Topic 5: Lessons learnt – future practice

OK then, it’s (sadly) time for me to blog post for the final time in this course and to summarize my experiences and what I have learned through these weeks that began already back in February.

The ONL team has kindly put together questions for me to use when I reflect back on the course, and that I am happy to employ.

What are the most important things that you have learnt through your engagement in the ONL course? Why?

There are several matters that I have learned actually. Most importantly I have improved my collaborative skills and a bit of the many pedagogical aspects linked to this method of learning. I already have mastered a lot of the technical tools used in the course. In fact my competence in that area surpasses a lot of the material provided to us by the ONL team. David White had some nice professional looking videos though. However, Al Creelman told us early that this was not a course in which we would be taught on which button to press so I didn’t expect to learn a lot on how to improve my media skills.

Why it is that improving my collaborative skills was the most important? Well because I think I lacked the most in this area. I’m not very used to work with other people and I’m pretty set in my ways. So for me to discuss, try to solve problems and connect with peers have been very satisfying and fun.

How will your learning influence your practice?

I will from now on reflect more on the way I teach and design my online courses with the purpose of adding as much collaborative learning as possible. Before this course I may have done so unintentionally and intuitive in my courses. You could use the iceberg metaphor, before this course started I only saw the tip of it when it comes to collaborative learning.

What are you going to do as a result of your involvement in ONL? Why?

Well my goal is naturally to put my newly gained knowledge of collaborative learning to use in my courses. Why that is? Because that strategic move I think will markedly improve the quality of my courses. For the most part my courses are on advanced level and they contain large numbers of participants. This makes these courses ideal for collaborative work since the students already have acquired a critical mass of knowledge that is often immense (because they are so many). If they engage together a lot of learning will occur.

Finally, I would like to thank the great people in the PBLGroup 09  👏😍, our marvelous facilitators 😁👍 and the ONL team, especially Al Creelman 😃 who has been tremendously helpful and has showed a lot of patience in communicating with me.