Students‟ online interactions with each other embed them in a network of social relationships in the OC virtual classroom. The use of a sociogram can help us envisage different conversational moments in observing participants‟ multiple-party
16 An assumption I made building on arguments of lurkers’ learning in online classrooms (e.g. Chen and
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conversations. Figure 4.6 uses sociogram symbols to present Monica, an OC student‟s engagement in two conversations; one with Vince and Isaac, and another with Terry and Nick.
Figure (4.6). Multiple-party conversations in the OC classroom using sociogram symbols.
In Figure 4.7, I use a sociogram to visualize the engagement of the OC participants in multiple-party conversations in the week one discussion forum. The sociogram is drawn with the help of Pajek software. In preparation for the use of Pajek software, I color coded week one classroom conversations and organized them in a table format. Each colour coded conversational moment is recoded in terms of its participants, the number of posts made by each participant and the particular DQ-initial response under which a conversation is threaded (see appendix B for more illustration). Each conversation is assigned a letter „C‟ and a number to distinguish it from other conversations in week one.
I depended on my judgment and intuition in few instances to make a number of decisions in indentifying conversations. For instance, not all posts begin with a named participant being addressed, „Dear Isacc‟ or „Hi Monica‟. However, the addressee in a post can be identified by attending to the content of the conversation itself and the post‟s link to a parent post. In another instance, I decided to relocate one post to two classroom
Terry Nick Conversational Moment 1 Conversational Moment 2 Vince Isaac Monica Conversation 2 Conversation 16
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conversations and where the addresser appears to be responding to two addressees in the same post. Students‟ posts which attracted no response were excluded from this visual presentation. Drawing on Bakhtin (1981), one distinguishing feature which helps in identifying a conversation is the change in participants‟ roles in a conversation. In certain instances, the addresser in a past post becomes the addressee in the current post and so on.
Figure (4.7). A sociogram of the OC participants‟ engagement in an online classroom dialogue.
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In Figure 4.7, each conversation appears on the sociogram with its own unique label. Participants are marked with their pseudo names and both conversations and participants‟ vertices appear as coloured nodes. Participants‟ vertices with similar coloured nodes indicate participants‟ engagement in a similar number of conversations but not necessarily the same ones. For instance, both Judith and Nick engage in three conversational moments and hence, appear as red coloured nodes.
The different sizes of participant nodes indicate the number of conversation in which the participant has taken part. For instance, Vince, the tutor, and Isaac, are two participants engaging in most of the conversations in week one (presented with large sized nodes) while Oliver appears to be the least engaged participant; only participating in one conversation (i.e. C7). Conversations‟ nodes appear as either green or red coloured nodes, depending on the total number of participants engaging in each. A green coloured conversation node indicates a conversational moment between two participants while a red coloured one indicates a conversational moment flowing among three participants. From the figure, it is clear that most of the week one‟s classroom conversations involve two participants.
The lines connecting a participant with a conversation are given different weights depending on a number of posts made by a participant in each conversation. For example, the number of posts made by Isaac contributing to conversation six (C6) is higher than his contribution in conversation two (C2). Also, we can tell which participants appear to be more closely connected. For instance, Isaac seems to be closely connected to Bill, as they engage in four conversational moments in the week one discussion forum. A one-mode network can be extracted from this two-mode network (see appendix C) to visualize with whom participants are engaged in week one.
Participants‟ engagement in different conversations in the OC classroom mirrors Bakhtin‟s polyphonic setting. In the so called „polyphonic‟ classroom, voices are given the autonomy to choose who to interact with, which conversations to engage in, and how many responsive texts to make in each chosen conversational moment. The use of the
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sociogram to depict the OC polyphonic setting creates an impression of complexity as the number of conversations, participants, and crossing lines are observed.
Because the sociogram employs a specific set of symbols and functions to summarize and organize data, its use is straight forward and does not allow a researcher to communicate impressions or intuition. For instance, it does not communicate this sense of messiness or noisiness in tracking a single conversation. Nor does it reflect the relational nature of participants‟ texts in each conversation. The use of a sociogram is helpful in reproducing participants‟ engagements in asynchronous classroom conversations based on the actual number of conversations which occur. A list of the number of conversations in which each participant is engaged is found in appendix E. In this sense, it organizes and summarizes data. It, also, presents us with a different interpretation of Bakhtin‟s polyphony in the OC classroom.
In the next section, I attend to the features which describe the nature of learning in the OC classroom conversation, using the proposed framework based on Bakhtin‟s dialogism (see summary in Table 3.1, p. 83).
IV. Observed Dialogic-Monologic Features in the OC Classroom Conversations
In this section of the analysis, I attend to the content of the OC asynchronous classroom conversations in week one to investigate the nature of students‟ learning by using Bakhtin‟s concepts of authoritative discourse, framing context, rhetoric discourse and internal dialogism.
The process of analysis involved spending time trying to get to know participants‟ backgrounds, not only through their uploaded biographies but also through their written assignments and reflections in weeks one and four. For instance, I took notes whenever an assessed work offered me some insight into the author‟s background. This served the purpose of developing an understanding of participants‟ contexts; an essential element in investigating students‟ active understanding and/or reflective learning, according to Bakhtin‟s (1981) dialogism.
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To understand participants‟ conversations in week one, I had to complete their weekly reading assignments and in some instances, other external sources cited in their texts. Even though there was no time spent in transcription, the writing up and presentation parts of the analysis was unexpectedly lengthy. The week one discussion forum was a very rich setting, and decisions had to be made with regard to the main features which best describe the nature of learning in the OC classroom. The analysis under each of the observed feature had to be condensed so I decided to use one or two episodes to illustrate each feature.
I decided to use „different‟ episodes to exemplify a relevant feature because I found it difficult to use one rich episode to exemplify different features concurrently. Although it is possible to follow this approach in analysis, there is a risk of creating confusion for the reader when using the same episode to exemplify different features. This alternative approach separates features into different sections, with different episodes for simplicity. The features were constructed and re-constructed throughout the process of analysis and writing up. This continuous construction and re-construction process is reflected in the way episodes are numbered (see Table 4.3). Features that best describe the nature of students‟ learning in an asynchronous learning environment are presented in the following order: Bakhtin‟s „Orientation-Anticipation-Response‟, Proximate of Monologic and Dialogic Orientations, Rhetoric Arresting Moments and Social Language, and Forms of Dialogic-Orientation and Meaning Co-construction.
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Table (4.3). Observed features and episodes summary table.
Under each episode, I present a description of what the conversational moment is about, an analysis based on the proposed theoretical framework, and an argument constructed from within my observations and understanding of the relevant management education literature. In Table 4.3, features A and D are perceived as building on theory and/or others‟ arguments and so arguments in light of these features are presented first. Features B and C are perceived as triggering some new insights and so arguments in light of these features are presented towards the end.
A. Bakhtin’s ‘Orientation-Anticipation-Response’ Process in Describing the Flow of