 Over to you. Take it away Thank you. So very much Mara and and thank you very much for everyone for teaching us here in what is my evening and And it will be morning and middle of the day and everything. So so yes, hello I am Sarah Lambert and I'm speaking to you today from the land of the Boon Wurrung people of the Kulin Nations in What is also known as Melbourne in Australia and I'm really happy to see many People online today who I have met and extend a special welcome to those of you. I haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting So I've recently finished and submitted a PhD thesis on open education and social justice So that is my area of research and this presentation is a piece of Relates to that topic Yeah, submitting a PhD Doing a PhD submitting a thesis is a pretty big deal for you as a first-in-family learner to tend you attend uni and Was brought up by a single mom. She didn't get that kind of educational opportunity and and so I have you know kids who have had a different Opportunities to some good some bad and so I would say as a family we've done pretty good, but not without a fight and Why participation to education and reducing gender-based stereotyping and oppression for men and for women for My sons for my mother And myself these are two things I'm really passionate about as a result of many events in my personal and family history and work life And so I wanted to just give you some of that background to understand where I'm coming from and and why this Thesis journey in this research, you know is important and why widening participation to education makes a difference as it has for me and It is a big thing So in terms of my own personal learning journey, I'm currently grappling with social and educational theory For the last few years here and open education social justice have a lot of theoretical influences So that's probably something to do with it And so I'm looking forward to some virtual Comments and conversation today and afterwards to via a Google doc, which I have set up As I explore the following question Where is the theory of online learning that includes non-privileged learners and so Just to reiterate. I definitely will be time to take some comments and in the chat here But short things I think with the time constraints, but for longer comments Contributions ideas questions sharing I really encourage people to just dump comments into the Google doc at tinyurl.com slash Odl model So yes, where is the theory of online learning that includes non-privileged learners So this is the question that this current piece of research ended up addressing And so rather than Worrying too much about details of methodology and notes and getting bogged down in that. I'm happy to say don't take notes There is a paper so So I was able to publish this Six critical dimensions a model for widening participation in open online and blended programs in a jet and It probably came out pretty quietly on the 28th of December late last year when a lot of us were pretty tired And and I haven't had an opportunity to do too much with that So if you hadn't seen that one it went under your radar. Yeah, the timing was a little tricky So this paper exists and I will refer to it and if you're interested in how you know the details of the findings there You know, that's all open access Some of you may be aware of the computers and education paper that was also published late last year, but it's been assigned 20 publication Volume and that was the do contribute to student equity and social inclusion a systematic review now that paper I have had a lot of lovely feedback on and It was a systematic review it identified lots of cases and the paper the conceptual model That I will share with you today is a second outcome from a second lot of data collection at the second phase of that same Systematic review. So this has been a multi-phase long-term research project So, yeah, so that's good. So moving on. Yeah, so that model If you look at the methodology in there, it's the critical dimensions, which I will share with you shortly They are not good things or bad and not bad things or good things They're just a dimension that has an influence on an outcome for a diverse student in online learning So that model is based on the idea that each of those dimensions can both enable and strain Diverse learners in both distance and blended So I may refer to that and hopefully that will become clearer as we move on So it's it's not like a Simplistic shopping list of stuff you've got to do it's things to consider which can both enable and constrain and I think this might Resonate with people who've been involved with online learning for a long time some things that help some learners are not You know necessarily great for others. So there is a juggle and some trade-offs and tensions But moving on in a nutshell five steps would were taken to develop this new model and The first one is Actually Identifying an existing model. So I actually have developed this from research that was done in the times of digital divides earlier use of the internet how to have equitable online participation and this is the research of DiMaggio and Hargitai from 2001 and they identified five critical dimensions and what I've done is added a six and Brought them up to date for the current online widening participation Context so step one started with the model Those five dimensions were technology autonomy purpose social support and skills I think the devil is in the detail of how that's defined and we will get to that as I mentioned this was developed to explain Inequitable and inequitable use of online participation At a time when people were becoming increasingly aware that a digital divide model a simplest haves and have nots was not very useful and in fact There's a more nuanced way of talking about this in terms of digital equity and this is where multiple dimensions come into play hence these five critical dimensions that can influence the way that People do or do not gain benefit from what is you know Sturmbly free and available to everyone online all the time And so by adding the sixth dimension of learning materials I was doing this because I needed to make a model that was specific to an educational setting whereas the five original model dimensions were particular to the general use of the internet and When I say learning materials don't panic. I don't just mean stuff I'm not talking about Broadcasting just you know texts and videos and so on. I mean a very broad definition of learning materials that includes assessment formative summative, you know feedback conversations a very broad conceptual conceptualization of learning materials and indeed steps one and two develop very specific definitions for each of those things that were really reflective of current literature from widening participation research related to Digital divides and equitable online learning the third step I needed to Test this and see if it was if it would fly for real. So in the first two steps. I've developed a Concept or from theory from the existing literature and the remaining steps was about seeing how it would work for real So I wanted to know were those Dimensions actually having an impact in real online courses And so I had to identify a bunch of cases that I could test them with and that's where the systematic review came in So once I'd identified those cases I then collected a whole bunch of data about how those