What I like with ONL is that we have a process that we follow but still it is up to the PBL-groups to interpret and decide the format for the work to be done. In the beginning I found it a bit challenging to understand the expectations, but the I realize that this is exactly what my students feel and tell me sometimes.. 
So from that perspective, it was a great learning experience to put myself into the students role.
I liked all the group discussions and found it easy to collaborate in such an open environment, with the support of a scenarios and a facilitator for the different topics. Having all the good supportive material in place, references, some presentations and interactive sessions with other great persons. I can relate to when students say that really appreciate a guest lecture from outside. I believe it has to do with the fact that we want to get some extra energy and additional views to a discussion. Even if I as the teacher have told a student based on the latest research how ”it is”, they tend to listen and reflect more if an expert from industry tell them exactly the same. So, I guess my point is that we should mix activities and ways we introduce a topic.
I liked all topics in the course, but som has made me think more about my role as a teacher and others have given me input for how to design and develop my courses. This last topic really shows that we can learn in different ways and we as teachers have a different roles in the Modes of learning by professor Richard Elmore.
During the last topic my PBL-group created a 2×2 Matrix to highlight the place and time variable in education. This modes of learning by Professor Richard Elmore address similar questions. I like to think in models and reflect on how (or if?) the differences have an implication on learning and teaching.
I think the ONL concept could be used in pedagogical development internally at our university. The idea of providing short scenarios to the PBL-group to work with and additional resources to support the discussion was helpful. The structure of scheduling 1h meetings and keep it within that format helped me to prioritize these activities and the course. As a online course where we still want to encourage interaction as part of trying to support students to learn I think this format works quite well for, lets say individuals that like to be in the collective learning modes of professor Elmore’s framework. But what should we do if the students are not studing full-time and on nights and evenings or in different timezones and i promote collective learning. It seems that many bloggers that have written about his framework encourage the reader to take on the Leaders of Learning course: https://www.edx.org/course/leaders-of-learning have to think about that…
Back to ONL, I really like the mix of people and the amount of sources and knowledge in the network. We created some models and tips/guidelines in our PBL-group that I feel was helpful for me when reflecting on my own learning activities. Maybe one thing that could have supported the cohort of the ONL is to provide ”mentor/twin groups” that have to interact more actively of share/exchange something during/after every topic. All though I liked the fact that I could look into all groups a short presentation of your PBL-group work to another group och deciding one group that could present for 5-10 min during the common session for the whole course could have made me think/reflect more on our work in relation to what other groups have done. More inspiration for learning.
Maybe I will introduce part of the concept in this course to the courses I’m involved in. Have to figure out how to examine this part of the course first and how to motivate students to take part in synchronous group activities (without introducing mandatory session) as well as getting some extra hours ”over” to do the develop of courses…
References:
Levälahti, F. (2021). Notes from Modes of learning.
https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVOe0lU2I=/?moveToWidget=3458764514375061215&cot=10
Leaders of learning by Urska Zrinski
https://www.cef-see.org/blog/leaders-of-learning
Elmore’s 4 learning modes by Catherine Meilleur
https://knowledgeone.ca/elmores-4-learning-modes/
Explore your Theory of Learning By Solomon Osadolo
https://andela.com/insights/explore-your-theory-of-learning/
