I am very surprised how deep, and evidence based my understanding was developed of what enables purposeful and meaningful learning processes and how it can be initiated, designed and supported in an online environment. The course was a door-opener for new concepts and ways of teaching concepts, to an expanding pedagogical competence and a great worldwide network of teachers, course designers, educational designers in higher education. I am still astonished how I got involved intensly by the course concept myself.

As you may already seen in the previous course reflections I encountered a lot of technical words in the ONL course with which I had to got familiar at a first step. Thats why I created a cloud of words (see picture below) which became important for me in the context of online and blended learning concepts.

From its own design the ONL Course was like a “drum set” in an orchestra – it had:

• a strong rhythm (course design with an introductory and a connecting week and four topics changing every two weeks and deadlines for delivering results)
• several drums in the set which worked together and were sharing their experiences and thoughts and doubts (PBL Groups with around 5 to 7 international members working together with the problem-based learning method and meeting two times a week and beside working on their own pace and producing their individual sound with contributions to the problem solving process and the presentation and reflection of it)
• the drummers (the facilitator and co-facilitator of the PBL Group supporting the teaching, cognitive and social learning process – it was like an “instant / direct coaching / mentoring”)
• the orchestra (the whole ONL course community sharing thoughts and findings for all)
• there are breaks in the rhythm sometimes (with the reflection weeks and the individual reflecting blog post which can become a long-term habit)

Summarizing my experiences throughout the course I learnt that it is very important to offer different ways for students to learn and to promote interactivity, cognitive development and social contacts. Interaction has not to be simultaneous it can also be in a chat or on a digital pinboard for example. It is just important to embed our students in the learning process – education is sharing – and to implement concepts of student agency. Technical tools are a gift, but they don’t replace an effective course design. There is a range of new tasks coming up in online and blended learning concept for teachers. The role for teachers is changing to a large extent. We must invest more in the course design, have and give technical support and facilitating the learning and social community. From my point of view high end online learning will not be cost-reductive but may be more cost-effective for universities. Good online and blended learning programs need more resources for designing courses, offering technical support and beside preparing the learning journey and content: facilitating, coaching and giving direct feedback. Further on I mean it will need more than one teacher in a course, we will need interdisciplinary educational teams.

The detail reflection of my learnings you see in the following mind map (if it is to small to read: the essentials you find in this blog post).

The course accompanying Corona-pandemic was a turning point in the teaching habits of teachers worldwide and at our university – suddenly we had to teach exclusively online in springtime this year. It was a hard and intense change process for me, but I already found out that I like the possibility of varying and combining different learning and teaching methods and modes (synchronous and asynchronous) in an online learning environment. In combination with the ONL Course the last month were heavily inspiring me and my teaching habits.

At this point I want to thank all my over 100 calleagues which were also on this learning journey during the ONL 202! Especially those in the PBL Group “11”: Mihi from Singapore, Zach from Finland, Kingsley from South Africa, Inger and Maria from Sweden and Mehtap from Germany. And a special thank goes to Alastair Creelman, E-Learning Specialist for higher education development from Linnaeus University in Sweden our course leader and group facilitator and Anya Siddiqi from Aalto University in Finland, English Lecturer and our co-facilitator in the PBL Group 11! Miriam Fischer from my home University of Applied Sciences in Zürich did enable and accompany the course. It was a great pleasure and very inspiring for me working with all of you!

What am I going to do from now on? I like the idea of letting go the concept of “spreading over enormous content” instead of thinking deeply and constructing knowledge with the students together in collaborative ways, but I am also conscious about the challenges and longstanding habits which could hinder me sometime from the transformation. At the moment I conclude that I prefer to teach in and design blended-learning courses so I can profit from all the opportunities and benefits online learning offers us and profit from the impact of communication and interaction as well in face-to-face situations. I don’t want to go back to fully face-to-face courses. I am going to build up my PLN (Personal Learning Network) more decisive by for example following bloggers about learning and teaching concepts for the new normal. And what suprises me most: I feel the idea of going to be of influence and support about blended and online learning for other teachers with the aim of multiply personal wellbeing for educators and students (formulation based on Williams, 2020). I already started to discuss my learnings with my colleagues at our Institute of Facility Management, and I am looking forward to future learning steps about open and networked online learning and maybe discussing them with you?

Sources:

ONL202. course overview. https://www.opennetworkedlearning.se/onl202-course-overview/. accessed at 05.12.2020
Williams, Birgitt. 2020. Each of us is an Influencer of Wellbeing. Weeks post. Dalar International Consultancy. https://www.dalarinternational.com/influencer-of-wellbeing/. accessed at 05.12.2020