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In my efforts on developing the course I’m working on, I took the concept of the ABC Learning Design workshop back to my department. Together with my colleagues, I tested the concept of mapping the course activities and the integrated learning activities. We agreed that the method is great for visualizing the elements of the course and highlighting needs for alterations.

When marking the activities as grading or not it was clear that we could include more formative feedback elements involving peer review. We, the teachers, agreed that we are reviewing a “lagom” amount of activities. However, there are room for more peer reviewing and peer learning. The students in this advanced course have a lot knowledge to bring to the table, and it became clear that this possibility could be facilitated more effectively. Boud and Falchikov (2006) suggest that assessment activities can, rightly used, contribute to future learning. If we can help the students to become “assessors”, it potentially promotes lifelong learning. The literature show that providing feedback can be beneficial for the provider. In the process the provider is learning e.g. to improve skills of analysis and evaluation. Additionally, providing peer feedback can enable students to become more independent and make them regulate their own learning (van Popta et al., 2017)

While reviewing the course it also became clear that the alignment of the assignments could improve. We decided to alter the first assignment to better connect with the later. By doing so, the later assignments are picking up the thread, and pointing back to the beginning of the course, therefore improving alignment.

The Rethink:Kau work shop got me on the track of integrating a greater variation of pedagogical methods used in  the courses. As individuals learn in different ways (Willingham et al., 2015), a more diverse palette of learning activities will likely target more learning styles, facilitating learning for a wider range of learning styles. For me, not working with digitalization, the workshop was an eye opener on the technical possibilities that are out there.

 

BOUD, D. & FALCHIKOV, N. 2006. Aligning assessment with long‐term learning. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31, 399-413.

VAN POPTA, E., KRAL, M., CAMP, G., MARTENS, R. L. & SIMONS, P. R. J. 2017. Exploring the value of peer feedback in online learning for the provider. Educational Research Review, 20, 24-34.

WILLINGHAM, D. T., HUGHES, E. M. & DOBOLYI, D. G. 2015. The Scientific Status of Learning Styles Theories. Teaching of Psychology, 42, 266-271.

I mainly teach online courses, but as Bates (2015) points out, learning environment is no only the physical environment – it´s also the climate that we create in a course. The possibilities for creating learning environments are very different online and require some extra effort, as the students to a large extent prefer face-to-face learning (Pomerantz, 2018). A way of bridging the physical gap and creating an open climate that I find useful is to put a lot of energy in to communication with the students. I try to emphasize the importance of them getting in touch whenever something is unclear, and making this easy for them to do so. This can be done by providing multiple ways to connect and making contact details easily accessible. Having several channels of communications available can lower the barriers of establishing contact.

The importance of the physical outline of the room doesn’t apply to my day to day teaching. However, the rare occasions when I do meet the students are exclusive and requires even more planning. As Leijon (2016) points out, one seemingly small, but important thing is the room itself. The room gives us signals on how to behave and on what kind of interaction that can take place in there. As the campus meetings are devoted to discussions and interactions among the students, the room needs to be big enough so that the level of noise is acceptable even for group discussion. In addition, smaller spaces that can hold group discussions are very useful. I find that there are often a lack of smaller rooms and that I end up having to ask the students to find suitable spaces on their own. I try to rearrange the furniture according the number of students that I am expecting to show up. If let’s say there are eight students, a conference seating is probably feasible and will promote good discussions and interactions among the students.

So far, I have mainly used asynchronous discussions due to the technical challenges of connecting synchronous. However, with technical improvements and the many benefits of direct conversations (Laurillard, 2012), is seems to be worth a try.

Despite the difficulties with online learning, for example with a high numbers of students not following though, I am amazed how well it actually works. My experience from candidate level are limited, and maybe when you are new to higher education an on campus setting preferable. However, at the advanced level, the students have the experience of studying and online learning can provide the opportunity for lifelong learning. It is easier to combine online learning with work and it bridges geographical distances. In addition, specialized educations are made available to students were ever they are.

I looked at the first module in the extendMOOC, the one about Teaching and Learning. Generally, I was impressed with the outline of the module. It’s clear and diverse, which keeps you engaged. The way they mix reading with looking/listening experiences promotes accessibility to the content.

The module is based on a book called How Learning Works by Jossey-Bass and gives you a great introduction to the book, which triggers an interest to read and learn more. Throughout the module there are a lot of additional reading, like links that you can klick on to learn more. That I think was a great idea that I’m taking with me.

A critique that I have is about the interview with the designer of the module. I don’t really understand why they put in there. For me, it wasn’t obvious how it added to the course.

