…and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” I do not recall when I discovered this quote by T. S. Eliot, but it was long time ago. And it still speaks to me, both in scientific or life explorations. Particularly, it applies to the ONL191 journey.

I came to the course with curiosity about Problem Based Learning, which was for me the least known territory. After being many years in the digital space teaching and collaborating, as well as taking and designing online courses myself, I did not expect to get major aha moments in that area. Indeed, while I noticed and appreciated the care taken with the course design, most of the elements were familiar.

The FISH process intrigued me. Focus-Investigate-Share based on an online document. Wondered how could it be done without confusion and overlapping research. But then, again, it worked. We met synchronously, and amazingly, each of us saw something different when looking at the scenario. I realized how narrow my vision was when looking at it…or maybe not narrow, just looking at it from my perspective based on my experiences, culture, background, personality, you name it. Each of us, each individual, brought in the richness of their lives when looking at the same scenario.

The group process also concerned me a bit in the beginning. Yes we had a connecting week, but besides exchanging a couple of slides about ourselves, we still did not know much about each other, and in the beginning the meetings were a bit steely. But, after a few weeks, we started to get the hang of it. As in any team, we have different personalities and as such bring in different contributions, all valuable. If everybody was a cheerleader, we would not get quality control. If everybody was detail oriented and meticulous, we would miss the big picture. And so on. But, just as in a flavorful meal, the different flavors of our personalities meld together into our very colorful FISH documents and final products.

And being responsible for a topic and struggling with technical issues made us humble and empathetic. If things did not work, that was ok. And most of us had things coming up…family emergencies, travels, delays, conferences…we communicated it and we tried to solve it. And if you think about it…IRL (=in real life) getting a group dynamics work may take quite a time. And we did it online! By seeing each other on video for 1-2 hours per week (or less)!

This is my final official ONL191 posting, and per the rules, I should put some literature references to support what I shared, that is the importance of the “human touch.” Funnily enough, my university just had an online training to improve retention, and a lot of it was about 1) early warnings, and 2) early interventions. For the latter, we had to design empathetic responses. Oh, and positive feedback was suggested for high performers! Our group was very generous with praise and gratefulness overall.

Thank you, ONL191! Hope to join you again, maybe as a co-facilitator?

References

Cuseo, J. (2012). Student
Retention: The big picture. Retrieved from https://www.se.edu/dept/native-american-center/files/2012/04/Student-Retention-The-Big-Picture.pdf

Lehman, R. M., & Conceição, S. C. O. (2013). Motivating and retaining online students: Research-based strategies that work. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.