Web Based Learning and Teaching #1: Cool course - cool ways to start a course

I have just started a formal blended learning MA module: Web Based Learning and Teaching for my professional development. I love my MOOCs – but occasionally I also enjoy the shape and feel of a formal course. I enjoy being with real live human beings in a classroom. I love the buzz of real conversation – and I am always fascinated by seeing how other people organise the teaching and learning – the bonding and belonging…

The course itself is delivered by JG and JD (I must check with them before I use their names on the web) – and they delivered a wonderful experience which made me as a participant feel welcomed, enabled and confident that I understood the course and its assignments; that I would be supported if I struggled; that I had an idea about my personal direction through the course; and, most importantly, that I was excited – I wanted to do this thing! I also spotted some lovely strategies that they used to help me on this journey:

Ice Breaker

There was a brief ice breaker activity where we were asked to sit with somebody that we did not know – share our contexts and reasons for doing the course – and then to introduce that person back to the rest of the class.  Immediately most of us had to move around – had to attempt human contact with at least one person – and then had to make contact with the rest of the group. Simple, friendly – effective.

Hopes and fears

After an introduction to the what, why and how of the course, we were given a green, red and yellow post-it – and asked to write our positive thoughts about TEL (technology enhanced learning); our concerns about TEL; and our hopes for the course. We stuck these to the whiteboard at the front of the class (we had both electronic and conventional whiteboards) – the tutors read them out… and we responded.

I thought this an excellent way to enable people to voice their hopes and fears without having to make themselves immediately vulnerable. If we wanted to, we could ‘own’ a point – or we could just join in with the discussion…

Finally I am feeling…

To round off the class JG said, ‘I am feeling…’ – and pointed to a participant – who completed the sentence: I am feeling excited by the course, I already have an idea what I want to do for my presentation and my project; I am feeling …

Overall the feelings were full of excitement and optimism – but we were also empowered to say if we were worried or afraid.

I am stealing these immediately!

So what is WBLT?

We will be building our own course on course site: https://www.coursesites.com/webapps/Bb-sites-course-creation-BBLEARN/pages/index.html - a free online service offered by BlackBoard – to experience the process of designing and building a managed, virtual learning environment. We have to give a presentation on one new tool or TEL-enabled strategy that we have trialled with volunteer ‘students’, we will have to complete a reflective journal – and we will have to write a 3000 word meta-reflection. All good stuff – and I will hope to tinker with the final essay and offer it for publication somewhere – so that is an additional bonus.

And finally

I prepared for WBLT by engaging with Hybrid Pedagogy’s #moocmooc: http://www.digitalpedagogylab.com/subversion-and-instructional-design/ - which I also enjoyed enormously… but which I could not give sufficient time to because of my heavy workload. I am hoping that the added gravity of a physical course will anchor me and make sure that I actually do all the work – all the assignments…

Here’s hoping.

I thought that I would blog about my journey through WBLT – because that’s the best way I know to make the learning conscious to me. It would be great if some of you out there followed me – gave me some tips and tricks – asked me some stuff to get me thinking harder.

Best, Sandra-on-the-web

Not quite #moocmooc

This week I am mostly vicariously participating in Hybrid Pedagogies #MOOCMOOC on Critical pedagogies (http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/mooc-mooc-critical-pedagogy/) by following the posts of some friends (Maha Bali, Simon Ensor and Keith Hamon). There has been much discussion on Freire and bell hooks – and just how tricky it can be to implement critical pedagogy in real life classrooms – they asked:

• Is the primary effort of education bent toward the humanization of its participants (learners and educators alike)? If it is not, should it be? What does humanization look like as curricula, as syllabi, as lesson plan?

• If it is not our task to “make deposits” into students’ minds, to reinforce learner passivity, but rather to spark inquiry, where is the best place to start?

• How are we teaching, really, and how are we relating to the world, really? Do we walk the walk we want to walk, the walk we say we walk?

• If, as Freire points out, the “teacher’s thinking is authenticated only by the authenticity of the students’ thinking” (58), what process might we follow to foster authentic thinking — in the classroom as much as in professional spaces?

Movements in space and time

Recently our University moved from 15-week to 30-week courses: in moving from modules to courses, some of us found that this small change in space and time arrangements allowed us the space and time to at least attempt to implement something that is at least informed by Freire and hooks and Illich (and Holt) and Dewey – but also by Carl Rogers… and for us in particular this meant that our module ‘Becoming an Educationalist: reading, writing and enquiry’ – could not just enter into dialogue with students about what an educationalist could be in the world – and how – and why… It also allowed us to shape something that fosters belonging and human connections between the students – it allows the space and time to foster creativity and fun and play – as well as criticality and dialogue… and we hope that the processes involved also allows the module to act as a tool or lens for participants to use to critique their previous educational experiences – in ways that critically inform their own future practice. We blog about the course each week: https://becomingeducational.wordpress.com/  - and we encourage the students to blog their learning to develop their own playful, powerful academic voices.

We are the ‘other’

Our University is a Widening Participation university – and attracts those students who do typically get called broken or lazy or ‘less able’ – but who are really just less inducted into the traditional academic forms, processes and procedures… The goal of a module like ‘Becoming’ on paper could be that we re-territorialise (D&G) these perhaps ‘un-inducted’ students – that we tame them – fix them – and get them all set up for their education deposits; what we hope is that the passion and the play of the module and their blogs and the spaces created - enables the students to narrate themselves as they become ‘academic’ on their own terms.

Share the love?

We would be happy to share our Module Handbook with others implementing Critical Pedagogy in their classrooms – and to have you share yours with us: for beautiful lessons emerge from such practical ideas of CP in action.