Open Learning
I was intrigued by the introduction to the topic “Open Learning: Sharing & Openness”which stated that the topic would “explore the benefits and challenges of openness in education and learning”.
What did “openness” mean, particularly on a personal level, as a learning facilitator, and for the type of interaction between learners and the learning facilitator?
Was it about “shortening the distance”, removing [or at the very least, radically reducing] the hierarchical relation and regarding each other more as equals?
Would that have implications for leading and guiding the learning process?
Would it enable or constrain students in their learning?
Those that really stood out for me are:
· ?Equality and being inclusive
· ?Fostering community in the learning context
· ?Decoupling learning from exclusive spatial enclaves
I also came across the concept of “lurking” in the context of open and shared learning, framed as idleness (lurking), gabbling, irrationality, and for that matter gossips and chit-chats.
I can see how this is contrary to the principle of equality, and probably also fostering community. But I can also see that techniques may be needed to deal with this if it manifests in a learning group.
Finding out about Open Educational Resources [OER] was also very helpful. These are key enablers of levelling the playing field between differently-resourced participants in a learning group. OER and initiatives such as Creative Commons are critical building blocks for making learning opportunities more accessible globally. I really support the idea of an open-boundaries “public commons” to facilitate, enable and promote sharing knowledge and information, and to unleash creativity and innovation.
The group discussion around how to introduce the idea of “opening up” some courses and going more on-line, was very insightful for me. Beginning or expanding teaching into a digital context requires thinking through and adaptation in a number of ways and on a number of levels, including:
 |
| Individual AND Instittuional |
I found Bates’s Teaching In A Digital Age [https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadigitalagev2/] to be a very useful resource for developing a framework to guide decision-making when moving to teach in a more digitalised way. New and/or different resources need to be considered, including skills and technological capabilities.
Now is the time to reflect on a topic that I enjoyed very much: learning in communities, networking and collaboration. The biggest take out for me from this topic was the differentiation between co-operative and collaborative learning. I share these descriptions:
Collaborative learning is a method of teaching and learning in which students team together to explore a significant question or create a meaningful project. A group of students discussing a lecture or students from different schools working together over the Internet on a shared assignment are both examples of collaborative learning.
Two aspects stood out for me during our group discussions about collaborative learning. The first is the mutual searching for understanding, with the learning facilitator being less of an “expert transmitter of knowledge” and rather more of a “designer of intellectual experiences for the entire group” adopting the posture more a coach towards a more emergent learning process.
The second aspect was assessment. How to allocate an individual mark for a learner, when the outcome has been generated by the whole group?
A key learning from colleagues in the group with more experience of collaborative learning, was the usefulness of:
defining specific collaborative goals
establishing individual and group accountability, wherein each learner takes responsibility for their respective individual piece of the group task/project, whilst the group is accountable for meeting the over-arching and collective goal of completing a comprehensive project of good quality.
Collaborative learning is appealing to me because it invites everyone to be active participants in their own learning, playing varying roles within the group, and being mutually accountable for achieving the group learning outputs and outcomes.
I will end this blog by reflecting briefly on NETWORKED collaborative learning. I understand this to speak into building and working in communities of practice, with colleagues who can be located anywhere in the world.
This is extremely powerful because it opens the door to accessing wide-ranging expertise, possible new ways of working, sharing of experiences of what has been tried before in other learning environments, and receiving non-judgemental collegial support and encouragement.
Networked collaborative learning has also been described as a form of social learning systems. This sits comfortably with me because in my home country, South Africa, we have a social norm called ubuntu.
ubuntu means “I am, because you are”, coming from the Zulu phrase “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu”, meaning that a person is a person through other people.
To me, this African philosophy speaks to the inter-connectedness of human behaviours. It means that all one’s individual actions have implications for others and for society as a whole. Therefore one must always be conscious that one is part of a bigger whole, and that one’s individual actions ripple out and impact extensively on others.
Isn’t that the basis of being
NETWORKED?
Design for Online and Blended Learning
The last topic in the ONL course focussed on how to support student learning and how to design for learning for a “quality educational experience”. It was excellent to draw on the experience of other members in the group. It was particularly helpful that almost all had at least some experience in online design and delivery. At the time of this topic, the world was grappling with the corona virus pandemic, and the need to re-think many social behaviours.
The biggest impact for learning and teaching was immediate, in that schools and universities were closed. All learning had to shift to on-line learning. It seems that this shift may last into the foreseeable future in a number of countries, meaning that there is a very need for finding ways to (re)design teaching material for on-line delivery. This reality provided rich discussion points.
I was interested to learn about the Community of Inquiry proposition as a way of offering a theoretical framework within which to locate design and result in a meaningful learning experience. The interdependence of the three constitutive elements makes sense to me, these being social presence; cognitive presence; and teaching presence. Find as easy to read graphic here: http://www.thecommunityofinquiry.org/content/images/diagram.coi.jpg
The three elements will work well for me as a “checklist” not only in the design of a lesson, but also during the delivery of the lesson. I think coming across as “authentic” and “a real person” are probably the most challenging to achieve consistently. Getting this right will hopefully prove to be the key to keeping learners motivated and engaged during online sessions. It takes effort, dedication, and probably new learning as well. It also needs courage and confidence to try out new ways, and possibly even “dare to be different”.
“As we have progressed as a species, our ability to find information (and mis-information) on anything, anywhere, at any time, seems to have deadened original thought” (de Groot, Sunday times 17 May 2020)
Dare to be different – even if at first it feels like being a fish out of water
This is the possible reality that faces teachers and learning facilitators in the classroom – either in face to face or online situations. What I learnt through experimenting with a number of tools such as canvas; genially; padlet and thingLINK during the ONL course, was that if used skilfully, these can make the on-line teaching environment extremely vibrant and participative.
What is needed is digital agility both in design and during delivery of the actual lesson. The opportunity in the group to work collectively and “live” during group sessions was a fantastic eye-opener for me.
I am not there yet, as I still need to get to grips with how to use these tools seamlessly and with confidence. But a glittering box of exciting possibilities has been shown to me. It’s up to me now to spend time exploring and experimenting with these to enable me to be an effective learning facilitator.
