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The ONL course has provided several valuable insights into pedagogical theory and practice on different levels: with regards to the course contents, in terms of an experience of collaborative learning in a digital context, and finally in provoking reflection on how to implement teaching in different settings.

Contentwise several topics have become more familiar to me during the course. Digital literacy and open learning were themes I had not given that much thought. Understanding the basic frameworks for these phenomena will certainly provide a useful point of reference for future practice be it the testing of student’s digital literacy levels or planning open education courses. In addition, insights into collaborative learning in digital context and blended learning provided me with new ideas on how to approach interaction in education. For example, considering the needed support in different learning environments or providing help in building learning communities are but two examples of such themes.

In terms of the form of the course, i.e. problem-based learning in groups, the course offered a valuable experience in terms of how students might feel and work in such a setting. In other words, I have taken the student’s position in the community of practice to better understand their perspective – in some sense it was something of a simulation. This is valuable, as there are few opportunities for this kind of pedagogical training. This has shown the many benefits of collaborative learning but also the associated challenges of working in big groups in a digital setting. To name but one of the benefits, spontaneous interaction and discussion around a topic in the group brought out novel perspectives, and sharing experiences, tips on various digital tools, or pedagogical theories complemented the other course contents.

As for the other side of the coin, one of the key points is that detailed instructions are not the solution for challenges in digital collaborative learning: there needs to be cohesion and a feeling of common purpose between the learners if the collaboration is to be useful in a digital setting. Providing time and opportunities for socializing (maybe some sort of forum with posts that others can comment asynchronously might be good for this). Another way to improve the understanding of a common purpose is to articulate more clearly the learning outcomes for each lesson. In addition, this common purpose should be supported by the tool used for learning, but the tool is not enough in itself to ensure participation. Indeed, even if the contributions of each learner are made visible, this does not necessarily mean that everyone contributes. Moreover, I feel that there needs to be more explicit encouragement to try and test different ways of working to build up collective motivation for learning. As a practical lesson from all this, I feel that the often-repeated rule of thumb holds true: groups of more than four learners tend to get much more challenging in terms of group dynamics and it’s much harder to organize the group work, even more so in a digital environment. But as commented above, there is rarely an opportunity for this kind of experience to develop oneself as a teacher and to better understand the students’ perspective. Facing such challenges is perhaps the most valuable lesson that the course had to offer.

Finally, by providing time and space to reflect on my own pedagogical thinking through the readings, discussions, and writing these blog posts, the course has attuned me to different perspectives beneficial for future course planning. I feel that the main benefit has been this “sensitization” to pedagogical theorizing and practice through intensive period of learning. I feel also more secure to try new digital tools in teaching to see what might work in enhancing the learning experience of my students.

Providing education through online settings either in full or in combination with on-site learning can benefit from analytical examination through different pedagogical models. I will go through three perspectives that can be used in highlighting different aspects of online and blended learning.

From the teacher’s perspective, the TPACK model by Koehler & Mishra (2009) relates technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge with one another to foreground how the content matter, pedagogical understanding, and used technologies interact with one another. That is, educators have not only understandings regarding the taught subject, pedagogics, and technologies, but also about how the contents and pedagogics are related, how technologies affect the content matter, and how technologies and pedagogics interact to name some of the dimensions. Interpreting this normatively, for a particular topic there are more suited technologies and better pedagogical methods with which to implement teaching. Reflecting on these dimensions can provide means for teacher to improve students’ learning experience.

It seems that researchers of pedagogy are fans of Venn diagrams: TPACK is visualized as such and so is the community of inquiry (CoI) model by Garrison et al. (1999) that Robin Kay introduced in the webinar. The model relates cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence with one another in the context of community of inquiry. Whereas the TPACK model was more teacher centric, this model covers the community of teachers and students. Cognitive presence refers to the ways in which the members of CoI construct meaning through communication to learn something. Social presence conceptualizes how the members can be themselves in the CoI – that is, show that they are people with own thoughts and feelings. This can support cognitive presence but also be a motivator for students in itself. The third element of teaching presence takes more the perspective of the teacher (although learners can also assume these functions) and covers the design of the teaching experience and the facilitation of learning. These elements can be integrated with one another: designing teaching experience so that students are cognitively engaged in exploring, integrating, and applying knowledge and feel safe to express their own views and collaborate are at the heart of community of inquiry.

As a sidenote related to teaching presence, our group discussed two design principles of course design: ADDIE model and rapid prototyping (for a comparison, see Williams, 2016). The circular analysis-design-development-implementation-evaluation model is comprehensive way of designing courses, however it takes a lot of time and effort. Rapid prototyping is a process of developing courses fast: it goes through several cycles of implementation and evaluation to create courses. Rather than starting with comprehensive analysis, the educator starts putting together the materials and evaluates and changes them in rapid cycles. These can be useful to consider in how to approach course design.

