Last week, we had the final week of the ONL201 course when we met with all the group 10 (PBL10) members for the last time as part of this course and shared our reflections. ONL201 was overall an interesting journey as we did hands-on experiments on how to design an online course, discussed the challenges that both teachers and students may experience when we transition towards a digital way of education, and how to enable a collaborative form of learning in such a digital environment, among many other things.

One important aspect and take-away for me personally from the course is the better understanding of the concept of co-learning or co-creating knowledge. Instead of a 1-way transfer of knowledge or individual learning experience, a key element in collaborative learning is the co-creation of knowledge where each participant works with the others towards this goal resulting the whole group to advance, build on their knowledge, and learn together. This is not an easy task though as it requires an open mindset towards collaborative way of learning and many other things to work properly such as technical aspects of education. Proper choice of tools and platforms can help a lot in this aspect but they are of course not enough. Having clear goals and setting up group agreements are also two other factors that can facilitate. Overall, it requires practice and open mindset to team work.

As my tips for future participants of this course, I can start by saying that try to attend all course lectures and meetings. It is by participating in the group meetings that you develop your skills to co-create knowledge and co-learn with other people. This is not something that you may easily be able to compensate later on as an individual assignment. Also course facilitators can be of great help and you can count on them when you feel lost; so don’t worry if at the beginning the exact tasks and expectations may not appear clear to you; have patience and trust in the process. By involving the facilitators you can also learn from and apply their experiences in your group work and activities. Also it is important that you approach this course with an open and active mindset; i.e., with a passive approach towards this course you cannot get the most out of your participation and time.

To conclude, here is a photo from our group work in the last week to create a meme and our motto for this course:

“Don’t ask what online learning did for you, ask what you did for online learning” !

Signing off…

Mehrdad