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Because you want social presence..., you get your students to know each other; you get to know your students; they get to know you; you engage with them; you create a safe environment for your students to try, experiment, fail, succeed...
Because you want cognitive presence..., you want your students to actively engage in activities that cause new knowledge to be built upon existing knowledge, you want them to attach meaning to their learning...
Because you want teaching presence..., you carefully think out the content of your course, separate the core from the nice-to-know; you carefully plan every activity, classwork, group work, homework, assignments...; you dream out different scenarios on how you give feedback to both your active and easy students and to the less active and less easy ones too; you take pains to ensure that what you assess and how is aligned with what the students learn during the course; you... oh, you do a lot of things, so many and so much that when you do it all you wonder how you managed to do all of it.
You've done a lot of this, implemented a lot of these concepts—flipped class, constructive alignment, the lot—into your courses over the years in your traditional face-to-face class knowingly after having read the literature, say an edition of the the so-called must-read by Biggs and Tang, or unknowingly through trial and error or a moment of epiphany.
Because you succeeded in creating an educational experience for your students, and possibly for yourself too in the process, it blew your mind...
Because you worked your butt off and still you didn't quite achieve what you wanted to even though what exactly it is you wanted evaded you, it made you cry...
Because your institution is now short on funds, because you have less time than ever, because students don't attend your class sufficiently, because it's the latest trend, because..., you must implement your course online as a MOOC, or as a blended course... it turns you on.
You took an online course to get ideas on how to construct your own online course, and in the bargain you learnt a lot more, things you didn't ever dream about: about the benefits of being open in particular. You learnt about lots of existing free-to-use online tools, and you got to acquaint yourself with few. You even got yourself a new community; you didn't see that one coming! Not on an online course.
You now know that you must create a lot of the things you did in your live, face-to-face-in-the-same-space course, which naturally poses a challenge, but you can also give your students the freedom and the flexibility to work when it suits them best. You need to keep them engaged and motivated so that this freedom doesn't translate into students being washed away by the currents of busy life out of your course. (Vaughan et al)
Your online course has given you a taste of what online learning can be...because you took the plunge into this magical mystery tour. And your brain is buzzing with ideas...
References
Biggs, J. and Tang, C. Teaching for quality learning at university. Fourth edition. Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press. 2011.
Vaughan, N. D., Cleveland-Innes, M., & Garrison, D. R. (2013). Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry. Edmonton: AU Press.
I disagree with you that we learned a lot about online course design or even blended course design in ONL171. Maybe in your group you have tried to do it, but in general, the seminar with Martha and activities in the course were established in the way that you mostly learn how to work collaboratively. I would be interested to know more how your group tried to design the online course or which thoughts did you have for the course design?
ReplyDeleteI thought that the additional resources we were required to go through, the five stage model by Gilly Salmon and chapter from the book by Vaughan, Cleveland-Innes and Garrison in particular, made me as well as the members of our PBL group (PBL8) think about how this ONL course had been constructed. As a result, we discussed the concepts from this material in our group, a lot of it when collecting the material for our Lasagne presentation through comments on each other's work and some during our group webinar meeting. We spoke about how by breaking break down the making of a lasagne into its components (tomato sauce, white sauce, meat/fish/vegetarian filling) one could gradually get students to think deeper about how the different components could be made so as to be able to go beyond just learning a lasagne recipe. We spoke about activities to engage students in so as to get them to know each other, to collaborate on the assignments done towards learning to make different variations of lasagne; what would be done online and what physically in the same space. Reflecting the concepts in this material on the activities we engaged in during our ONL course gave an insight to why we were given these activities to perform. So, I do think we were given a lot of tools on how to design an online or a blended course; no direct recipe, but pointers to keep in mind when designing your own course. A lot of them are this you do on a normal classroom course, but implemented online.
DeleteNice reflections Luis, well put!
ReplyDeleteThanks Tommy.
DeleteHi Luis,
ReplyDeleteI agree that we learnt "a lot more things":-) It has been an interesting experience to navigate new tools in a very short time period in order to present to the others...in fact I'm about to explore Moovly! And becoming part of an online community has been a rewarding experience...and we too have had a foretaste to how our students could possibly experience this online space:-)
Have you got to grips with Moovly already? It's fun to use and not too difficult either.
DeleteYes, the online community experience has been truly rewarding.
Thank you for the post! I think a lot of ONL:ers say that they came for the tools and stayed for the community, well they don't say that, but almost. :) I think we are working in a very different online space than most MOOC:s around the world, and people who join are intrigued by the social learning theories. I hope we will see a change in campus based courses as well, and that teachers will start using the time together, not for lectures and transmitting information, but collaboration and discussions which help to create a sense of community in large university courses as well.
ReplyDeleteCommunity can be addictive. ;-)
DeleteI too hope that teachers around the world begin collaborating, and ONL has been a real eye-opener in pointing how this can be accomplished.
Luis I love your authenticity! I absolutely agree. This course has enabled me to navigate so many technological landscapes that have been absolutely terrifying yet simultaneously beneficial to my teaching practice. I have to say that as I progressed through this well scaffolded course, i have found myself reflecting upon how can use the knowledge acquired to augment LLB curriculum in the online space. I'm quite excited at the prospects.
ReplyDeleteThanks Neetu. I too have found myself thinking about what to next, how to spread the word so to speak. :-)
DeleteThank you for a nice blog post. I agree, the course provide you with a lot of ideas, but not all the answers. The whole PBL-concept requires us to get the answers ourselves and sometimes it feels difficult. I agree withe the other comments that I belive most of us came for the tools but stayed on because of the community. In topic 4, the 5-stage model have started to grow on me, I think I will try to follow that model when I design a blended course in the fall.
ReplyDeleteThank Jenny.Yes, the PBL approach is good in that it encourages finding things out for yourself, but too much of the same thing in thye long run can cause students to lose interest, no matter how good it is. Perhaps you can collaborate with the ONL community when building your course. ;-) Good luck with your course.
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