Month: December 2025

Insights: What are the most valuable insights you take with you from this course?

One of the most valuable insights I am taking with me is how central trust is in online learning. I honestly had not thought about trust as a design element before this course. Trust is already difficult to build in everyday social life, even with full physical presence, so doing it online is understandably challenging. But after reading Sutherland, Forsyth, and Felten (2024), I now see that trust shapes how students respond to feedback, how willing they are to ask questions, and how much they dare to take risks. For me, this was a new and important perspective.

Another insight is the importance of balancing cognitive, social, and teaching presence in online learning. I realised that I naturally focus more on cognitive presence—clear structure, content organisation, and planning. But the course helped me see how essential it is to design for social presence, interaction, and connection (Fiock, 2020). It is not enough to provide content; students need to feel a sense of belonging, purpose, and engagement.

Finally, the course helped me understand that online collaboration is not simply dividing tasks. True collaboration requires participation, shared meaning-making, and collective thinking, similar to what Wenger (2010) and Ringer et al. (2022) describe. This deepened my thinking about how learning communities are formed and supported.

The ride: How did you find collaborating in an online PBL group?

Working in the online PBL group was a mixed experience for me. On one hand, I enjoyed the opportunity to think together, share ideas, and see how collaboration can happen online. It reminded me of what I wrote in my Topic 3 reflection that collaboration is not only something we do, but something we are together. When the group is engaged, it can feel meaningful and energising.

On the other hand, I also felt some frustration. A few group members did not participate as seriously or consistently as I had hoped. This made the process uneven at times. My experience with PBL in another course was actually better, so I could not help comparing the two. Still, the moments when we managed to create joint understanding and work together were valuable. They showed me that online collaborative learning works, but it depends heavily on commitment, communication, and shared responsibility.

Takeaway: What would you like to take with you into the future?

Going forward, I want to take with me the idea that intentional design can make online and blended learning meaningful, connected, and human. I want to keep focusing on:

• building trust from the start
• creating activities that students cannot complete in isolation
• designing for interaction and reflection
• offering flexibility where possible
• integrating AI in a thoughtful, pedagogical way

I also want to carry the idea that learning is relational. Whether online or in person, learners thrive when they feel included, respected, and supported. This is something I will continue to prioritise in my teaching.

Questions: What questions do you still have?

I still have questions about how to design assessments that make good use of generative AI while keeping the process meaningful. My personal view is that AI today is similar to Wikipedia 10 or 15 years ago. People were scared of it, but eventually we learned how to use it responsibly. I think the same will happen with AI. The real challenge is figuring out how to design assessments that encourage thinking rather than copying, and how to teach students to use AI as a tool—not as a shortcut.

I am also curious about how to build strong social presence when students have different schedules, backgrounds, and preferences for communication. And I wonder how educational institutions can support teachers more in developing online teaching skills, because this work takes time, reflection, and practice.

Reflecting on my current practice and opportunities for development

Topic 4 has helped me look more closely at how I design online and blended learning. The Community of Inquiry framework was especially useful. Fiock (2020) explains how cognitive, social, and teaching presence work together to support meaningful learning. When I think about my own practice, I realize that I tend to focus on cognitive presence by organizing content and activities very clearly. I think course organization and clarity is extra important for online learning. I think I need to improve social presence by planning more interaction, collaboration, and informal communication among students.

The scenario we explored felt very familiar. Balancing synchronous and asynchronous work is something I often think about. Weller, van Ameijde, and Cross (2018) highlight that learning design should help students stay engaged and feel that they belong. This is a difficult task actually, it reminds me that asynchronous activities should not only share information but also encourage reflection and peer discussion.

I also see opportunities to make learning more flexible and to give students more choice and ownership. This fits well with ideas from networked and community-based learning. It might depend on level of educations, so might be more suitable for master and PhD students for instance.

Building trust, support, and scaffolding in online environments

Trust stood out as an important theme. I actually never thought about it this way before in my teaching. Trust is even difficult to build in our social private life with full physical interactions. Sutherland, Forsyth, and Felten (2024) describe how trust influences how students respond to feedback, how comfortable they feel asking questions, and how willing they are to take risks. In online settings, all of that is difficult for obvious reasons and trust needs to be created intentionally. This is not easy at all.

I now see trust as part of learning design. Clear instructions, consistent communication, and timely support help students feel that they are not alone. This connects with Fiock’s (2020) ideas about teaching presence.

Assessment design also influences trust. Being open about expectations and explaining the purpose of assessments can help students feel more confident, especially when new technologies are part of the learning process.

Using new technologies and generative AI in teaching and assessment

Learning about generative AI has helped me understand both its possibilities and its challenges. Alexander’s (n.d.) resources explain how these tools work and how they may affect students’ learning behaviors. This encouraged me to think of AI as something that can support learning when used with clear pedagogical intentions.

Ouyang and Jiao (2021) describe three AI paradigms: intelligent, augmentation, and autonomy. The augmentation paradigm feels most relevant to my work because it focuses on using AI to support and extend student learning rather than replace it. I now see AI as a tool that can help with inspirations, reflection, idea development, or formative feedback.

The scenario raised an important concern: how to use AI positively while keeping assessments meaningful. This reinforces the need for assessments that focus on thinking processes, authentic tasks, and reflection.

Insights from my experience as a learner in the ONL Course

Being part of ONL has shown me what online learning feels like from the inside. The PBL work, the group collaboration, and the combination of synchronous and asynchronous activities helped me see how community can be built online. This experience made me more aware of the social and emotional sides of learning.

From this, I have identified areas for my own development:

• Creating stronger social presence through planned interaction
• Designing more flexible tasks
• Including more opportunities for reflection
• Developing assessments that include AI in a responsible way

Overall, ONL has shown me that learning design is ongoing and that it relies on trust, openness, and active engagement. One frustrating thing about it is that few group members did not take seriously. Frankly talking, my experience with PBL group learning was better in a previous course than on the ONL course.

Concluding reflections

Topic 4 has helped me understand how intentional design supports engagement, trust, and community in online and blended learning. It also reminded me that new technologies, including generative AI, should be used to enhance learning rather than drive it. I hope to continue developing designs that support collaboration, inclusion, agency, and critical thinking.

References

Alexander, B. (n.d.). What should my students read about emerging AI? Blogpost.

Fiock, H. (2020). Designing a Community of Inquiry in Online Courses. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 21(1), 135–153.

Ouyang, F., & Jiao, P. (2021). Artificial intelligence in education: The three paradigms. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence, 2, 1–6.

Sutherland, K. A., Forsyth, R., & Felten, P. (2024). Expressions of Trust: How University STEM Teachers Describe the Role of Trust in their Teaching. Teaching and Learning Inquiry, 12, 1–15.

Weller, M., van Ameijde, J., & Cross, S. (2018). Learning Design for Student Retention. Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, 6(2).