A study of holistic thinking in an agricultural leadership development program using asynchronous computer conferencing
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The primary goal of this qualitative case study was to investigate the nature of holistic thinking in the context of an asynchronous computer conference. Holistic thinking was defined as a constellation of higher-order thinking skills to include content/basic, critical, creative, and complex thinking. In addition, this study examined the utility of the Integrated Thinking Model (1989) as a conceptual framework for investigating such phenomena. A central tenet of constructivism applied to the design of online learning environments is these ought to facilitate processes whereby learners build and integrate complex representations of knowledge into patterns that are personally meaningful. A potential outcome of these processes is a "deeper" learning, one where "the learning exchange seems to go deeper than normal, when a certain aliveness and engagement falls upon us, capturing our minds and hearts." Facilitating the activation and use of holistic thinking in collaborative online learning environments is seen as key to the realization of this goal. For this reason, contextual factors (e.g., design of the online learning environment) and process factors (e.g., collaboration, facilitation) were seen as significant considerations worthy of investigation. Results of this study indicated that the case study participants did appear to be thinking holistically about the issues under discussion and demonstrated particular configurations of holistic thinking skills as described by the model used. Also, the conceptual framework used for this study has great utility for analyzing the presence or absence of a range of holistic thinking indicators. Potential areas of weakness include the range of thinking skills addressed by the model, resulting in a research tool that is perhaps too unwieldy for general use. Design features of the learning environment, specifically those constructivist principles embedded within the small group learning project, were thought to positively impact the demonstration of holistic skills by participants. Process factors such as the emphasis on collaboration, active peer facilitation, and effective project/information management were seen to confirm the assertion that these are important considerations in the design and delivery of online learning facilitative of holistic thinking and deep learning. This case study examined four adult learners' experiences and interactions within a particular collaborative on-line learning environment incorporated as part of the larger context of participation in a unique Canadian agricultural leadership development program. Using the asynchronous computer conference transcripts and other data sources generated by this group, this study describes the dimensions of the presence or absence of various indices of holistic thinking as operationally defined by the Integrated Thinking Model (ITM).
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.009 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.011 | 0.008 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".