Finally, empirical studies have foregrounded more practice-based dimensions of learning. According to the literature review by Boelens et al. (2017) four dimensions of online teaching are relevant to consider when designing blended education: how to incorporate flexibility, how to stimulate interaction, how to facilitate students’ learning, and how to nurture affective learning climate. Flexibility can be considered with regards to time, space, and order of topics. Decisions concerning the control for flexibility and sequences of online and onsite learning are part of this. For stimulating interaction the greater distance between online learners and teachers needs to be considered and appropriate means of communicating onsite and online can be used for supporting students. As for facilitating students’ learning process the differing self-regulatory skills of learners can pose challenges. Monitoring the learning process and assessment are some ways of steering students in right direction. Finally, affective learning climate is important as students may feel isolated and unmotivated in online settings. Providing at least some onsite teaching may provide solutions for such issues.

While these different insights overlap with one another, each of them provides a perspective that can be useful in designing online and blended education. Perhaps the focal element in all of them is the learning experience: be it the chosen technology, issues around flexibility, or cognitive presence in terms of how the students explore different topics, the students’ perspective needs to be considered.

References

Boelens, R., De Wever, B., & Voet, M. (2017). Four key challenges to the design of blended learning: A systematic literature review. Educational Research Review, 22, 1-18.

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The internet and higher education, 2(2-3), 87-105.

Koehler, M. J., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge?

Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1), 60-70.

Williams, S. (2016) An Critical Analysis of ADDIE vs Rapid Prototyping. Blog-post. Available from https://shaunmwilliams.com/thedigitalchemist/index.php/2016/06/22/addie-vs-rapid-prototyping/

Collaborative learning seems to provide significant benefits for learning as students can observe one another learning, ask questions from their peers, bring their own perspectives for other students, learn to work in groups and so forth. However, at the same time students can experience group work as tedious and needlessly complicated and just divide their tasks and work individually. Motivating students to work in groups is thus often a challenge for educators.

The social learning framework by Etienne Wegner (2009) distinguishes between four dimensions that are relevant for learning: meaning, community, practice, and identity. Wenger seems somewhat ambiguous of what “meaning” exactly means in the framework (based on 2009 article). My interpretation is that meaning is the outcome of learning, a way to signify the world and its phenomena. That is, when I learn something, I construct a meaning through which I understand the world. Of course, it is not only “I” but we in a collaborative learning. Meaning is central aspect of motivating students: if learning outcomes are considered irrelevant there is little reason to engage in learning.

Community refers to the relations between different people who are engaged in learning in one way or another. It seems that Wenger’s concept of communities of practice more specifically defines how learning is tied to its social context – learning does not take place in vacuum but it is always related to different groups of people, institutions, and organizations. Hence it’s not just about individual motivation that is at stake as learning is connected with others in the community. It is also interesting how Wenger (2010) responds to the criticism levelled against the concept as it potentially hides power relations and other issues in communities of practice and paints them as too homogeneous: the power is inherent in reproducing inequalities through communities of practice and there is always a possibility to change power relations in this constant cycle reproduction.

Practices are the ways in which learning is done. As learning is not done just by thinking, it makes sense to conceptualize the myriad of ways in which students can learn. Practices seem to be something of a challenge in collaborative learning especially in digital contexts – there are more and more tools available, but do these tools support meaningful learning practices? While certainly many of these are truly beneficial, the interactional practices between the students beyond such tools should not be forgotten. It is no wonder that students feel taxes after too many COVID-forced team meetings over the Internet without the immediate human interactions.

As for identity, learning has implications for how we define ourselves and who we are. As identities are not fixed, there is potential to challenge oneself in collaborative settings: for example, by taking up the position as a chair in a PBL group one assumes a particular position that affects the identity – at least for the time being. This can potentially be used in enabling student groups to function more efficiently by allocating different roles to students so that they can try different position (e.g. chair, devil’s advocate, innovator) in relation with one another and hence be more explicit about how the group functions.

Related to the identity of learners, our group discussed also how the composition of the group affects collaborative learning. Setting groups so that there are individuals from different social backgrounds can be beneficial for creating understanding between different people. Sometimes it might make sense to allow students to choose their own groups to enable well-functioning learning. One interesting aspects of group composition is how to make students accountable for the group when the students do not know one another and there might be less initial cohesion. Providing enough time for socializing and motivating students of the benefits of learning from new collaborators can provide some help in with respect.

Wenger, E. (2010). Communities of practice and social learning systems: the career of a concept. In Social learning systems and communities of practice (pp. 179-198). Springer London.

Wenger, E. (2009). A social theory of learning. In K. Illeris (Ed.), Contempoary Theories of Learning: Learning theorists…in their own words (pp. 210–218).

Open educational practices and resources seem to provide both opportunities for social justice but also challenges for teachers, students, and organizations. I feel somewhat divided about open education: while it certainly has potential in improving equity and it should used in providing education for those who are disadvantaged in accessing education, it can also drain educational resources without making systemic improvements.

