We have reached the end of the ONL course, this is our last week. Now it is time to reflect on what we have been done and learnt during the past months.
Reflective thoughts about my learning and involvement in the ONL course
The first aspect that I want to mention is that the ONL course has allowed me time to actually reflect on my teaching practice and identify strengths and areas for improvement. For that purpose, the group discussions in my PBL group and my reflective blog posts have been useful means. In the case of the blog, I found great that I could come back to it after so long, although I have to acknowledge that, being a non-native English speaker makes the activity more time-demanding for me (but a good practice, in any case!).
The group meetings involved discussing and developing the group work assigned in each topic, but also, exchanging ideas and feelings and having more informal talks about learning, teaching and technology, which was nice and inspiring. We have also allowed ourselves to experiment in the group with different ways of conveying information, by using tools with a focus on diverse kinds of media, and by increasing the level of complexity. I think I was lucky with my PBL group, since the colleagues (and facilitators, of course!) were always supportive and positive, and we had formed a really effective but also friendly team that is not easy to find in usual contexts (thanks to all of you!)
As a last thought, I would like to add that, although I have made my best to be actively engaged as much as possible in the group meetings and preparing my reflections, I feel that I could have taken much more from the ONL course (e.g. being involved in more twitter chats, experimenting with new tools, looking at the literature in depth, and having a look at more works from other groups and learning reflections and give feedback!) if I had had the time that I expected at first, before COVID-19.
But I am sure I could do it in the future! We can not do everything in a course
Projecting to the future
As conclusions: how would I project all this to my future practice?
My next steps would be:
- Exploring ways to incorporate problem-based group working into my teaching practice.
- Carefully consider the different models for blended learning for my teaching.
- Embedding learning approaches and models within faculty training for digital teaching and learning.
- Critically reflecting more often on my teaching practice.
- Working harder on aspects related to open pedagogy.
It has been a lovely experience and I can recommend you to join the next ONL course edition. Thank you for the opportunity, and also to you, that are reading this post!