This showcase post is expanding and elaborating my ideas on blog post #3. I have an experience of working with a scrum team, learning globally software development within a community of learners. The three main social media we used for learning and communication are Github, Zoom, and Slack. After the experience with the scrum team and reading Colin’s posts, I learned three new things that will definitely enhance my abilities of being an educator. First of all, I learned that frequent interactions with teammates in face-to-face method can create the most social presence. Also, I gained a better understanding of how important knowledge sharing and obtaining feedback are to develop community. Moreover, Peer review is a critical attribute in open pedagogy, which can build team trust among learners.
In my experience with the scrum team, our five team members were developing a web-based application for remote clients. Also, every team members worked distributedly so that we spent more time communicating by text messages and video conferencing. The strategy #1 states that “social presence is an important concept for developing community” (Johns 247). It is also very true that “the medium of communication has an effect on social presence, which is influenced by a person’s location in space and time” (Johns 247). Since we were working remotely, the social presence that we theoretically created, was not as much as the team which spends most of the time in face-to-face communication can create. In this way, in order to build team solidarity, we implemented agile methodologies to manage our team, increasing our social presence. We texted each other on Slack and had video conferencing on Zoom. By understanding that “face-to-face communication is thought to create the most social presence”, it is critical for individuals in a team to promote frequent face-to-face interactions among teammates, shortening the “psychological distance between communicators” (Johns 247). Therefore, if I am going to be an educator for a community of learners, I will try to let students build team trust by asking them making frequent interactions among each other.
Knowledge sharing and feedback are also very essential to help connecting with a community of learners. During the time I worked in the scrum team, our group constantly promoted knowledge sharing and obtaining feedback. We utilized Github and Google Suite to share our codes and documentations, “[creating] opportunities for sharing information and expertise” (Johns 248). We shared our own Google documents with each other to show our research progress. Also, we exchanged code snippets on Github with each other for assessing individuals’ code qualities. Moreover, we wrote documentations on wikis for everyone to search on the parts of the projects that they don’t understand. After reading the strategy 2 which states that “providing opportunities for students to share information is a useful tool in helping to develop community”, I started to realize the importance of using knowledge sharing tools in a learning community (Johns 248). With the purpose of making students’ learning more efficient in a group, educators ought to provide students with instructions of various social media for knowledge sharing. For example, I will use Slack and Github for teaching programming to a community of learners, and asking them to constantly using those two media to share knowledge.
Peer review is not the only one of the most important attributes in open pedagogy, but also vital in building team trust for a learning community. In my agile team, we implemented three basic agile practices, which are sprint planning meeting, daily stand-ups, and sprint retrospective. All these agile methodologies provided a safe environment for team members to make peer review, sharing their ideas and knowledge without the fear of being reproached. Everyone was encouraged by the instructors to not being scared of showing their work and thoughts to teammates or in public. If the environment was not as that supportive, “fear of criticism from peers [could be] shown to inhibit engagement in an open learning community” (Bronwyn 10). What I learned from this experience is that learners in a community can be inspired and have fast improvement “through peer feedback, tagging, sharing, and modification” (Conole, 2014). I originally thought that there is no such need to peer review in a learning community as people might be afraid of sharing real thoughts with others. But after reading Bronwyn’s article and the agile experience, I realized the importance of peer review in open education. If I am going to educate my students in the future, I will encourage every students to do peer review in their learning group.
In conclusion, after experiencing the scrum team and reading Colin’s posts, I obtained three new ideas for improving my education skills. I learned that frequent face-to-face communications among team members can create the most social presence. Also, I understand that knowledge sharing and feedback are very important in group study. Furthermore, Peer review is essential in open pedagogy, creating decent learning environment, and building team trust among learners. (816 words)
References:
https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/stable/44430383?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874
Erik Yu 