PLN means Personal/Professional/Passionate Learning Network (Oddone, 2019). For me Professional makes the most sense since this is a professional activity, though I can also see the merits of Personal since it’s me as a person how is engaged in this.

Every discussion about pedagogy is really simultaneously a collaborative learning and part of a PLN. Most of my PLN is local and face to face. I discuss pedagogy with my colleagues in physics at the department, Nils, Magnus, Andreas and Corina. At the division level I talk to Marcus, Lars, Mikael and Petter. At the department level I discuss a lot with Niklas and as a PL (Pedagogical Leader at LTU), I discuss with Oskar, Janne, Malin, Karin, the other PL’s: Olle, Inger, Susanne, Diana, Björn and Andreas. These networks are somewhere betwen communities and networks. We share common goals but we still work largely individually. Then there are also pedagogy conferences, both internal at LTU and external.

I am currently following two online courses and mentoring a third. In the both the “Sakkunnigkurs” and the ONL-course (Open Networked Learning), we have a group that works together. We have a nice collaboration and in the course we are a community with a common goal. However, at the end of the course the group will probably drift towards more of a network, where we can use each others competences when we have a need for them, or maybe have some discussions together. We will not share the course goals, but we are still teachers who share common goals of improving our students’ learning.

One example of how I have used these courses for networking is that I found a teacher involved in physics and also equality of gender. This is something that I’m really interested in, so we had a great discussion on this together and he helped me out quite nicely.

A part from networks and communities for me as a teacher, it’s really interested to discuss how we can engage students more in the digital classroom. I agree with Brindley et al (2009) that this is an important and difficult part of online education and no more so than now during the pandemic. When I think back on when I’ve had good collaborative learning, I can see a pattern of having a shared and complex goal that was not easily achieved alone. For example, I took an advanced course in Quantum Mechanics at École Polytechnique de Montréal, where we were divided on groups and each group that submitted a decent answer with get a grade B, while the best group would get an A. The whole class sat together on day before the deadline and worked and discussed through the problems together. I am sceptic towards the grading system, but we had a great collaborative learning process. Having a common goal is a necessary requirement for a community I think, as is also expressed by (Oddone, 2019). However, I think that the task also needs to be complex in order for the students to feel motivated to work as a group rather than as individuals. Another thing that I’ve learned during the ONL course is that if the teachers make time for collaborative learning in the schedule, it’s much more likely to actually happen than if the teachers only preach it. Providing a mentor is also a great way for the teacher to emphasise the importance of the group work.

Capdeferro and Romero (2012) cites asymmetric collaboration as a problem that many students encounter.  I agree that this is a common problem. An idea that I got is to group students by motivational level, depending on the grade the students want to achieve. A disadvantage with this method is that in reality, you can seldom chose your team mates, and learning to get along with different types of people is an important skill.

A lot of learning is social, but far from all of it. Practising and reflecting on your own is an important part of learning. But usually more complex and complicated tasks really benefit from discussing them. Furthermore, each student is different and they all have different approaches to learning. 

Nowadays, a lot of group work is done through breakout rooms in Zoom. In my personal experience, this has worked really well in all kinds of constellations. However, I’ve heard colleagues who’ve had students simply leaving the Zoom-room during these group discussions despite being encouraged to participate by the teacher.