Consistent with the agreed action research model, a post-semester workshop was convened approximately a fortnight after the circulation of the Evaluation and Course Development Report that included the data outlined in the preceding section. Given the relatively complex divergence in student feedback, the Report also included a tag cloud reflecting the range and intensity of student opinion on the positives, negatives and ideas for innovation. In total, 16 academics, 11 tutors and five support staff attended this first post-semester workshop.
At the commencement of the workshop, consistent with the CHAT-informed model in use, participants were encouraged to consider the complex and contradictory nature of the student feedback. This was offered as a potentially useful basis for constructive professional dialogue around the state of the program, and particularly where
improvement was clearly necessary. Some brief discussion had already occurred about the Report in the regular team discussion, as well as in the corridors of the College. Hence, it was quickly apparent that the Report had also already created considerable debate amongst program teachers, leaders and designers. This meant that the workshop rapidly developed a combative atmosphere, primarily around the usefulness of student feedback, the program’s current pedagogical construction and the value (or otherwise) of this form of student feedback. For most participants, this meant defending their individual efforts or alternatively doubting the value of the pedagogy. Little early focus came on overall program improvement issues.
Unlike the opportunities presented in the Migration Law program, this workshop was largely unsuccessful in reaching any depth of analysis. The divergence in student feedback, rather than presenting a potential dialectic force, instead offered opportunities for advocates and detractors to offer their various perspectives on the PPC. As one academic poignantly observed in their end-of-workshop feedback:
The only thing really achieved here today was to again rehearse the various pros and cons of moving from face-to-face to online. The feedback from students served primarily as evidence to support pre-existing views one way or the other. (PPC-2- 8)
However, as one of the program leaders also observed slightly less pessimistically:
I guess we at least brought all the tensions in the group into the open and we did ensure that the difficultly of the change we have gone through was clear. But the student feedback allowed us to actually debate issues in a more tangible and less rhetorical way, so I suppose that’s a step forward. (PPC-2-21)
The notes taken during the workshop reflect that the level of professional dialogue was a dramatic departure from what was anticipated in this action research process. Instead of a collaborative engagement around key professional issues, the workshop was dominated by dichotomous thinking that reflected the seemingly unresolved tensions in the group. Again, as was the case in the initial workshop, this was contested between those who were aggrieved about the relatively recent move from conventional teaching and those who had embraced the new blended model. Consistently this was further aggravated by the ambivalence of other teachers (most notably recently engaged tutors). In addition, the persistent failures of the online resources and tools in use in the program to effectively deliver a high quality platform for quality teaching and learning proved a highly distracting issue. This dilemma was captured in the following exchange recorded in notes taken during the workshop:
Speaker One:One of the key issues to be improved that was identified in the Report was orientation and ongoing support for students in their online work.
Speaker Two:Well, if we actually knew what we could usefully orientate them to and support them with, then we might be able to do something.
Speaker One:What do you mean…we need to give students a clear understanding of what to expect online and then build better support to ensure this actually happens.
Speaker Two:But we ourselves have no real understanding! We knew what to teach when they were here, but now it’s all open and uncertain. Anything goes…what is a simulation meant to do anyway?
Speaker Three:but don’t we have to do it, so isn’t it better to just get on with it, but as a newish tutor I do have to say I agree with (Speaker Two)…I really am not sure what I am meant to support.
As a result of this dynamic, combined with the reality that few teachers had seemingly engaged in any productive professional reflection during the semester, meant that the workshop descended into a pragmatic, and at times tense, exchange about specific remedies to largely superficial issues raised in the Evaluation and Course Development Report. In essence, many of these debates simply resulted in imposed outcomes being defined by program leaders, as no real consensus could (or would) be reached even at this level of base-level engagement. The workshop outcomes were consequently modest in form and largely without a clear relationship to the broad matters raised in the
Evaluation and Course Development Report. Some of the more fundamental tensions emerging out of the student data were disregarded for what was cast by wry participant as ‘short-term wins’. In summary, the broad outcomes were:
Technology (largely agreed):improve site navigation and make ‘look and feel’ more sophisticated, explore use of Skype (as a replacement for failing Wimba), make use of RSS feeds, create a single sign on and develop and internal email.
Student support (largely imposed):develop a new online orientation (as no consensus on this being in the face-to-face orientation), develop guidelines on appropriate communication protocols, standardising artefacts (as no consensus on what would be authentic artefacts), review of student workloads across subjects.
Staffing (largely agreed):increase co-ordination of online component, produce position descriptions for various staff roles, more training on working in online environments (nature not specified, as could not be agreed), greater mentoring and debriefing of tutors, consider manuals to guide work of specific roles.
Educational Structure and Design (largely imposed):introduce form of compulsory individual assessment, improve capacity for more timely feedback, audit next course for consistency of assessment feedback, consider how to lessen student workload where considered excessive.
Hence, the first semester of the action research model ended as it had started, largely mired in the unresolved controversies about the move to a blended delivery model for the PPC. Although the elevated level of data had created some tentative debate, it had functioned primarily to amplify existing dissention or to harden the defiance of those leading the changed pedagogy. The range of course improvements, partly agreed and
partly imposed, were modest and pragmatic in form, characterised either by low-level action or abstract intent. Returning to the participant feedback at the end of the workshop, we see these various sentiments reflected in the commentaries provided on the effectiveness of the workshop:
Good try, but this issue is bigger than a semester of student feedback. Little can be resolved until (Program leader) finally realises that students don’t want this sort of amateurish online stuff and come here for a decent and well organised teaching program. (PPC-2-1)
I think we made some progress, some people are still struggling with the change and I understand that. The main thing is that we plough on and improve what I think will be a great program once we iron out the teething problems that must always be part of a new approach. (PPC-2-6)
It was a bit frustrating, being new I have only experienced conflict about this program…I enjoyed trying to work online as a teacher and as a mentor for new lawyers. It does take a bit of getting used to but I think we also just have to recognise it takes time to move from something standard to something very new. I think the problem is that some people don’t want to leave what they know well and I respect that. Maybe they need to look at moving into other teaching, I don’t really know. (PPC-2-19)
This is beginning to look like a pretty dangerous program to be involved in…one thing I realised from today’s workshop is that we have some pretty serious problems and these are both practical and educational. I’m just not sure looking at student feedback in greater depth is actually helping, it seems to be just inflaming the two sides of this argument further. (PPC-2-3)
Although the collaborative action research model had generated considerable data during this first semester, it was hard to argue it had achieved much more (and particularly collaboration). Rather than work as action researchers, the group had appeared to further fracture. It seems the unintended benefit of more compelling
evidence simply made the fissures more acute, in that it could be used to further support unresolved arguments for and against the changed pedagogy. Yet it was still likely some elements of the program would be improved based on student feedback, and it was hoped by program leaders that this dialogue, however flawed, may have moved this
debate on in some more material form (that is, beyond its characteristic rhetorical form). However, it was evident that program leaders needed to deal with the broader
unresolved issues about the program’s redesign if a serious professional dialogue centred on student feedback were to be effective in subsequent semesters.