The participants of the community are predominantly North American, although I have also met Australian and South American educators. Members have diverse backgrounds and include: academics, students (particularly from McGill University), workplace educators, teachers, social justice activists, and general members of the public interested in CP.

Freire Project as a vehicle for learning

According to the definition of a learning community proposed by Scardamalia and Bereiter (1994, cited in Bielaczyc and Collins, 1999), the Freire Project is a community that fosters learning because it aims to further develop collective knowledge in the area of critical pedagogy and provides support to individuals who are interested in the pursuit of  knowledge in this area. The community also has the common goal of working together to increase everyone’s understanding of critical pedagogy and the latter’s role in the promotion of social justice.

 

The Freire Project gravitates around common areas of interest and, through its connectivity, members form bonds with each other and create identities based on their participation in the Project (Wenger 1998). Knowledge construction occurs through building dialogue out of individual participant contributions – a process which ensures diversity of opinions and expertise (Wenger 1998). Ryba et al (2002) suggest the principles of ‘commonality’ and ‘interdependence’, as are evident in the Freire Project, are central to a community that is a vehicle for learning.

Learning activities

In order to identify the activities that make the Freire Project a vehicle for learning, it is necessary to outline the definition of learning used for analysis in this paper. Learning is understood as a complex and multidimensional process which involves interaction between the learner and a particular environment through cognitive, emotional, and social processes which result in changes to the capacity of the learner (Illeris 2003). 

 

According to this conceptualisation of learning and the definitions of a learning community above, many of the activities of the Freire Project can be categorised a learning ones.

 

Activities that foster learning

The following activities are ones that involve online interactions simultaneously with cognitive, emotional and social processes that result in changes in the participants. They are also events based on commonality and interdependence.

 

• Member profiles – members learn about common interests and values through sharing biographies
• Blogs and forums – members interdependently exchange ideas and build threads of dialogue
• Wiki – members can participate in knowledge construction through personal contributions
• Resources – members can access resources relevant to their practice of CP
• Videos – engagement with the videos can add meaning to member’s knowledge and identity
• Journals – members can read and contribute to a number of e-journals which are crucial to the advancement of scholarship in the area
• Website – the familiar and simple structure of the site facilitates identification of areas of interest
• Email alerts – allow members to make effective choices about community engagement and learning (although a community member recently wrote a post asking, with desperation, how to turn off the alerts as they were annoying and dissuading him from participating in the community – highlighting the diversity of learning styles of community members)

Aspect that may have limited learning

An interesting dilemma that has surfaced during my participation in the Freire Project relates to the lack of leadership within the community, due to passing of Joe L. Kincheloe, and being personally accustomed to teacher-centered learning. Initially, I felt that a lack of a leader could be limiting my learning and that led me to question whether leadership is necessary for learning to occur amongst a community of people. Brown’s (2001) exploration of the process of online community building identifies the need for expected behaviour to be modelled by an instructor and Sessums (2008) notes that there is a need for good leadership and moderators to ‘provide facilitation, help, guidance and support as needed to the members of the [online] community’.

 

However, the work of Siemens (2008) suggests that my action of connecting with others and locating knowledge of interest and relevance is sufficient to constitute learning. The work of Narayanan (2007) adds to this proposition by suggesting that learning through connectivity allows for different types of learning: deep/slow and shallow/fast. Hence, I now realise that I have been learning through the Freire Project despite the lack of a leader and notice instead that I have engaged in different types of learning – some shallow and fast and others deep and slow.

My role as a learner and participant in the community

My role within the community is defined partly by the objectives of the project, my personal reason for becoming a member, and the nature of self-directed learning. I do not have any specific roles within the community compared to the webmaster and members on the Project’s advisory boards.

 

I joined the community because I support the objectives of the project and I am deeply commitment to the promotion of social justice across all areas of society. I also have an academic interest in critical pedagogy and how its translation into practice can assist me to promote social justice as a workplace educator.

 

Consequently, I see my role within the community as a participant who contributes to the dialogue on CP by sharing ideas and resources, engaging in discussions with others in an honest and critical way, contributing to the sites of information, and promoting the community to others who may be interested in the cause. As a self-directed learner, my role necessitates me to become familiar with the technology, be open to new ideas, take the time to reflect, juxtapose new ideas against my existing schemas, and modify my understanding of the world and beingness accordingly. I also see that my role necessitates that I practice what I have learnt and share these experiences with the community to promote further learning.

Interpretation of experiences

According to Illeris (2003), learning includes two processes: 1) an external interaction between the learner and their environment, and 2) internal acquisition and elaboration. These learning processes operate across three dimensions: the cognitive, the emotional and the social – ‘all of which are embedded in a sociaetally situated context’ (p. 396). Illeris (2203) further proposes four levels of learning: cumulative, assimilative, accommodative and transformative.

 

Using the above model of learning I believe that my experiences in the Freire Project have resulted predominantly in assimilative learning – that is learning by addition of meaning to my existing schema about critical pedagogy and its practice, rather than significantly breaking down of existing knowledge patters and replacing them with new concepts, as is involved in accommodative learning. The latter may have occurred more if I had been totally unfamiliar with critical pedagogy and its role in the promotion of social justice. Despite my interest in transformative learning I do not think that I have engaged in that type of learning through the Freire Project, as I have not been faced with a disorienting dilemma resulting in a change in deeply held attitudes (Mezirow, 1991).

