Being engaged in the OLTD program has provided ample opportunity to reflect upon my philosophy of education and how it has changed from my early days as a classroom teacher through to now, my fifth year teaching online and in a blended environment.
I have always believed strongly in the need to build strong relationships in order to facilitate trust and depth of learning, and more recently have been able to have accurate vocabulary to describe my beliefs thanks to the Community of Inquiry framework. My ultimate goal is to help create meaningful learning experiences that are driven by the interests and goals of the individual, and help groups collaborate to create and decode meaning together. I firmly believe that students should be the driving force behind their learning, and that it's my job to guide them. I also think that teachers are part of the learning equation, and I often learn just as much from my students as they learn from me. Teaching online offers a great number of opportunities to turn this philosophy into a reality, but it can be difficult for me to implement. Creating trust and strong working relationships within an online community requires time and, so far as I can tell, relies largely on synchronous sessions. I'm struggling with the concept of building these collaborative opportunities asynchronously, and may need to rebuild large aspects of my school's program around cohorts or synchronous "sessions" within the asynchronous course as a whole. I've had lots of success building community in my classroom using face to face methods (see this post for more information). Downes's article talks about the evolution of eLearning, which at the time his piece was written was about 10 years old. My understanding of the evolution of online courses is that as technology and instructor knowledge develop, we move farther away from the traditional "correpondance" style of course, which many Learning Management Systems still mimic with their itemized "lego block" organization of content and tasks, towards a more social and connected interface. Downes mentions Michael G. Moore's theory of transactional distance, and it seems to me that transactional distance in online learning is decreasing. I take this to mean that learners have more control to negotiate, communication between participants (both learners, isntructors, and occasionally experts) is rich, and the community develops a feeling of closeness. Original "correspondence" models would have high transactional distance, which equates to low learner control, and the trend Downes describes, and that I want to encourage within my own classes, is moving away from this. I value the opportunity to work one on one with my students, and love being able to create individualized programs for each learner, both of which are offered by the flexible nature of my classroom. I would like to release more responsibility for student choice to the learner, but I have to spend more time learning about structures and methods to allow this. Sometimes unlearning deeply ingrained methods is daunting! Ultimately, my philosphy of education centres around authenticity, and the ability of the learner to create meaning within contexts and tasks that are important to them. Tasks need to relate to real-life understandings as much as possible, and students should have the freedom to negotiate and take control - as well as develop the skills to understand how they learn best and advocate for themselves. The trend in eLearning fits like a corresponding puzzle piece into my philosophy, and my struggle now will be to learn the methods and structures that I can use to make my dream practice a reality.
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For my most recent course in the OLTD program, our final project required that we complete a reflection connecting content and learnings from the course to our philosophies of education. I have experiemented with a program I haven't used before (Haiku Deck) to synthesize my ideas and hopefully present a full picture of the valuable learning that occurred for me during this course.
OLTD 503 - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires
To view this presentation with my extensive notes, please click here. Also, below I have posted a link to my notes and references, if you prefer to read them in a different format:
As part of our seminar this week, we had the wonderful opportunity to build a virtual resume to welcome students to our online classrooms. This is an incredibly practical activity for me, and something I can immediately embed into all of my Moodle courses. My only regret is that I have been sick this week, and didn't want to record an actual video of myself with a croaky voice and runny nose. I will probably do this later on though!
It was great to reflect on what I want to create in my online classroom, and how much of it I have succeeded in accomplishing so far. My experience has taught me that students perform better when they have a connection with their teacher. Teaching presence online is a challenge, and this is a strong way to begin developing it. It was also fun to explore the Powtoon app, which I can see using with my students to share their learning. I also built a YouTube channel, which holds potential for me professionally. All in all, this was a great reflective exercise that I can make immediate use of and can pass benefits on to my students as well. |
Leslie McCurrachEnthusiastic Learner. Avid Gardener. DL Teacher. Archives
March 2018
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