courses succeeded or didn't and So there was a qualitative synthesis of those successful or unsuccessful designs in relation to If they discuss anything that met the definition of those six critical dimensions So it was a really fascinating process and finding that many of these dimensions seem to have a very Substantial impact although some seem to be more substantially impacting than another And so at the end of this huge exercise of qualitative synthesis of all of these cases a comparison with the proposed model dimensions I ended up with some revised definitions in the light of these actual Real running cases that had been tested with diverse students and found to have a certain degree of success So that's a lot to take in does anyone just want to give me a thumbs up? Are we traveling okay with this? Is it making sense? Can you hear me? Are we going good? Excellent. Yee-ha. I'm seeing so many thumbs up. I feeling very happy. Thanks guys Let's move on only a couple more slides before I start to ask for your feedback All right, here it is. So The six critical dimensions for widening online participation the version that I published in the aJet article December last year, so you will see that learner support and autonomy the two big ish blue circles are fairly prominent and that is intentional because of these six critical dimensions those two turned out to have more of an Influence of the outcome and when I say this I mean if the course exceeded they were more likely to be prominently considered and if it had if there were problems if it if there were difficulties these things also Were were coming into play positively or negatively So those things The definitions of those things are very particular. So if we look at learner support I'm talking about very broad academic Motivational technical support from teachers. Yes mentors. Yes peers. Yes, and also pre-existing social networks Who are not in the course? Or they may be although but likely not be so a very broad Conceptualization of learner support and I think think of online and blended we think that we are only you know It's the students that have to do the peer-to-peer stuff And it's you know us as teachers. We have to be you know Do all of that sort of support and that the staff and the university and some of course that's it's very important But learners are also relying on pre-existing social networks and that and that's really interesting To see who and how they blend together formal and informal forms of support Autonomy choice and control over learning the when the where to how sure that's important But also contributions were made without social pressure or role pressure They don't just wanted to be able to learn and apply that learning to their From their own goals. So some sense of fun It being they're driving their their own Their own race there I suppose and so on top of that course purpose was really important So this was also much more specific in the successful courses So yes, ask three bit of foundation topics improving socio-economic opportunities and enabling pre-existing groups to learn together That was really unexpected but relates to how much community there is in learning and And and how much communities like to learn together So it could be you know a whole a subsection of a school teachers learning together using Online programs MOOCs or MOOC like free courses Learner skills of course is important But what made a difference was scaffolded incremental development of both technical and also study skills and yes Learning materials were important and I'll arise. You can see they liked a range of media Things needed to be open to translation in different languages Coherent sequences choice feedback Showcasing authentic and diverse ecstasy and within all of that there was a strong theme of recognizing and empowering diversity So those five dimensions really powerful But I did say six and the six one is Kind of small down the bottom technology and what was really quite astounding in the outcome of this research was how minimal that technology dimension played in terms of Making a difference to the success or otherwise now It certainly was absolutely critical to make the course possible. Don't get me wrong having 24 Seven access to an online course. That's free absolutely crucial starting point. But once that was happening What was happening with the technology the technology itself did not particularly enable or constrain Unless there was a pre-pre a free provision of devices in the absence of all other options for disadvantaged students But what the technology did was amplify the other dimensions and then it had quite Quite an important role to play and so this notion of the interaction between the dimensions They're being an amplification component was something Unexpected and interesting in the findings and in the logic of the model so When I was first drawing this up at a high level model in actual I drew it like this Skills materials the purpose the autonomy the support at the heart of it a community of learners Learners and at the heart of it the objecting an objection around inclusion and equity and overall of that I drew a watering can to represent the technology as something that is helping to grow all of those other dimensions and certainly within the The paper there are some examples Which I obviously can't go into with with this session to get into that detail You can see how each of these might might jump go But the cases that I tested with from the systematic review are global blended distance global south global north different Multilingual multicultural, you know different kinds of programs, but all of them shared a desire to assist damaged or non-privileged learners to provide widened access to To make a difference to students who have been previously excluded or marginalised in some way and so I think this is A timely way to think about How we can consider not only Shaping our programs, but how we also might like to research them So that's the six critical dimensions and how how I got to it and I think The big question, you know, why bother, you know, why do we need another model and What what I found at the beginning and it sort of grew as I kept reading and looking and reading and looking is I Found that models for online and blended learning that we just don't seem to reflect the experience of diverse learners and So I looked at the transaction instance and the community of inquiry models because for good reason They have been very popular in research for a long time But I Kept finding that they're primarily tested with postgraduate level learners So not the kinds of learners that we are trying to widen access to in the undergraduate space in the transition space in the pathway space in the widening access to people who don't have Already a good education who don't already know how to do online learning and so I just Started to feel that we really I mean other researchers have already made the point in the literature that that these models at 40 to 50 years old really need updating for contemporary online use and platforms but I was also starting to think that I think they need updating also to Make sure that they're tested with used with made meaning The experience of diverse undergraduate learners and foundation level learners. So in other words what we call would call widening participation so I Do have some more comments on that, but I you know, it's always so nerve-wracking