Topic 1.

Before getting into the topic, I must say that the challenge of the course was the format of the course itself. It took me quite a while to understand where I was in this course, how it was organized and what it was aiming to (beyond what is formally stated in the learning objectives and course description).

But I decided to let me navigating in the flow of information that I was getting during the first meetings. At the beginning I was struggling to grasp “The Topic” or content of the course…”what are we going to learn?”.

The language of the course was also a challenge. For example, my understanding I had of what a scenario is did not seem to be useful to grasp the idea of the scenario in the course and what to do with it.

As the participants in the course are spread around the globe – somewhere between Scandinavia and Singapore – some time needed also to be spent in discussing logistics and potential time zones to dedicate to our meetings. Moreover, as we meet for a short time but rather often, we easily enter and share daily activities/situations of the other participants’ life…(and that I like!) : T. once showed up at the hairdresser with some alluminium stuff in her hair (the result was shown in the following meeting and it was amazing..superbe new look!). Another time a deer appeared in her garden (and on our screens) and that made a bit of an happening especially in Singapore where one have no chance to encounter deers but just birds. In the meantime, it has started snowing in Finland..

Moving now to Topic 1, we started talking about the scenario with M. who prepared a PPT on digital participation and online literacy and possible ways of understanding those concepts.

The scenario connected to the first topic seems to mirror some of us: a teacher a bit lost facing the creation of an online course. We brainstormed of possible tips to give her/his. 

The discussion among us on what to do next ended up on two possible subjects:

1) how to reduce students’ digital foot print of students.

2)  to provide some tips/best practices on how to create engagement for students and the teacher with online teaching. One thing that emerged in our discussion –  based on our experience of online teaching during the pandemic – was the fact that it was hard for students to keep up the motivation to remain active in their attendance to classes (turning off the camera was a way of “disappearing” from the screen but also from their  experience of being a student). We also mentioned that in order to motivate students we should find ways to motivate us, teachers, as well. We can’t motivate students if we are not inspired ourselves first.

So we decided to focus on this second topic. 

We created a google drive in which each of us contributed with at least two points. All of us had some good inputs taken from our experience and subject area.

I suggested two elements which are taken by actual work on posthumanist epistemology and education.  Posthumanism has recently come to question traditional approaches to a universalistic, mentalistic and impersonal type of learning. So I suggested two idea:

– to encourage students to bring their personal life trajectories (of women, of migrants, people of color, person with disability, of people coming from specific geographical area,, etc) into their curricullum and to count in their experience as students (Bayley, 2018). I have tried this way in a course on organizational processes and learship. In order to discuss management practices and ethics connected to management, I have asked them to bring in their own experiences of being part of organizational contexts. This resulted in very interesting and lively discussions on management from non-conventional and standardized perspectives.

– to encourage more embodied types of knowledge.  Art-based methods (drama theater, dance among others) can be complementary methods in order to develop a different type of understanding of a topic or problmes. I am going to try some art-based methods in the course in “sustainability” I will give next month to engineering students. Really exited by the idea ?and a bit worried as well! ?I will let you know how it will have worked!  This will be done on campus but it is not excluded that some alternatives may be developed and adapted to online learning.

Ps: by the end of the first topic I started having a better idea of the course and of where we going to 🙂

Reference

Bayley, A. (2018), Posthuman Pedagogies in Practice. Arts Based Approaches for Developing

Participatory Futures, Palgrave Macmillan.