I am way behind in my reading for this course, so writing anything on this blog has not made sense until now. Since I still have some catching up to do, in this entry, I will just comment and reflect on the texts and videos that appeared in the first few weeks of the course.  

To begin with, I am not really sure what I have signed up for. This does not worry me too much, per se. Studies of students with advanced reading skills, for example, show that students who read a lot do not worry when a texts does not immediately make sense. Instead, they trust that they will eventually figure it out. In other words, they trust their own ability to make sense out of chaos and they trust that the chaos is illusory. Experience tells them it will probably be ok. So that is where I am. In the chaos, trusting that things will eventually begin to make sense. 

But I am apprehensive. Reading the suggested blogposts by Kay Oddone I find myself increasingly questioning the social constructionism theories that support and form this course. The little film that accompanies her post is so simplistic in its description of collaborative work, and so condescending in its tone, that I seriously begin to worry if this course will be a colossal waste of time. And it makes me wonder if problem-based learning (PBL), too, is mostly just a waste of time. I do not buy Oddone’s assertion that traditional teaching, based on what is so conveniently named a “transmission model” (the criticism is implied already in the term), is somehow less effective. In my most generous mode, I’d say that there may be room for both, but that traditional teaching still wins out. 

I currently do much of my teaching in teacher-training programs. And if I feel that I might be wasting my own time in taking this course, it means I must seriously consider whether problem-based learning will be an equal waste of my students’ time. Is this a teaching method (teaching seems to be a bad word in social constructionist theory because it is used so rarely) that I want to exemplify and consequently encourage my students to adopt in their own, future classrooms? I am far from sure that I do. But for now, I have decided that I will continue the course, if only to find an answer to that question.

Oddone, K. (2016) Collaborative Learning and Learning Communities: Learning is Social. linkinglearning.com.au. 15 March. Retrieved from: http://www.linkinglearning.com.au/collaborative-learning-and-learning-communities/

Oddone, K. (2018) Open Networked Learning: Challenges and Opportunities. linkinglearning.com.au. 13 September. Retrieved from: http://www.linkinglearning.com.au/learning-through-connections-in-theory/