OEP can provide several benefits for making education more accessible to people from different backgrounds (Bali et al. 2020). There is potential to reach students who are disadvantaged due to a variety of reasons, and open education can reach students irrespective of their physical location. An example that came up in our group’s discussions was that the travel to the place of education might pose substantial risks to the learners, and hence openly accessible studies could alleviate such risks. There are limits, however. The accessibility of technical equipment, for example, might be limited for just those groups who are in a disadvantaged position. Moreover, it is not only about the necessary equipment, but also the lack of time, other commitments, and attitudes that might limit how students take up possibilities of open education.

As for teachers, open educational practices might provide inputs for professional development but also take up a lot of resources without proper organizational support. An example mentioned in our group discussions pointed out how openly accessible teaching materials can invite comments from a variety of people, and this feedback can be useful in developing the materials. On the other hand, OEP is also somewhat intimidating in terms of opening up with own materials, methods to a broader audience.

In the case of educational organizations such as universities, it seems that open learning might be equal to a guide somewhere deep in the university’s website, but it is not really utilized in teaching. While there are examples of free MOOCs they feel a bit like ways to profile universities on surface level. However, I do understand why openness can be a challenge in the current education system (in probably most western countries), as Universities compete with one another to get students, and freely available materials and courses challenge this to some extent. Of course, such materials can also work as advertisements for the universities.

Perhaps one of the takeaways is that the expectations regarding open educations should be at realistic level: the ideal of making education accessible for everyone is commendable, but this ideal should not set up teachers and learners for a let-down. One way of making sure that OEP is made useful is to consider how it can be seen through the frame of constructive alignment (Paskevicius 2017). Figuring out how OEP can affect the learning outcomes, resources, teaching and learning methods, and assessment might help in designing OEP for the better.

Bali, M., Cronin, C., & Jhangiani, R. S. (2020).Framing Open Educational Practices from a Social Justice Perspective. Journal of Interactive Media in Education.

Paskevicius, M. (2017). Conceptualizing open educational practices through the lens of constructive alignment. Open Praxis, 9(2), 125-140.

I have not had a clear perception of my own digital literacy – I have used the tools university has provided me with without much effort, at times reading through manuals and searching for solutions if problems have arisen. The metaphor of visitors and residents by White and Le Cornu (2011) provided me with a clarifying way of seeing my own practices – I seem to be most often a visitor that utilizes the tools for particular situations. With the addition of the axis personal–professional, I do use certain digital platforms in a more resident-mode personally.

What I see as relevant question is how the digital literacy of me as a teacher can possibly affect my students. I perceive digital tools as affordances that enable certain means of teaching while excluding others and those affordances can also have unintended consequences. As the ONL course has already shown, there needs to be explicit discussion regarding used digital tools to build up a learning environment that is safe and accessible. As a teacher making sure that student are able to use or learn to use the methods is thus important to remember.

However, I believe that I need not master the same tools that students are using as long as their deliverables can be shared and evaluated without accessibility issues. This can provide students with opportunities to explore tools that are not familiar to the teacher or the rest of the group. Of course, such leeway is probably more applicable to small master’s level courses than bachelor courses with hundreds of students.

I have also read on the so called TPACK-model (technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge) that aims at analysing and describing how the different elements of teaching (i.e. the tools, the pedagogical thinking, and content that is taught) are connected with one another (Koehler & Mishra, 2009). The model can be useful in addressing how the digital tool affect both the pedagogical aspects but also the contents of courses. It is good to keep in mind how these relations shift with the introduction of new tools.

It is also worth noting that a teacher can be more than a technical assistant in directing students. For example, Aguilera-Hermida (2021) reminds of basic pedagogical means of affecting students’ attitudes and motivations with respect to digital tools. For example, she argues that supporting student’s feelings of self-efficacy with explicit conversations is important (encouraging students to have a positive outlook on their own capabilities of using digital tools) and that discussing what is working for them can improve their self-regulatory capabilities.

The use of digital tools should always be linked also with learning outcomes. For example, if students are to learn critical thinking, they need to write texts – as all researchers know, writing (and speaking) is thinking. The classic tenet “How do I know what I think until I see what I say” by E. M. Forster still holds true – before I see my thought in writing there is only disparate thoughts in my cognition. Hence, for example, the use of AI must be reflected on critically, and in relation to the learning outcomes. It is no wonder that some top tier universities are at least partly going back to pen-and-paper to address the challenges of AI. This is not to say that AI would not be useful in teaching, just that it’s application needs to be in line with the intended learning outcomes.

References

Aguilera-Hermida, A. P. (2020). College students’ use and acceptance of emergency online learning due to COVID-19. Int. J. Educ. Res. 1:100011. doi: 10.1016/j.ijedro.2020.100011

Koehler, M., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)?. Contemporary issues in technology and teacher education, 9(1), 60-70.

White, D. & Le Cornu, A. (2011) Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday, 16 (9 – 5). Available from http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3171/3049

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