Project Title: Reflective Blogs in the Classroom: Online Journals, Formative Assessment and Collaborative Learning

Project Ref: 02/UG/09 Project leader: Hirut Fajembola Keywords: blogs, reflection, formative assessment, peer feedback, Web 2.0

Summary In undergraduate course specifications and teaching and learning guides, a great deal of emphasis is placed on formative assessment and collaborative learning. However, these important dimensions of learning are often not apparent to many students, who frequently have no opportunities for receiving feedback on work in progress and who usually work alone on essays and other assignments. Feedback usually comes too late, after a piece of work has been given its final mark. Our project explored the potential of educational blogs to overcome these limitations of traditional, paper-based forms of assessment. Blogging provides opportunities for students to publicly present their work in progress, to try out their ideas, and to receive feedback from tutors and fellow students alike. Therefore it offers possible means of facilitating formative feedback (both tutor's comments and peer assessment of work in progress), along with collaborative learning as students share their understandings and ideas, and support each other's learning.

We discovered that being required to post drafts on a blog at regular points throughout the course of a semester had benefits in terms of continuous learning and stimulating reflection on the content of our module, and that some students took to commenting on other students’ work without pause. However, most students were reluctant to comment, even though they faced penalties for not doing so. We also discovered other limitations of group blogging. The findings of the project led to a number of recommendations on how to better use blogs in the future and we were pleased to see that our findings encouraged our tutor to make more effective use of the technology the following year. We conclude this report by outlining these improvements.

Activities In March 2009 we established a project team of six students to investigate the use of the blog on our second-year undergraduate module The New Diplomacy. This was the first time our tutor had used a blog as a form of assessment on a class-based module, although he had previously encouraged students on placements to use blogs to record their experiences (Curtis et al. 2009). Along with our tutor, we were keen to explore the benefits and limitations of blogs in an educational context. Blogging was something new to most of the students on the module, so it generated a great deal of interest and some excitement, especially when an American former diplomat and a British ambassador began commenting on what some of us had written on the blog. On The New Diplomacy module 25% of the mark was for a seminar logbook, in which students were to record their reflections on seminar discussions. A number of tutors use seminar logs in the

Governance and International Relations section at London Met, but using paper-based logs means that there is no encouragement for students do not keep them up to date and there is little chance to get feedback on what you have written, unless you send your draft logbook to the tutor or fellow students. Using a blog to post first drafts of the entries for our logbooks meant that the tutor could identify problems and that fellow students could comment on what each of us had written. Our tutor set up a group blog for us to use (http://newdiplomacy.blogspot.com/) and sent us email invitations to sign up. We were required to post draft seminar-log entries at five points across the semester and to comment at least twice on other students’ postings. If we failed to comment twice or post entries by the set deadlines, we were told that we would lose 10% of our mark for the log.

This is the blog we use on the module in the spring semester 2009.

To commence our research into the blog, we held two focus group meetings to identify the main benefits and limitations of using a blog for assessment. We also conducted five extensive interviews with students on the module to gain a more in-depth understanding of their use of the blog and their suggestions for better ways of using it in the future. Drawing on the results of the focus groups and interviews, we devised a questionnaire of 15 questions (see the appendix), which we distributed to all 50 students on the module by email along with an information sheet containing details about the project and the use that would be made of students’ responses. After repeated chasing of students in May, June and July, we received 22 responses, which is roughly half of the students who made a proper attempt at the module. We analysed the questionnaire data, which contained many more extensive written answers than we had anticipated. From the results we developed PowerPoint presentations which we gave with our tutor at two academic conferences: the annual London Met teaching and learning conference in July 2009 and the Political Studies Association’s teaching and learning conference at the University of Leeds in September 2009. Giving papers in front of academics was a little daunting at first, but we enjoyed the experience and we received some very helpful comments, which helped us to think through our findings with more clarity. (In September 2010 a group of us will attend the PSA’s teaching and learning conference at De Montfort University, where some of the students who took

The New Diplomacy module in the year following our research into the blog will discuss their experiences following the changes made by the tutor in light of our recommendations.) John presenting at the London Met conference Elena, Shenaz and John at the conference in Leeds

Outcomes As we noted above, we received some very extensive written answers in the responses to the questionnaire, which helped us to better advise our tutor about how to make more effective use of the blog in the following year. Here are the main findings from the questionnaire grouped under three headings: Past Experience and Engagement with Blogging As the following bar charts indicate, there appeared to be a clear divide between those students who were already familiar with blogging (or other aspects of Web 2.0) and those who were not so familiar. We found that more than a quarter of respondents had blogged before.

