Health of our OLC

OLC Healthy Indicators

We’ve spent a great deal of time during this unit discussing what a healthy community looks like. Many of us share some thoughts about interaction and feeling safe to express ideas as indicators of health. But an anonymous e-mail comment makes me wonder if the community really is as healthy as we think. I also think, as with most things, the health of the community is in the eye of the community member. My interactions with group members have been healthy and true learning experiences. But others may not have had such experiences and the fact that this person doesn’t feel free to express their thoughts in the community makes me wonder about the health of the community as a whole.

Nevertheless, on a scale of 1-4 with 1 meaning the OLC is on its deathbed and 4 meaning it is aglow with health – I would rate it at a 2.5.

Using my rubric – here’s how it scored:

Active Interaction – 2/4 - Somewhat healthy OLC - Interaction between students in discussions occurs sporadically – less than 4 days during the week – many tend to not respond until later in the week so those who respond earlier in the week are left with little interaction

Comments are directed Student to student – 4/4 - Healthiest OLC - Discussion comments occur between students 90% of the time – this would have been lower earlier in the semester when we were just getting started but now comments are student to student.

Discussion quality – 1/4 - Unhealthy OLC - Discussion comments include questions or clarification requests < 50% of the time – what I observe is that we don’t seek clarification of ideas but try to get our response in most of the time. We generally agree with each other and avoid questioning others thoughts. At times, when there are questions or clarification requested – there is no response. In addition, there are many single postings with no comments or questions.

Support and encouragement - 3/4 - Pretty Healthy OLC - Discussion comments are supportive and encouraging 80% of the time. This speaks to discussion quality as well but for the most part comments are supportive and encouraging. Again there are those single postings with no comments or questions hanging out there.Critical evaluation of each others work in a supportive manner – 3/4 - Pretty healthy OLC - Evidence of critical evaluation of other’s work in supportive manner 80% of the time. I may be generous with this one but when we were asked to critically evaluate others work it is generally done in a supportive manner. Sometimes work is just critically evaluated without any supportive comments and sometimes there is no critical evaluation – just supportive comments.

TOTAL SCORE – 13/20 = 2.6

OLC Health Reflection

My two scored were pretty close – 2.5 and 2.6. I think that this indicates that my scoring system or what I see as a healthy online learning community is similar to Julia’s rating scale of “on it’s deathbed” and “aglow with health”. I also believe that after 4 weeks of reading discussions and discussing indicators of online learning communities that I understand what it means.
I did not weight any criteria more than the others. In doing this assignment I left all items as equally important. However, I believe that the importance of certain items change as the community develops. For instance, in my rubric the criteria for Comments directed Student to Student and Active Interaction would have been more important earlier in the semester when we were forming our community. However, at this point, it should carry less weight.

I think that I need to weight certain criteria depending on when I am gauging the health of the OLC. As stated above, earlier in the semester weighting the Student to student comments higher would be important but as the semester progresses more weight should be placed on critical evaluation.