Optimising Sync Learning Time: the Three Cs Framework
One of the questions I get asked most is: how do I make best use of the sync (live) time I have with my students?
Research into how humans learn shows that the answer is three-fold:
Build Connection 🖇
Enable Co-Creation 🧱
Develop Competence 🚀
Introducing: the Three Cs Framework — a tool to help make it quick & easy to apply the science of learning to the art of designing meaningful, high-impact sync sessions.
Here’s how to apply it:
Build Connection
Self Determination Theory tells us that students are intrinsically motivated and engage & achieve more when they feel a sense of connection or “relatedness” with their peers and instructors (Ryan & Deci, 2000).
Relatedness refers to how much people feel connected to & supported by others during their learning experience, e.g. through a supportive instructor and working successfully with or helping others.
While relatedness can be developed with the right technology and carefully crafted async activities & feedback, Rovai & Jordan (2004) found that feelings of relatedness & connection are developed more quickly and meaningfully (i.e. with more long term effect) when interactions are synchronous.
Effective synchronous strategies for relatedness-building include:
Building in time for connecting as people, e.g. pre-class coffee / ‘how’s life’ check ins or Q&A at the start of sync sessions.
Designing activities which require co-creation of knowledge (more below).
Building in opportunities for peer tutoring & feedback (Roscoe & Chi, 2007).
Enable Co-Creation
Opportunities for learners to “co construct” knowledge & skills with one another has been found to be more effective than strategies where students learn from an expert (e.g. listening to a lecture) or on their own e.g. by reading a text (Chi & Wylie, 2014).
While co-creation can happen with the right technology and carefully crafted async activities & feedback, Springer et al (1999) found that co-creation is most meaningful when at least some of it happens synchronously/live.
Effective synchronous strategies for co-creation include:
Problem-based group projects.
Debate, disagreement & critiques.
Peer to peer tutoring & feedback (Comer & White, 2016; Liu & Carless, 2006; Lundstrom & Baker, 2009).
Develop Competence
Research tells us that students are intrinsically motivated and engage & achieve more when they feel a sense of competence (Ryan & Deci, 2000).
Tasks which optimise a feeling of competence are those which require feedback & support to get right : so-called “hard fun” (Papert, 2002).
While a sense of competence can be developed with the right technology and carefully crafted async activities & feedback, Pintrich & Schunk (2002) found that competence is optimised when at least some of it happens synchronously.
Effective synchronous strategies for competence-development include:
Analysing a complex case study in a live interaction, giving students the opportunity to compare their thoughts, ask questions and get immediate feedback in real time.
Practice activities, where students have the opportunity to apply what they have learned, ask questions and get immediate feedback in real time.
Want to learn more? Sign-up for the waitlist of my Learning Science Bootcamp.
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🧪 The Science Bit
Chi, M. T. & Wylie, R. (2014). The ICAP framework: Linking cognitive engagement to active learning outcomes. Educational Psychologist, 49(4), 219–243
Comer, D. K. & White, E. M. (2016). Adventuring into MOOC writing assessment: Challenges, results, and possibilities. College Composition and Communication, 67(3), 318.
Liu, N-F. & Carless, D. (2006). Peer feedback: The learning element of peer assessment. Teaching in Higher Education, 11(3), 279–290.
Lundstrom, K. & Baker, W. (2009). To give is better than to receive: The benefits of peer review to the reviewer’s own writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 18(1), 30–43.
Pintrich, P. R. & Schunk, D. H. (2002). Motivation in education: Theory, research, and applications (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.
Papert, S. (2002). Hard fun. Retrieved from http://www.papert.org/ articles/HardFun.html (May, 2022).
Roscoe, R. D. & Chi, M. T. (2007). Understanding tutor learning: Knowledge-building and knowledge-telling in peer tutors’ explanations and questions. Review of Educational Research, 77(4), 534–574.
Ryan, R. M. & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well- being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78.
Springer, L., Stanne, M. E. & Donovan, S. (1999). Effects of small- group learning on undergraduates in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 69(1), 50–80.