Just how far can they go?

Some while ago, I wrote a post entitled 'Lurking and Loafing' about students who are on the peripheral of learning, and whose activity is often to 'lurk' without appearing to directly or productively participate.  If you are involved in education you will know exactly what I mean. The silent student who sits in the corner, watching, but not overtly involved. Ask them a question and they stare back at you blankly, shrug, or declare that they don't know. It looks as though they really don't want to be there. Students who are on the periphery can also be an annoyance to their peers, especially where collaborative work is required, and they don't appear to pull their weight. In the wider world, this is referred to as social loafing. It occurs especially where there is a large number of people present, and where a diffusion of responsibility is easy to accept.

In my post, I discussed the challenge this presents to teachers, especially where it can be less noticeable in online environments. I particularly highlighted the concerns teachers have about students who don't seem to engage, and often appear to be socially loafing, when other students are working hard. Yet not everyone views it as problematic. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger argued that some forms of peripheral activity can actually be legitimate participation, and can lead to deeper involvement within the core membership of the community over time. Through such legitimate peripheral participation they suggest, newcomers hold station in low risk and low profile positions on the edge, while they learn about the tasks, social rules and practices of their community, and eventually are drawn into the centre as productive members. But what if that doesn't happen? What if the students continue to lurk, fail to commit, and offer nothing of real substance, while their peers are working hard? Is this a problem? If so, how can it be resolved?

We know intuitively that people learn best when they really want to. Motivation is essential for the deepest and most engaged learning. Sometimes this motivation comes from outside (extrinsic) but more often than not it is intrinsic, an internal desire to better ourselves, gain more understanding, solve a problem, learn a new skill. The engagement of learning triangle below has several sources, but in its current presentation, I have added my own perspective around the use of digital media.

The Engagement Pyramid

(Adapted from Altimeter Group)

The pinnacle of engagement is clearly the ability to generate one's own content and then add value to it for others. Teaching others cannot be underestimated as a powerful motivator for many, and it is also essential that those who teach really know their field of expertise and have engaged deeply and critically with it. We learn by teaching, and if learners know they have to present something in front of their peers and tutors, they are prompted to prepare well and research widely. Encouraging students to share their content (videos, podcasts, blogs, etc) online for a potential global audience is a sobering but exciting challenge for them. Asking them to curate the content of others and add value to it can be even more challenging, but in doing so, they will usually read more widely, and are then in a position to assimilate multiple perspectives.

Engaging students through social media and mobile technology taps into an area that many are knowledgeable. Their familiarity with using these tools can often be just the spur they need to engage more deeply in their learning.

Photo by Brian Auer


Just how far can they go? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.