Monthly Archives: December 2019

#ONL192, Topic 5: Lessons learnt – future practice

End of course…

Topic 5: Lessons learnt – future practice

It has been some intense weeks. It has been fun. It has sometimes been frustrating. But most of all it has been a good learning experience.

Hearing some of the content has made me feel happy, as I have been presented to a lot of interesting, and important, content.

I have enjoyed the group discussions. Hearing everyone’s thoughts on the topic, their own experiences from teaching/learning. Hearing about things that has worked, or could be altered a bit, after working through a topic. I have also been introduced to a lot of interesting material. Last topic, one of my peers added a very interesting document;  “Get inspired! A guide for successful teaching“, which is a material that they use at Aalto University. It seems very down to earth!

I have given myself a bit more time to digest some of the information that has “rained” over us, time to go through a lot of interesting articles, research etc. Today, by reading one of the blogs, I found the UDL guidelines, which is “a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn“.

Things takes time, and I think this journey has just began.

Thanks Anne, David, Eugene, Joachim, Lina, Lisa-Marie, Marja and Nomvelase. I have enjoyed our journey together.

References:
  • https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/11990
  • http://udlguidelines.cast.org/
Image:

Unexpected, Cecilia Hellekant. CC BY-NC-SA

#ONL192, Topic 4: Design for online and blended learning

Scaffolding

Topic 4: Design for online and blended learning

“In essence, inclusive and open pedagogies are rooted in empathy and require that we take a humanistic approach in creating learning experiences” Amanda McAndrew

I have enjoyed this topic, as it talks about the importance of keeping in contact with your students, showing empathy. And I believe that is essential, perhaps even more essential in an online/blended course.

Unfortunately I have heard teachers talk about online courses as courses they only have to publish materials for, and the prejudice than people that chooses  an online course knows how to manage it on their own…

We can’t know who our students are in advance or know what kind of learning experiences they have. We should make a course that is more inclusive, that actually is open for everyone. Before working at the university I worked with students with NPF. And the approach mentioned above would never have worked for them. I know that there are many teachers that reach out, and builds learning accesible for many. By reading one of my peers blog I found an interesting article (unfortunately I can’t find the link to her blog right now), Inclusive and Open Pedagogies by Amanda McAndrew, the Educause review. She believes that “a core principle of inclusive pedagogy is valuing diverse experiences, perspectives, and ways of learning that contribute unique meaning to a learning environment and to the world”.

Do we want our students to succeed, or not?

A friend of mine has been a student on an blended university course. They have a few meetings on the University campus, but mostly she’s been on her own. No scheduled meetings with teachers between the meetings. Some group work.

At least she got a study guide in the beginning of the course, a guide to keep her on track. But, the problem is that to her the guide isn’t helpful. She feels that it is hard to read it, and that the text isn’t organized, making it hard to find out when to  do different steps. Because of that she missed questions to one assignment. A few months later she was very stressed, she had two assignments to send in the same week. At least she thought, because that is what she read in the study guide that she had printed out the first week. She managed just one for the scheduled time. But going into the website to check something out, and reading the study guide online, she realized that the guide had been altered. The assignment she had sent in, was suddenly a week early, and the other was now late. The strange(?) thing is that she hadn’t received any messages about an updated study guide…

Support through scaffolding

“For online learning to be successful and happy, participants need to be supported through a structured developmental process. ” /Gilly Salmon

I was happy to read about the Five stage model, were Gilly Salmon invites us to guide our students through the course. In stage one most scaffolding and then with different focus as the course goes on. But you will all the time be there to facilitate the process. If my friends course had been built in this way, she would have had a much better experience, not feeling lost and stressed out.

Does emotions affect our learning?

Another important insight was the Community of Inquiry, where Marti Cleveland-Innes discussed how our emotions affect our learning. We were asked to bring up our thoughts on the subject on a padlet, and Siv, one of the participants in this course wrote:

“From my own experience, I think a little frustration may make you innovative, you may find the way to a solution in an alternative way maybe” Siv

And I feel it has a lot of truth in it. If everything flowed very smoothly you would most probably continue on the same track as always.

A little frustration or resistance can for sure make you try new ways of solving a problem.

References:
  • https://www.gillysalmon.com/five-stage-model.html
  • https://padlet.com/laruhs/onl192topic4
  • https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2018/11/inclusive-and-open-pedagogies
Images:
  • Five stage model. (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) www.gillysalmon.com/uploads/5/0/1/3/50133443/1617139.png?515
  • “scaffolding” – some help along the way, Cecilia Hellekant
#ONL192, Group 12, Topic 3: Learning in communities – networked collaborative learning

Together we became better than one

2 Comments
Topic 3: Learning in communities – networked collaborative learning

There are two times in the past years being student in a classroom, when the group work has been collaborative;

First time was when studying to become a teacher. At a campus meeting we were put into different groups. The assignment was to discuss a book … We started out talking about our days, when we were working, when we could contribute to this assignment and how we should contribute etc. After that we worked out a contract on how we wanted to work. Back at home, we were sitting in different parts of Sweden, we worked with a chat. There we “discussed” different chapters in the book, writing about things we thought were interesting, others could add to it or come with arguments why they didn’t like it, etc. One of us volunteered to gather the information in a document with headings etc. Everyone read through it and corrected or added information. I felt it was real collaboration as everyone had read through the book and thereafter had added their thoughts and ideas to our text. Next time we were assigned a group work, we decided to meet over “link” to discuss the text we had read. It didn’t turn out as good. It was pretty good discussions, but it seemed like we didn’t give enough thoughts and effort into it, and there was no way we could have written down everything we said… We didn’t get a worked-through document as before. Even if it was the same group we suddenly got social loafers when working this way. (or perhaps we had the first time too, but we didn’t notice)

Second time was last spring when I was attending an art course, online+4 meetings on campus. I think it must have been the best group work ever. Part of it was an engaged teacher. Part of it the group dynamic; We had very different backgrounds and experiences and were of different age. Still, in every part of the assignment my peer and I discussed all possible aspects of the work, turning every idea in and out, we wrote texts and worked out different materials together. Even when one were writing and the other making illustrations, we discussed what words to use or symbols to put in, creating a common work. Both putting in a lot of effort and own ideas. I couldn’t have done this alone, my own imagination had not been enough. By combining our experiences and challenging each other we became better than one. And I believe that is what true collaboration is about.