This divide was also reflected in how frequently students used the blog. Almost half of the students used the blog very frequently (once a week or more), while the other students were much less engaged with blogging, doing the minimal amount of blogging required. Commenting on Other Students’ Work It seems that there is a difference of opinion about how willing students are to comment on each other’s work online. Some studies show that students willingly post comments on the work of others (Lonhes 2003), while other research points in the opposite direction (Armstrong et al 2004; Curtis et al 2009). The findings of our survey indicate that some students have no qualms about commenting on other students’ work, while the majority were not so comfortable leaving comments. We found that most students either left the minimum required number of comments (two) or didn’t comment at all, despite the fact that we were informed we would lose marks for not commenting. Interestingly, eight of those who did post comments reported that they would not have done so without the threat of such penalties, indicating that they were coerced into commenting. However, eight students (36% of the sample) commented much more frequently. The questionnaire asked respondents who did not post comments to provide explanations. Most mentioned that they found the five seminar-log questions were too specific and generated repetitive answers, meaning that they did not gain much from reading other students’ work and did not feel inspired to offer comments or criticisms; but a smaller group mentioned that they did not feel comfortable offering comments.

As a result of so many students not posting comments and the repetitive nature of the blog, most students either received no comments at all or the comments they received were not helpful. Only seven students (32%) said they received helpful comments. The Benefits of Blogging Despite the lack of success with the commenting dimension of the blog, the questionnaire revealed significant benefits. Most students thought that using a blog to post draft seminar log entries was better than using a paper-based log, although a sizeable number were reluctant to write off paper-based logs altogether and recognised that they had certain benefits. The main advantages of blogging mentioned by students in the written answer sections of the questionnaire were that it forced them to keep on top of their studies and they could learn from each other. As they knew the tutor could see whether or not they were posting their draft answers, they felt compelled to write about diplomacy throughout the module, rather than leave it until the end of the semester to meet the submission deadline. And some respondents reported that they found it helpful to see how other students tackled a question before they had a go at it, although this may have reinforced the problem of repetition noted above. 17 respondents (77%) said that blogging had clear benefits in terms of encouraging reflection on what they had learnt. Only one student disliked blogging. In her written answers, (s)he said that (s)he thought students should learn in a more closed, private way and not write in public while still developing their understanding of the subject. Other Benefits In addition to the findings of our questionnaire, there were some other aspects of blogging that deserve attention. In particular, a great deal of excitement was created by the fact that serving and former diplomats left some comments on our work. John Duncan, the British Ambassador for Multilateral Arms Control and Disarmament left some very helpful and extensive comments on his experience of NGOs in international negotiations and gave us details of his own blog and Twitter address. John Brown, a former US diplomat and now a professor in Washington DC, left some encouraging comments and posted some of our work on his own blog which reviews writings on public diplomacy (http://publicdiplomacypressandblogreview.blogspot.com/). Finally another British diplomat left some encouraging comments. That we knew experts were reading what we had written gave us a lot of encouragement and made it a more meaningful experience. It also meant that we took more care with what we wrote.

Other benefits were that our tutor could correct us when we made mistakes in what we wrote on the blog so that we could make corrections before we submitted the work for marking, although it was clear that he did not have the time available to comment on each student’s work individually. And a number of students demonstrated some creativity in writing styles, although only the tutor posted photographs on the blog. Finally, the experiment of blogging on this module led a number of students to set up their own individual and group blogs, and a group of our lecturers have also created their own group blog (http://worldpoliticsatlondonmet.blogspot.com/). Dissemination We disseminated the findings of our project through papers with our tutor at three academic conferences, which C-SAP funding allowed us to attend:

J. Bell, S. Bharvaney-Daswani, S. Curtis and H. Fajembola, ‘Reflective Blogging: The Benefits and Limitations of Online Seminar Logs’, at Revitalizing the HE Experience Through Blended Learning, the London Met Annual Teaching and Learning Conference, 7th July 2009.

J. Bell, S. Bharvaney-Daswani, S. Curtis and E. Putik, ‘Reflective Blogging on the New Diplomacy’, at the 2nd Annual Political Studies Association Learning and Teaching Conference, the University of Leeds, 8th-9th September 2009. S. Curtis, Z. Haji-Ismail and A. Virley, ‘Web 2.0, Dialogue and Learning in the Edgeless University’, at the 3rd Annual Political Studies Association Learning and Teaching Conference, De Montfort University, 14th-15th September 2010.

And three of us co-authored a book chapter with our tutor which presents the main findings of our project and sets them in the context of the academic literature on the educational use of blogs:

S. Curtis, S. Bharvaney-Daswani, H. Fajembola, and E. Putik, ‘Writing in Public: Reflective Blogging on the New Diplomacy’ in G. Pleschová (ed.), IT in Action: Stimulating Quality Learning for Undergraduate Students (Opladen and Farmington Hills, MI: Barbara Budrich Press, forthcoming 2010).

Implications As a result of the findings of our project, we were able to offer some recommendations to our tutor on how to use the blog more effectively the next year. Our main recommendations were:

• To set more open questions for the students to blog about, in order to make the blog appear less repetitive;

• To split up the students into groups of 10 or so, each with its own group blog, rather than have all of the students writing on one blog. With 50 students all blogging on one site, it became overloaded and made it very difficult to find your work again to see if anyone had left comments;

• Students should be required to post comments more frequently on other students’ work.

