Looking for a reference for my previous post on learning in community I found this
article and I just can’t forget the last sentence in it: “Least we forget, the faculty are the only members of the teaching profession, from kindergarten through college, who are not trained to teach their own students. Neither the students they wish they had nor the students they do have.”
I think things did evolve for academic teaching training since this was written in 2003. It gets good support from research nowadays (we know it’s all about what the student does) and it is easier for anyone to access articles. But who thinks about support and accessing these new articles? In other words who realize this need when we tend to think about ourselves that we are better than we really are? Except when we get feedback or when we need to solve concrete problems… And this is the merit of an initiative such as ONL.
Is there a profile of the participant? Maybe teachers who realize they still need to grow? Profile of the institutions involved to organize it? Maybe the organic type that responds to evolution, to upgraded technology, to changes in the needs and thus the trends of the society?
Who was I in the course? I started from a bit of an outsider because I am not teaching for the moment. The funny thing is that I enrolled in this course to learn more from our educational developer who taught us last year. She knew how to challenge us, she was lecturing by questioning all the time, our brain was fully awake. We surely spoke more than her, the “official” lecturer. Imagine the surprise when in the first Skype meeting, (introduction to ONL) I found out that I would not gonna meet her at all and the course was all about meeting new people. (I still got tips and encouraging emails when in need and they valued a lot, thank you Malin!)
Living in the north of Sweden and meeting new people… that asked for double-triple emotional effort because I am just not so used to this anymore… Was this course difficult for me? Sometimes yes and most of the time no. It was chance to learn by practicing things I’ve had only heard about: open learning, e-learning, creative commons and other digital tools that exist. It was a chance to know how things develop in other countries and it also was an amazing chance to learn about myself.
What an exercise to discover the elephant in ourselves 
All those things I learnt from my PBL colleagues I wrote about in our last Padlet presentation. I am very happy it happened to be YOU.
I have now a new strong reference for that moment when I’ll design or teach my first course. I thought I was fully prepared last year when I graduated this, but then I followed CDIO lectures and my universe increased! Now I recognize the same “end of good course” feeling: how was it possible to live without knowing all these things? That it can be so fruitful to work in a group, to meet online each week, the same day, the same hour (if you want to understand why we got “addicted” read about the Power of habit) and that it’s so enjoyable to use a tool such as Popplet where everybody can contribute and the results can be so good (at least we think so).
I learnt many things that I can apply in day-to-day life, I feel more secure about me in the role of organizer, how to be a facilitator. We had good examples to follow, simply great when Kiruthika would come in to complete my sentence, to clarify a thought that I was having hard to explain in front of my group or simply to add a link in the chat or a pdf to our folder in that very minute I was mentioning a certain reference.
I am grateful for the chance of learning by practice all the tools, it is very important to present and share ideas in an pleasant way in any type of career. I remember someone commented about one of our presentations (designed by Rachel) that it was simple but elegant. That’s what I aim for.
To the end I came in terms with blogging as well. Initially I felt I gave place for metacognition in the FISH documents. This past week the more I wrote in the blog the better I understood its importance: when talking time to reflect on a topic (with all the adventure to accomplish the topic’s task), things get sedimented in a structured way. I can find them when I’ll need it but also other people can get use of them. And then there is the value of feedback. I also got very inspired by what I read. It is very intense and powerful to read so many ideas coming from different personalities, certainly not as facile as reading a book.
The community of inquiry model (a model I haven’t studied before) I plan to apply it as a form of competence center organisation and as a professional education framework. The challenge will be then to convince someone to pay for a course where the learner can actually be the teacher as well, where the learner can even find the answer to the problem within the group… Do you think it is going to work? Very practical in university but afterwards… what are the expectations when someone pays for a course, is it to mainly be a passive learner? Maybe a blend with some lecture will be the right balance.
One thing is sure: I’ll always be able to shift from the facilitator to the student role thanks to this course experience. We read and discuss, turned things on all sides, struggled… The harbour called ONL… my learning trip about learning goes on! And I’m not alone on the ship Surely there are hundreds of sites and combinations of what is the perfect blend to start with when designing an online course. My favourite will always be the one created within my PBL group.
References:
1.Tinto, V. (2003). Learning better together: The impact of learning communities on student success. Higher Education monograph series, 1(8), 1-8.
2.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOLmD_WVY-E
3.https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=o8a1dsv5IXo
4.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_inquiry#A_useful_metaphor
5.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Habit
6.https://kiruthikaragu.wordpress.com/
7.https://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/
8.Picture: https://www.pexels.com/photo/boat-deck-dock-harbor-jetty-137533/