquiry framework’. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.