The experience of our tutor and the students who took the module in 2010 is that the alterations the tutor introduced made a significant difference. He set up seven group blogs, each with eight or nine students, which had addressed the problem of overloading:

http://newdiplomacy2010a.blogspot.com/ http://newdiplomacy2010b.blogspot.com/ http://newdiplomacy2010c.blogspot.com/ http://newdiplomacy2010d.blogspot.com/ http://newdiplomacy2010e.blogspot.com/ http://newdiplomacy2010f.blogspot.com/ http://newdiplomacy2010g.blogspot.com/

The new blogs demonstrate much greater use of images and videos to illustrate students’ work. In addition, setting the students more research type questions (e.g., ‘Write about a recent event or development which illustrates the importance or otherwise of public diplomacy in contemporary world politics. Provide links to relevant websites and news stories.’) has made students’ contributions much more diverse and interesting. Finally, requiring students to comment at least five times has led to much more interaction and discussion on the blogs. The tutor has also introduced a wiki component to the seminar log, with students working in groups to produce an online document. A good example of such work can be found at the following link: http://securitydiplomacy1.wikidot.com/.

References Armstrong, L., M. Berry and R. Lamshed (2004) ‘Blogs as Electronic Learning Journals’, e-Journal of Instructional Science and Technology, available at: www.usq.edu.au/electpub/e-jist/docs/vol7_no1/currentpractice/blogs.htm Curtis, S., B. Axford, A. Blair, C. Gibson, R. Huggins, and P. Sherrington (2009) ‘Placement Blogging: The Benefits and Limitations of Online Journaling’, ELiSS: Enhancing Learning in the Social Sciences 1 (3). Lohnes, S. (2003) ‘Weblogs in education: bringing the world to the liberal arts classroom’, The NITLE News 2 (1).

Contact Details Hirut Fajembola (hirutfaj@hotmail.co.uk) c/o Steven Curtis Faculty of Law, Governance and International Relations London Metropolitan University Calcutta House Old Castle Street London E1 7NT Tel: 020 7320 1145

Appendix: Our Questionnaire

1) Have you used a blog (or related technology such as a wiki) before?

a. Yes b. No

If you answered yes to this question, please provide further information explaining how, when and how frequently you have used the internet in this way:

2) Do you think that blogging provides a new innovative method of learning?

a. Yes b. No c. Neither agree nor disagree d. Don’t know

3) How frequently did you blog on the New Diplomacy module on average?

a. Twice a week or more b. Every week c. Every month on average d. Didn’t blog at all

If you didn’t post any entries on the blog, please explain why:

4) How often did you read other students’ postings on the blog?

a. Twice a week or more b. Every week c. Every month on average d. Less frequently than once a month e. Didn’t read the blog at all

5) How many times did you comment on other students’ postings on the blog?

a. More than 8 times b. 5 to 8 times c. 3 to 5 times d. Twice e. Once f. Didn’t comment at all

If you did not comment on other students’ postings on the blog, please explain why:

If you did not comment on the blog at all, please proceed to question 8.

6) Would you have still have commented if there was no formal requirement for you to do so (i.e., had you not lost marks for not commenting)?

a. Yes b. No

7) How did you feel about commenting on other students’ postings? For example, did it make you feel uncomfortable or were you fine about it?

8) How did you feel about other students commenting on your postings?

9) Did you receive useful or helpful feedback from students commenting on your postings?

a. Yes b. No c. My postings didn’t receive any comments.

10) “Reflective blogging is better than keeping a paper or Word based log book.” How strongly do you agree with this statement?

a. Strongly agree b. Moderately agree c. Neither agree nor disagree d. Moderately disagree e. Strongly disagree f. Don’t know

Provide explain why you answered this question as you did:

11) All students have different qualities and abilities. In your opinion, which students would benefit most from learning through blogging (please place an X against all statements that apply)?

a. Students who do not like to speak in public b. Students who have language barriers c. Students who enjoy using the internet d. All students benefit e. Don’t know

12) Your postings on the New Diplomacy blog were public and could be viewed and commented on by anyone globally. How do you feel about that (please put an X against all statements you agree with)?

a. It is exciting to know the blog could be seen globally b. It is a frightening prospect c. I felt I had to be careful about what I wrote d. I hoped my contributions to the blog would be read by experts on diplomacy e. I don’t know f. Other (please specify):

13) When blogging on a topic after a seminar, did you:

a. Read for it before blogging b. Reflect on what was discussed in the lecture and seminar and blog your understanding c. Read and blog, citing from a text with a reference d. Read and blog, citing from a text without a reference e. Read to enhance your understanding but write your own opinions

14) What do you think you gained from blogging in an educational context (please place an X against all statements that apply)?

a. Provoked thoughts and debate b. Helped me to reflect on what I had learnt c. I did it only because I had to as a requirement of the module d. It encouraged me to engage in issues that I am passionate about e. There were no benefits f. Don’t know g. Other (please specify):

15) Please list any ideas you have for how to improve the use of the blog on the module for next year.