• 
  • Releases
  • Speeches
  • Articles
  • Events
  • Subscribe
  • Learning Link
  • Multimedia Centre
  • Practically Speaking
  • Profiles in Learning
• 
  • Upcoming Events
  • Past Events
  • Minerva Lecture Series
• 
  • Requests for Proposals
  • Funded Research
  • Reviewing Proposals
  • Building Capacity for Research
  • Researcher in Residence
  • Research Events, Presentations & Workshops
  • Student Success
• 
  • Composite Learning Index
  • Health Literacy
  • Post-secondary Education
  • Reading the Future
  • State of Aboriginal Learning in Canada
  • State of E-Learning
  • State of Learning in Canada
  • Redefining success in Aboriginal learning
  • Commissioned Reports
  • Question Scans
  • State-of-the-field Reviews
  • Systematic Reviews
  • Survey of Canadian Attitudes toward Learning
  • Literacy Assessment
  • Lessons in Learning
  • Journal of Applied Research on Learning
  • Data Warehouse
• 
  • What We Do
  • President and CEO
  • Board of Directors
  • Knowledge Exchange
  • 21st Century Learning Initiative (Canada)
  • Knowledge Centres
  • Crosscutting Themes
  • Joint Initiatives
  • Corporate Reports
  • Working at CCL
  • Contact Us

• Requests for Proposals
• Funded Research
• Adult Learning
• Aboriginal Learning
• Early Childhood Learning
• Health and Learning
• Structured Learning
• Work and Learning
• Reviewing Proposals
• Building Capacity for Research
• Researcher in Residence
• Research Events, Presentations & Workshops
• Student Success

First reference system for knowledge associated with the individual skills and organizational capacities required for ICT-supported teamwork involved in distance education for teachers and Francophone school management

Summary (PDF 26 KB) Full Report (PDF 263 KB)

Prepared by:

Claire IsaBelle, Ph.D.
Gilles E. St-Amant, Ph. D.
Hélène Fournier, Ph.D.
University of Ottawa

Background

The great challenge in education is ensuring that everyone has the means to acquire, transform, use and communicate knowledge. In a country like Canada, where numerous Francophone communities are located some distance from the major centres, the quality of distance and on-line education (DOE) becomes an important issue. Furthermore, as school management and Francophone teachers evolve to reflect Canada’s ethnolinguistic development, it is crucial that they be properly equipped not only to be able to solve problems as they arise, but even more importantly, to be able to establish leadership practices that foster the full development of students, and indeed, the school team. Therefore, the DOE courses they take should allow them to acquire the maximum of knowledge so they can establish and consolidate their professional networks.

Goal and Objectives

It is essential to assess how adult learners organize themselves, function, and evolve when performing different learning activities involved in DOE, such as case studies, group decision making, and problem solving, in order to work together and effectively and efficiently achieve the pedagogical objectives. In fact, it is important to identify the skills they need in order to facilitate their learning when working as part of a team or even to increase their retention rate when engaged in distance education. More specifically, this research project has three objectives.

1. First, it seeks to inventory the skills required by adult learners to work together and attain the work objectives.
2. Second, the research project is intended to inquire into the key organizational capacities required to support the teamwork of adult learners and the teaching of instructors through DOE.
3. Third, our project proposes to write, evaluate and disseminate a first reference system on the knowledge associated with the individual skills and organizational capacities for ICT-supported teamwork.

Results

The data from the final evaluation of the Reference System (Version 3) indicate that overall, students indicate that they learned from the four guides. Nevertheless, despite the fact that they claim to put some principles of the guides into practice more than others, the students do indicate that the guides helped them to achieve the required work objectives, and that they were highly useful for their distance education.

The results from the evaluation of the four associated activity processes reveal that the students mainly learned how to organize working meetings. The activities involved in establishing governance of the virtual team were put into practice and enabled the students to achieve the work objectives in a more sustained fashion. Finally, the students found the process and activities allowing for the appointment of a coordinator very useful.

 

Top