Because...

Photo credit: Paul Brennan. Used under Creative Commons licence CC0.
Source: https://pixabay.com/p-2089836/?no_redirect

Because you want your students to have an educational experience..., you need social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence.

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.

Come together!

We've mulled over and chewed well the words cooperation and collaboration (Panitz, 1999) with the objective to extract every gram of 'nutrition' from them. What do they mean exactly in this context? How do they differ from each other? Has my earlier work with students and colleagues been cooperative or collaborative? Reflecting my cooperative or collaborative activities against those presented by Alec Couros (2017) in the ONL171 webinar, I see that I've practically been a lone wolf in the educational trends wilderness. I honestly thought I was being cooperative or collaborative and encouraging students to be so too, but the extent of this group activity of mine—by mine I mean activities undertaken both by me as well as my students—was so, so limited and restricted!

Working on this topic brought back memories from my school days, perhaps around the time when I was in the 5th or 6th grade, in a small school in Goa, India. Our school principal decided that all the classes from grade 5 or so up would work full-time for a month or so on one common project to create an exhibition that would be open for a couple of days to our parents and perhaps the general public. The theme of the project was the nature and wildlife of North America. Our school syllabus, naturally, focused primarily on India, and North America was but a footnote in it. My memory of the experience of doing this project is that we had a ball of a time, the bigger kids and us smaller ones working together, spending hours in the school library devouring the pages of the encyclopedias and other books to gather information about the different landscapes, the rivers and lakes and the fish in them, and then reproducing our collective knowledge as a large cardboard and papier-mâché 'aquarium' depicting a cross-section of the different lake- and riverbeds full of different types of aquatic life among other exhibits. We all made and painted fish, plants, you-name-it using paper, coloured cellophane, wire, and textiles, and some of the bigger boys put electrical lights and added sounds to our aquarium. The exhibition we created was grand, our aquarium so colourful and informative, and we were all so proud of our work. We all learned far more about the geography, climate, and flora and fauna of North America than was described on the pages of our textbooks. And better still, we remembered a lot more of what we learned and for far longer. This, as I far as I can recollect, was my first collaborative experience, and it certainly was a successful endeavour.

Perhaps this positive experience of mine was a factor that has driven me to experiment with getting students to work in groups in different ways: a course to motivate freshmen to study the mandatory circuit analysis courses where they a built a device to connect to their home stereo system and figured out the design formulae from their basic circuit analysis knowledge, a PBL version of the mandatory circuit analysis courses for freshmen (Costa et al, 2007), an advanced course on circuit simulation... The resulting group work was usually more cooperative—with students often dividing and distributing the workload—than collaborative, but there were teams that were highly collaborative too. I am able to distinguish the difference only now, having learned about the difference over the last few weeks, but we did ensure that all students worked with all the details in all the topics and developed all the necessary skills. The students in all the courses enjoyed working together, and in the PBL courses they said they felt they learned more and better the study matter as a result of collaboration. This positive experience manifested itself as slightly better grades than their peers who didn't participate in the PBL course (Costa et al, 2007). I, too, as did my co-author colleagues, enjoyed collaborating as a team on the PBL course—so much less stress due to the shared burden and responsibilities—and we have cooperated closely on other courses.

(Photo credit: Franck Reporter, via gettyimages. Image source: http://www.gettyimages.fi/detail/photo/campfire-of-friends-in-circle-on-the-fire-royalty-free-image/505597633)

Working in groups has its advantages. One can verbalise concepts and explain ideas to others and so reinforce newly learned knowledge, thus improving knowledge retention. Group work allows for diverse viewpoints, which in turn expands the individual's own knowledge horizon, and all ensuing discussions enhance thinking. Collaborating in a group also enhances motivation due to the increased interdependence of the members. All of this can happen if allowed to. However, working in a group requires a degree of discipline and focus on the part of the individuals so as not to get distracted from the task at hand. So, working on one's own is also necessary. My colleagues at Aalto University gathered evidence to back the befits of student collaboration in a trial they carried out (Lehtovuori et al, 2013).

As educators, we are well aware of all of this. When students work in groups, they form personal learning networks (PNLs). All that applies to students applies to their teachers too; that's us. We too benefit from working in a group: getting or testing new ideas, help in the use of technology, time saved due to resources shared, or just getting peer support. Our PNL members can comprise colleagues from within the same four walls of our institution but also from any part of the Earth, as we have experienced during ONL171; technology makes this possible. The rewards of PNLs far too big to to opt out. So, come together, right now...

Don't let the distance stop you,
Hook up to our man in Roma,
Laptop or mobile will do,
Google plus Adobe Connect,
Time and place irrelevant,
Don' 'ave to be an expert it's so easy to use.
Come together, right now, benefit!

