Enabling and Enhancing the Role of Learning Broker in Online Social Learning Networks

• In Event: Brokering Future Learning Opportunities: Theoretical and Practical Considerations for Linking Youth to Out-of-School Time Opportunities

Abstract

Recent research examining learning in informal environments reflects a growing recognition of the important role adults play as learning brokers by identifying and orchestrating connections to learning opportunities such as access to people, spaces, programs, and information sources (Barron, Martin, Takeuchi & Fithian, 2009; Barron, Gomez, Pinkard & Martin, 2014). Part of adults’ capacity to effectively broker learning for youth draws from the quality of social relationships, in which trust develops and adults become familiar with youth interests and goals (Ching, Santo, Hoadley & Peppler, 2015; Herr-Stephenson, Rhoten, Perkel & Sims, 2011). For adults in many formal and informal environments, however, developing this deep understanding and knowledge about individual youth can be difficult, due to factors such as finite time and high youth-to-adult ratios. Online environments offer potential solutions to these limitations (US DOE, 2010) but learning communities in which the context for interaction is primarily online face additional challenges given the potential for relationship building afforded by face-to-face interaction.

As research is emerging on how brokering works within and across settings, we aim to address the problem of how educators develop knowledge about individual youth that can support more equitable and perhaps more efficient brokering, suggesting a data-driven solution. Thus, we ask: How can data about youth participation in an online social learning network be used to help adult educators broker learning opportunities for youth?

To start to address the challenge of equitably providing learning brokering, we present a design-based effort to leverage data about youth available through their participation in an online social learning network (Barron, Gomez, Pinkard, and Martin, 2014) to enable and enhance the role of learning broker. Our earlier research examined how adults provide brokering in online learning environments (Nacu, Martin, Pinkard & Gray, 2014), and found little evidence of this type of youth-facing action compared to others such as encouragement and seeding work. This continuing work explores ways to harness user data as computational support to adults in playing the learning broker role. For example, youth participation in online social learning networks reveals data about youth social connections through social network analysis and traces of user interactions, expertise as represented by achievements earned or quality ratings, and interests by applying data mining techniques using online contributions (e.g., types of artifacts or comments posted, types of resources accessed).

Analyzing data collected over a nine-month period in two blended learning environments that utilize online social learning networks, we examine how educators played the role of learning broker. Drawing from interviews, field notes, and use logs from an online social learning network, we are developing themes and using them to create an initial set of design principles for creating tools to support brokering. For the 2015-2016 year, we will introduce a prototype tool in the winter and look for evidence of changes in brokering activity in the spring. In this poster, we will share the results of this work, highlighting emergent design principles, as well as findings from the results of early prototyping.

Authors

• Denise Nacu, DePaul University

• Michael Schutzenhofer, DePaul University

• Caitlin Kennedy Martin, DePaul University - Digital Youth Network

• Taha Hamid, DePaul University

• Jonathan Gemmell, DePaul University

• Daniela Stan Raicu, DePaul University

• Nichole D. Pinkard, DePaul University