Many of the tricks and tips for enhancing learning I recognize and have previously used. For example, finishing a session with giving the students a few minutes of reflection about what they learned. The insight that this has proven to be effective is encouraging, that means I should continue to go with my guts and do things like that.

Even if some of the things were quite basic, the module was inspiring. I started thinking of thing to ad and change in my own teaching to improve learning.

When I think about learning environments, the first thing that comes to mind is the traditional class room. A room with tables and chairs, and a board were the teacher is standing. When working on the presentation I released that it can be broaden to include a number of aspects, not only the physical room. In the era of blended learning there are many new learning environments to discover. This lead to the conclusion that there are two major learning environments in this course: the class room and online. However, within these two there are several options to create diverse environments for learning.

As the course I am working on is partly distance, the possibilities for traditional class room learning environments are limited and most of the activities are online. We have half a day in the beginning and half a day in the end where we meet in real life, the rest are various digital environments. This obligates for the time in class being well spent.

During the time in-between meetings the learning environment is mainly Canvas and the speed grader function within Canvas. Looking at it like this, as an online classroom, highlights the importance of the digital learning environment. As a teacher in higher education, the support you get on how to organise these rooms are limited. This is also expressed in the literature, education is not driving the digital development and there is a lack of sharing culture were good ideas aren’t spread. Something to work on in the future!

My presentation on learning environment:

For me, digital competence is a means in academic teaching and an important part of contemporary pedagogical development. We need to step up in order to keep up with the students and how they use technology, without losing focus on the pedagogical content and didactics of the actual subject. I enjoyed reading Mozelius and Hettiarachchi (2017) and reflecting on the origin of blended learning. This concept that you hear a lot about, and in the past I almost attributed something magical to it. In the article they state that blended learning can be almost anything, and that the problem with such a broad definition is that in the end it says nothing. Therefore, a more fruitful way of defining it would probably be to add that the digital activities should contribute to students learning and the alignment of the course.

An obstacle with blended learning is that student satisfaction tents to be low and distance courses generally have a higher dropout rate. Chen and Yao (2016) mapped factors affecting learner’s satisfaction and concluded the design aspect to be most influential, surpassing the importance of instructor, course, technology, and environment. A successful design, which includes perceived usefulness and ease of use, made for the learners to devote their attention to learning the content instead of having to learning a complicated system. The participants in this study were young, around 20 years of age. Therefore, the results may not be directly transferable to other age groups. However, we can conclude that for blended learning to work one important aspect is that the digital tools are easy to use.

If we state that learning takes place in the interaction of humans, a successful online courses requires to compensate for loss of personal interaction. Garner and Rouse (2016) found that a combination of digital online components and face to face interaction influenced the students learning experience in a positive manner. To improve learner satisfaction the online components where do be “low technology solutions”, such as personal feedback or individual mails, rather than tweets or filmed lectures (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2014). This provides useful input to the pedagogical development within digital competence.

I have chosen to work on the Public Safety lll course which is included in the MASTERS program in Risk and Environmental Studies. It is the third and final course, covering the subject of public safety within the program. The course is built on part one and two, following a (hopefully) logical order. Basic epidemiology, describing and interpreting injury data, constitutes the first part. The second course include measures of injury prevention and the theories behind it. Leading up to the third (the one I have chosen to work on) that focuses on implementation and evaluation of prevention.

It is an online course with a campus meeting at the beginning and end. The students choose a subject to work with during the course and hand in their project in five steps, getting feedback/feed forward after every step. Using this type of formative assessment is quite demanding for both teachers and students, but also a very effective learning tool. I would like to develop this and try to integrate more digital tools into the feedback/feed forward process. I am thinking of on line meetings with the students or doing video recordings in order to pass on my point of view on their work.

Chen, W. S., & Yao, A. Y. T. (2016). An Empirical Evaluation of Critical Factors Influencing Learner Satisfaction in Blended Learning: A Pilot Study. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 4(7), 1667-1671.

Dunlap, J. C., & Lowenthal, P. R. (2014). The power of presence: Our quest for the right mix of social presence in online courses. Real life distance education: Case studies in practice, 41-66.

Garner, R., & Rouse, E. (2016). Social presence–connecting pre-service teachers as learners using a blended learning model. Student Success, 7(1), 25-36.

Mozelius, P., & Hettiarachchi, E. (2017). Critical Factors for Implementing Blended Learning in Higher Education. International Journal of Information and Communication Technologies in Education, 6(1), 4-18.

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