Given that our university converted to an exclusively digital format only weeks after ONL201 started, my learning steadily “spilled over” into my practice, as I progressed through the ONL201 course topics. Concurrently with taking ONL201, I quickly adapted two courses from ”physical” to digital format. In that process, I was fortunate to collaborate with younger colleagues with ongoing or recent experience from mandatory university pedagogical courses. In combination with my reflections from ONL201, coupled with my experience from the same university pedagogical courses some time ago, we jointly brainstormed, e.g., strategies to promote scaffolding, socialization, PBL and flipped classroom.
The high speed of this corona-induced transition, contributed to that I sometimes picked up new ideas in ONL201 in advance of redesigning an aspect of the courses. Other times, however, I picked up new ideas after the fact, in retrospect, realizing why something else might have worked better. Therefore, after this rather unusual spring term, I look forward to a moment to reflect, and a time frame when I do not concurrently redesign, implement courses and seek out new perspectives as a student.
My reflection on this spring is that the transition, over the course of a few weeks in March and April, moved so fast that it did not fully allow for an opportunity to reflect on all the details in the course design. Therefore, it was liberating, when we, in our PBL group, in more “peace and calm” and opportunity to more thoroughly discuss, redesigned an old course from physical to digital format, while integrating bits and pieces from all aspects of ONL201. I can’t help but look forward to the next time I will work on designing a digital or blended course, or when I will improve the courses form this semester. I hope to have more time, then, to contemplate and evaluate options. At that time point, ONL201 will be helpful. My experiences and feedback from the courses I more “head over heels” adapted and ran, this spring, will likely also be useful.
The most important thing I bring with me from ONL201 is raised digital confidence and empowerment. Had someone asked me, before this course, if I could run a digital course, I would have been most hesitant. Had I taken ONL201 during a time when my university did not concurrently move absolutely everything over to a digital format, I would likely still have broadened my digital horizon. Similarly, had I not taken ONL201, but been part of the digital transition, and almost revolution, this spring, my confidence would likely also have been improved. However, the “pandemic-ONL201 combination” – taking the course WHILE being forced to, in parallel, run newly adapted digital courses – has probably had the greatest possible effect on me.
When I started the course, I strongly identified with the person in focus for the scenario of topic 1, digitally insecure and inexperienced. In fact, I, at first, thought the course leadership had “borrowed” text from an e-mail of mine to create the scenario. I was relieved to know that was not the case. For me, in the midst of the rapid, and at times unorganized, digital transitions of this spring, my PBL group became somewhat of a support group. A place where I could regularly return and “be inspired” (and hopefully “inspire”), gaining renewed trust in that I will indeed learn by doing. Taking part of our discussions had a empowering and calming effect. In some other academic contexts this spring, given the unique circumstances, work was at times by necessity more “doing” than “learning by doing”. In that reality, ONL201 helped me continually readjust my focus to learning by doing, and, towards “why we are doing what we are doing”. Could we do it differently?
There is a Swedish saying; “you learn as long as you live”. Decades ago, I managed to get ahold of a postcard where this saying had purposefully been flipped around: “you live as long as you learn”. The latter, back-wards, saying summarize and reflect my mindset reflecting on my experiences in ONL201, and, what I bring with me into the future.
I will miss you, PBL08.
