This week we finalized Topic 3: Learning in communities – networked collaborative learning. I ended my last blog by hoping for inspiration for how to revise courses with methods, tips and tricks that facilitate collaborative learning. This happened.

The expression first impression lasts is well known, but not very true! Listening to many, or at least some, suggestions and ideas put forward in our group discussions my first reaction was like wont work in my class, or where’s the evidence. After having listened more to my group comrades, adored our final presentation for the topic, and studied research about the different methods, I understand that I got exactly what I wanted: an evidence-based toolbox for me and my colleagues for enhancing our students’ learning.

So what is the final presentation I adored? It is here. Our findings is presented in Canva (not the learning management system Canvas). Canva is another platform out of so many platforms I’ve been introduced to in the ONL-course. It is quite simple to use, and very graphical, making it suitable for easily digested presentations, like ours If you check it please don’t miss that there’s evidence in form of references to research papers, and more in-depth tips and tricks for the implementation in the form of references to other web pages.

Having said all this, and taking the liberty of being somewhat navel-gazing (after all it’s a blog), my personal take is, however, that I prefer to be very cautious with changes in well functioning courses. We should be very careful in using our students as test specimens for various teaching methods we want to test. An above all, when we do changes and implement new methods it is very important that we carefully update course pages, assignment instructions (and course plans when needed). After thousands of hours of teaching at least I have understood one thing: the students require from us a clear implementation plan for how to achieve the intended learning outcomes. This is not too much asked!

One approach we suggest is in our Canva is flipped classroom. This isn’t a very revolutionary suggestion but it is a good example and in some way, speaking mathematically, a basis vector in contemporary course design. There are many advantages with flipped classroom and one of these is quite bluntly listed by the center for teaching and learning at Harvard:

• it does not waste time transferring information to students when that information is available to them in books or online 

Our main challenge here is often that we do not have the time needed for implementing time-saving changes in the courses, we’re stuck in a rut.

Another challenge with flipped classroom, although of a more beautiful sort, was given by Eric Mazur

My only regret is that I love to lecture.

I think that explains a lot! However, we are professionals and typically paid by tax-payers money, so it is quite reasonable that we implement all changes needed in order to make the education as efficient as possible, always with the students, not ourselves, in focus.

Next week we start Topic 4: Design for online and blended learning. It’s about how we two years ago suddenly were forced to emergency online teaching due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and that we since then might not have taken the opportunity to use available resources and research for learning design for online, and blended, teaching. Nothing can be more true! I remember how we on March 17, 2020, were instructed to switch to online teaching from March 18. It worked, surprisingly well, but now when the pandemic is hopefully subsiding topic 4 is very timely because now is the time to contemplate on blended learning. I know from my students that this is something they appreciate dearly, for example being able to choose between coming to the classroom or participating online. To be continued…