The journey throughout this course has been utterly stimulating. The course facilitated a quantum leap in my knowledge. When thinking about individual moments, I cannot see any peculiarities. However, when I consider the whole picture with all the moments combined, I find it so inspirational and extremely valuable for teachers. It is like a puzzle; it is complete and makes sense as a whole. However, when the interlocking pieces of the puzzle are dispersed, the whole image becomes disentangled and becomes hard to see.

The journey has changed my perspective on things. Topic 3, in particular, was a turning point in our group performance. We learned how to collaborate with each other and produce something that we all contributed to. Before this, we were just discussing the topic and then dividing the workload only to come at the end to put things together and submit it. When we read the scenario together, we all agreed that we were exactly in that situation, and we decided that we should learn how to collaborate more as a group. The end product was something totally unusual to us; it was the product of a collaborative endeavor. During the two weeks in Topic 3, I also learned the difference between collaborative and cooperative tasks. Before that, I used these two different words interchangeably to mean students working together. After reading the literature and also discussing the scenario, I started to see the difference between them and how they generate varying interactional involvement. I used this knowledge and implemented it in one of my seminars because I wanted to show my students the difference between collaborative and cooperative tasks and their affordances for language learning.

Another valuable insight is the knowledge that I accumulated about blended learning. This topic is indeed so relevant in the aftermath of the pandemic, as so many universities around the world are willing to continue to integrate online education into their lesson plans. During the two weeks, we decided to create an optimized blended learning course. By the word “optimized”, we wanted to highlight the importance of making students see the values of different encounters whether face-to-face or online. We wanted to move away from Emergency Remote Teaching as an improvised mode of teaching and ensure a pedagogically-guided and well-planned teaching. Each activity was designed to use all the potential of the instructional space, making a strong connection between the activity and the space in which it is conducted. Whether an online encounter or face-to-face, students must see that the activity can only be conducted in the mode.

Another thing that I learned during the course is that I could contribute either synchronously or asynchronously. Both types proved to be equally important and also productive. The fish document helped us a lot to organize our contribution in a convenient way. We were building it step by step in a joined effort. It also functioned as a referencing document where we can find all our discussions and work noted down. When reading, one can trace how we dissected the topics and developed them. It also reinforced the progressive nature of the course, which is one of the purposes of this course.

While the journey has come to an end, I believe it just constituted a whole new beginning to another journey because all the insights that I gathered throughout the course will stick around forever and will influence my teaching in varied respects. Thank you for this inspiring journey!