 

The assimilative learning that has occurred through my experiences in the Freire Project can be interpreted as follows:

 

External interaction with the online community

According to Siemens’ (2008) connectivist theory , learning occurs through connections with other Freire Project members, participation in blogs, forums and emails, and by accessing specific information sites, such as, the wiki, important figures in CP, resources, and videos. Siemens and Tittenberger (2009) further suggest that learning online is more about becoming than knowing, that is, learning in a networked environment is about the process of locating relevant information (opening doors) rather than content accumulation (filling containers). My connectivity at the Freire Project necessarily means I am learning.

 

Using the social theory of learning as outlined by Saunders (2008) and Cornford (2008), I am learning about critical pedagogy and its practice through observing the behaviour modelled by other Freire Project members and comparing my self to them. When I first joined the community I spent time being a “lurker”, a valuable experience according to Nonnecke and Preece (2000), watching the contributions of others as well as group dynamics. Initially, I felt unable to contribute due to a feeling of intimidation and self-doubt because most of the contributors were academics well versed in CP theory and the group seemed a close knit community.

 

One day I took the plunge and posted my profile, started a blog on Critical Andragogy, a forum on Critical Pedagogy in the Workplace, and commenced adding comments to other’s blogs. Within a week I had comments on my blog, comments on my comments, and personal emails from fellow Australians community members. This increased my confidence and sense of belonging, which increased my motivation for learning as a member of the community (Wenger 1998). Hence, through self disclosure and monitoring, interaction with others, and having learning conversations with fellow members, I was able to move from inhibition to disinhibition (Cornford, 2008) and learn more freely though participation in the community.

 

Internal acquisition and elaboration

My learning as a Freire Project member is not limited to external interaction with the online environment. There is a cognitive and emotional process that takes place simultaneously allowing me to construct new knowledge and skills, take time for reflection, formulate new concepts where necessary, consider implications, and put new knowledge and skills into practice. These processes were evident during a blog discussion with a fellow member on the issue of homophobic bullying at schools. Through this interaction I learnt how a fellow community member effectively handled a subtly homophobic question from the audience. After some reflection, I realised that this strategy would be useful in my anti-homophobia education work to facilitate transformative learning.

 

Another example of the process of acquisition and elaboration occurred through feedback, provided by a fellow community member after reading my biography, which was critical of Equal Opportunity online courses such as the one I manage at work. The feedback included a suggestion that I read and use the work of bell hooks (1994) on cultural analysis to frame online learning of issues such as harassment and discrimination. Despite the initial emotions associated with critical feedback, I learnt a lot from this interaction because I read and considered some of bell hooks’ work and its application to the online course I coordinate. I engaged further in conversation with this community member on the issue and now feel inspired to change our course (when the opportunity presents) and ensure slower and deeper learning (Narayanan 2007) on these issues.

 

References

Bielaczyc, K. & Collins, A. 1999, ‘Learning Communities in Classrooms: A Reconceptualization of Educational Practice’, in Reigeluth, C. (ed), Instructional-design Theories and Models Volume II: A new Paradigm of Instructional Theory, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, London.

 

Brown, R. 2001, ‘The Process of Community-Building in Distance Learning Classes, Journal for Asynchronous Learning Networks, vol 5, issue 2 September, pp. 18 – 35.

 

Cornford, I., R. 2008, ‘Social Learning’, in Athanasou, J. (ed.), Adult Educational Psychology, edn 2, Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, ch.4.

 

Illeris, K. 2003, ‘Towards a contemporary and comprehensive theory of learning’, International Journal of Lifelong Education, vol 22, issue 4 July, pp. 396  - 406.

 

Mason, R. & Rennie, F. 2008, E-learning and Social Networking Handbook, Routledge, New York.

 

Mezirow, J. 1991, Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

 

Narayanan, G. (2007). A Dangerous but Powerful Idea – Counter Acceleration and Speed with Slowness and Wholeness, available online: http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2007/edition-13/narayaran/, viewed on 23 April 2009.

 

Nonnecke, B. & Preece, J. 2000, ‘Silent Participants: Getting to Know Lurkers Better?’ Chapter 6, pp. 110-132, In From Usernet to CoWebs, available online: http://cis.uoguelph.ca/~nonnecke/research/silentparticipants.pdf, viewed 21April 2009.

 

Ryba, K., Selby, L. & Mentis, M. 2002, Analysing the effectiveness of on-line learning

Communities, available online: http://www.ecu.edu.au/conferences/herdsa/main/papers/nonref/pdf/KenRyba.pdf, viewed 24 April.

 

Saunders, S. 2008, ‘Social Psychology of Adult Learning’, in Athanasou, J. (ed.), Adult Educational Psychology, edn 2, Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, ch.3.

 

Sessums, C. 2008, ‘Online Learning Community Design Issues’, Christopher D. Sessums’ Blog, weblog, Social Networks in Education, Brighton, viewed 24 April 2009, http://eduspaces.net/csessums/weblog/281794.html.

 

Siemes, G. 2008, New structures and spaces of learning: The systemic impact of connective knowledge, connectivism, and networked learning, available online: http://www.connectivism.ca/, viewed on 21 April 2009.

 

Siemens, G. & Tittenberger, P. 2009, Handbook of Emerging technologies for Learning, available online: http://www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies/cetl/HETL.pdf, viewed 21 April 2009.

 

Wenger, E. 1998, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

 

 

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