Putting forward ideas like this you feel like perhaps you just need to read another 100 papers and you'll you know You don't want to critique a model wrong, but I really would like to Invite you now to either through making some comments in the text here or diving straight into the collaborative worksheet tiny url.com slash odl model I'm really wanting to see if anyone else has some examples that are in fact working well for the diversity Or is this kind of a reasonable? Reasonable judgment to make that it is in fact time for an upgrade to odl theory For now when we have more diverse learners and we have such widespread use of the internet and mobile internet so So yes, please I you know the questions that I'm interested to know is what models do you use in your research and practice? What are they good for are they particularly useful to device diverse cohorts? If there's anyone who is a great proponent of both trans or either Transactional distance theory or the community of inquiry model But there's some stuff that I haven't read that they could give me a more balanced view of where it is working I'm really open to that and I'm also interested to hear from anyone who might be interested in Collecting further on the six critical dimensions research and practice elements so How would we like to to? Take this next section moderators how much time have we got and would you like to do voice or? How we'd like to go. Hi, Sarah Maron here awesome presentation. Thank you so much Interesting. We are going to take questions in the chat and we have about five minutes Cool. All right So we can moderate together and my colleague Jane is at hand as well in case we got lots of questions So people put up your questions and then you've got five more minutes Sarah before we hand over to Jim and Lauren does that sound okay? Cool. All right while we're looking for I'm getting some nice feedback I'm not yet seeing a Question so if I might put forward a little bit more of what I was concerned about with these models And we can pause this if anyone has a particular question so With transactional distance theory transactional for one is it is a word that has a particular Well, you know the banking approach to content-based learning and it sort of suggests that and distance is is about distance education But within this model They in the TD model learner difference is confined to the learner autonomy dimension Which is limited in its conceptualization of diversity to just independent versus dependent learners and Gosh, that's not a lot To differentiate us diversity we have and how we think about learners so Independent versus dependent. I think I think we probably moved on quite a bit from that And I also started to bring this model up to date with changes in contemporary web-based learning environment had limitations and that they are also Examining privileged groups of learners in particular Grad students in business or ed courses at North American Uni. So I'm You know, I'm looking to see that these are being taken up in in more Contemporary contents Context with diversity, but I'm struggling so really keen for any links that people might have and with the community of inquiry model this one was really interesting too because There is quite a lot of research indicating that the dimensions of this model not particularly repeatable and verifiable and people are often trying to to change The definitions and add lots of other components to it because the original Presences as they're called Didn't quite fit for circumstances And so there's this really interesting paper on the nth the nth presence that Kazan and Cascale talk about saying look Wow You know if we keep adding more and more dimensions where we're never We're never going to stop. So maybe it's not quite right but The thing that was super interesting also with this paper is they they went back to what this model is actually for us It was never about evaluating a whole course. It was never evaluating And designing or considering the whole course. It was actually designed with the intention of Investigating the development of higher order learning and critical thinking skills through discussion based collaborative pedagogies, which is super specific and definitely not about widening participation of equity students in foundational undergrad studies and I'm just concerned that taking that you know taking that model and applying it to whole courses in lots of different contexts is You know, how can we do that? So particularly this one is also being Largely concentrated in studies towards graduate level US courses on the learning There's also been a lack of diversity in authors with this model and I don't want this happening for mine Which is why I'm opening up for participation right at the start So I did you want to do questions before we finish? Sorry to interrupt you. So we've got one from Francis Bell and who is keen and more about Sorry, just lost it about different categorized learners rather than their behaviors that can change over time And there's another from Tuskeen Who is also keen maybe maybe we can pick up those two before we finish to hear more about the idea that the privileged will like the idea of inequality and how you tackle that in your research, so That was Tuskeen for this particular slice I only included the courses in the systematic review if they had an objective to widen participation to increase Student equity or social inclusion. So by you know that from the outset was all I was looking at in the courses that were included in the systematic review so So that that's how I did it there and we can pick up offline some other other research methods And I'm seeing from Daria about learning support. How important is it that these people are diverse to? absolutely teachers are not homogeneous and learners are not homogeneous and and people are at you know different spaces and That was another thing issue that I had about the notion of presences in the community of inquiry model because Presence is not always good, right? But this model assumes you want more presence all the time, but we know in our studies of You know how Research into classes sexes and racists encounters in online environments that presence is not always Fantastic so that was another concern. I had that we were made through this model and notion Embedded in an assumption that teachers are and students are all homogeneous and we you know, they can only be you know They they're either present or distant and that's the only variable. So that seems to me also to be Just not not quite right So Daria great point. Yeah. Thank you, Sarah and any final thoughts And I'm obviously the recording of your presentation will be put onto the program page and later today And is there anything else you'd like to add before we hand over to Lauren and Jim? No, thanks so much. I will really look forward to going back over the comments having a look at the The Google doc and that will be open for coming week So don't feel too that you know, you have to do that instantly if you want to participate Just want to thank GOGN for their feedback throughout things as well and give a plug to the upcoming Jime edition of open education and social justice that Laura and I have been working hard on and There's some beautiful papers Coming out through there that it will look forward to sharing with you Slides have references and also some tech details. Thank you so much everyone for coming along