When a colleague tiped me of the ONL I just had a quick look and shrug my shoulders and said “Shure, why not?”. I was also about to plan for a new online course so it fitted me quite perfect. I registered and then actually forgot about it.
Then suddenly it was time to get started. I didn’t know what to expect really and I was a bit nervous. Then, on top of everything, I was supposed to start a blog. A blog! That was a bit scary! Expose myself to others….to the whole world. But, as I wrote in my first blog post “It always ends up all right somehow”, and you know what!?! It did!
I might not always been that happy with my blog posts, but they have been important to summarize my thoughts on the topic and to start a process within me. The workdays are coming and going one after another and you seldom stop to reflect. But when you are taking a course like this you a forced to take the time to reflect upon what I am doing, how am I doing it and maybe the most important, why am I doing it?
One of the main things I am taking with me in the future is the collaborative work. Both how we managed to form our PBL-group from individual work, via cooperation to collaborative, but also how I will think of group tasks in the future. You definitely cannot take for granted that students know how to execute a fruitful group task! Regarding this, we found a useful resource from Cornell university (I think it was Rafi, thank you!). I will definitely come back to this site.
One key element in how PBL10 reached to collaborative work was the tone set in the beginning. This follows many models for online learning like the Five Stage Model for example, which presents the online socialization early in a course. I think I always planed my courses like that inherently, but from now on, I will focus even more on that part of the course. I think this is a very important factor for success to get students to reach the learning outcomes more effectively. It will most certainly increase student retention.
And so….finally this course has come to past. It’s been fun hard work, with a lot to think about and I will most definitely come back to the archived ONL192 to review some of the resources and probably even come back to another iteration of the ONL in the future.
Thank you PBL10, for a very fruitful, open and positive experience! It’s been great to getting to know you all and thank you Diane and Sinako for great facilitation!
Hello Patrik,
Thanks for the useful tips you included even if this is your last post for this course. I agree with all of your points, especially your remark that usually we are so busy just getting on with our work that we seldom have time to reflect and ‘do deeper learning’, this course was indeed excellent in forcing us to do it, although I’m still not sold on the idea of making my students, specifically engineering stduents, write blog posts :). This course has though given so many ideas, I’m confident that at least now I know where I could begin looking.
All the best as you also begin your rest after these twelve hard weeks of rewarding work,
Anya
It has been amazing having you in the group. Your experiences have taught me alot and I enjoyed co-leading with you. Towards the end, we really grasped the concept of collaborative work and it was an enjoyable experience. I, too will revisist the archives and implement these practices in my future courses.
Happy Holidays Patrik and hope you have an even better 2020.
Hi Patrick,
I agree with you regarding the need to reflect on the topics of the course. It is required in order to actually allow the new information to sink in and to make the best use of it. Very nice reflections and you indeed ended up alright ;). Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Patrik, for sharing your reflection – an important part of learning as you rightly pointed out. And, thank you, for your commitment, hard work, and supportive personality. Our group had a good journey together as we went through a transformation while learning many new things:-) Happy holidays! Diane Pilkinton-Pihko