(To be sung to the tune of a certain Lennon and McCartney collaboration)


References
Couros, Alec. PNLs, learning networks, and design participatory environments. ONL171 webinar, 22 March 2017. https://play.education.lu.se/media/ONL171+webinar+March+22%2C+2017+-Couros/1_88mn7026
ONL171 Topic 3 page: https://opennetworkedlearning.wordpress.com/onl171-course-activities/topic-3-learning-in-communities-networked-collaborative-learning/


Costa, L.R.J, Honkala, M. & Lehtovuori A. "Applying the problem-based learning approach to teach elementary circuit analysis," IEEE Transactions on Education, Volume: 50, Issue: 1, Feb. 2007. DOI: 10.1109/TE.2006.886455

Lehtovuori, A., Honkala, M., Kettunen, H., & Leppävirta, J. Interactive Engagement Methods in Teaching Electrical Engineering Basic Courses. 2013 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), Berlin, Germany. March 2013. DOI: 10.1109/EduCon.2013.6530089

Panitz T. (1999). Collaborative versus cooperative learning—A comparison of the two concepts which will help us understand the underlying nature of interactive learning. Retrieved on 26.3.2017 from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED448443.

Be open and share: that is something!

As children we were told countless number of times to share our things with others: toys, snacks, food, drink,... We were told about the joy of giving: how we feel nice when we give a birthday present to our friend and see their face light up. We have quotes promoting sharing as well: "happiness shared is happiness multiplied" (one version of many). We know so, perhaps unconsciously, and now we have science backing this (Smith and Davidson, 2014; see also Smith, 2014): sharing makes you happy. We were also taught about receiving: how to politely thank the giver so as not to hurt their feelings, how not to look a gift horse in the mouth. However, we were also taught about ownership and possession, and there is evidence that wanting to own and possess may be an innate human trait (Bower, 2011).

Sharing isn't the number one trait that comes to mind when talking about education and academia. At least, not for me. Sure, I sat together with colleagues and discussed my ideas on research and teaching (general stuff on approaches and philosophy as well as specific assignments) with them and commented on their ideas on innumerous occasions. I have used ready course material made by previous teachers and later modified them to suit me better. This sharing has occurred in small closed circles. Of course, I have, as have many others, put the material up on the university network that can be accessed by students and staff, but this too is a closed network. If someone asked me permission to use the material, I never refused them. In fact, in the back of my mind, I thought that having put the material on the semi-open network I had given it for anyone to use. I'm sure this is true of many of my colleagues. I heard of Creative Commons, but I never bothered to delve to find out more. Now, having done so, I know how wrong I was.

Thinking about how I shared my material, I realise it was never a conscious decision that I was going to do so. I primarily wanted that the course material was available to the students, that it was logically presented, it was understandable, and that there were no factual errors. Knowing that the material was to be posted on the university network for the students to access, I put in a lot of time and effort to ensure that the material was up to the mark. For the material for one course that I built from scratch, I asked my immediate colleagues to first help me outline the course outcomes and contents and then, when I had made my slides, I asked them to comment on them. That was as open as collaboration on developing course material got.

Through deeper introspection on the issue of sharing study material, I am inclined to conclude that despite all the effort I had this niggling fear that the quality of the content might not be up to par. There was also the issue of copyright law: was I perhaps breaking the law? However, there was also this little capitalist within me who was worried that someone might exploit my work without permission, and we can't have that now, can we? These appear to be fears common to most academic teaching staff (Maloney et al). Additionally, I wasn't aware of where I could upload my material for the world to use, had I consciously wanted to do so. Again I am not alone on this point either (Anyangwe).

Now that we know, let us overcome these little self-imposed barriers to sharing and benefit from that something when we share... and the world will benefit too.

References

Anyangwe, E. Why don't more academics use open educational resources? Higher eductaion network blog. October 2011. Retrieved on 8.4.2017 from https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2011/oct/05/open-educational-resources-academics

Bower, Bruce. Kids own up to ownership. ScienceNews May 2011. Available to members at https://www.sciencenews.org/article/kids-own-ownership. For a commentary, see Clabough, Raven. "Scientific evidence proves capitalist ideas may be innate," The New American. June 2011. https://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/commentary/item/4023-scientific-evidence-proves-capitalist-ideas-may-be-innate.

Maloney, S., Moss, A., Keating, J., Kotsanas, G.,and Morgan, P. Sharing teaching and learning resources: perceptions of a university's faculty members. Medical Education. July 2013. DOI:
10.1111/medu.12225.

Smith, Christian and Davidson, Hilary. The paradox of generosity. Oxford University Press, 2014.

Smith, Jordan Michael. "Want to be happy? Stop being so cheap." New Republic, September 2014. Retrieved on 31.3.2017 from  https://newrepublic.com/article/119477/science-generosity-why-giving-makes-you-happy.