After reviewing this weekās readings, Teaching Online ā A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice by Major and Openness and Education: A beginnersā guide by Jordan and Keller, I started thinking about what open education meant for me and how these articles widened my views about it.Ā
My idea about open education was that it is accessible to anyone and students can learn at their own pace at the location that works for them. I was amazed to learn from Majorās book about how Massive Open Online Courses evolved and it reminded me of my experience with one of these types of courses. In the last few years I have been looking for courses that were online, asynchronous, affordable and also accessible on a specific topic. I researched many days and hours until I came across Coursera. I was able to take a course in Spanish on a specific subject and would earn a certificate at the end. While the course was manageable, accessible to anyone and interesting, I failed to finish it. I was uncertain about the reason but the lack of social interaction and accountability were definitely a couple of them. While these courses are criticized according to Major for the possibility of creating inequity among students, they also offer many future possibilities for course design and might positively affect higher education.
By reading about the structural elements of online courses, such as amount of online portion, the timing of student-teacher interaction, pathways of learning and learning platform used, gave me a better understanding of the different ways courses can be built and that an instructor, acting as a designer, might create a course according to his/her perspective. I found it interesting to read about the experiences some of the professors had with their courses and it made me think about my own teaching practices. I believe while designing your own course, one must focus on studentsā needs first, then think about the other aspects of design after. While itās not questionable that face-to-face instruction has its advantages; however, the benefits of blended learning far outweigh those of face-to-face instruction. In my opinion, depending on the context, K-12 or higher education, course design highly varies and similar to calling teaching as an art, instructors and teachers have the flexibility and responsibility to design courses that work best for their audience.
Major, C. H. (2015). Teaching Online ā A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874 (pp. 76-108)
Jordan, K. & Weller, M. (2017). Openness and Education: A beginnersā guide. Global OER Graduate Network.
August 12, 2021 at 6:30 am
Hi Klaudia, I had the same thought about open course until I read about these two readings. Initially I thought open courses are no different than distributed courses, they both does not require for locations and we can take those courses whenever we want. I was really amazed when I learn the differences about the open course and distributed course. I do agree that lack of social interaction affecting our learnings in online courses, I sometimes want to drop all my courses and just have a nice long vacation because I feel I am basically on my own for every course.
August 12, 2021 at 3:22 pm
Hello Ziqi,
It must be even harder for students starting their university courses online without the social piece as the first year should be a special time. However, students come from many backgrounds and have different circumstances, so some might access courses easier this way.
Moreover, the idea of the learning pods allows for some flexibility in connecting with peers not only through the channels offered through the class but also through more common channels like social media or whatever works best for pod members.
August 12, 2021 at 10:41 am
Hello Liv,
I really enjoyed reading about what open education meant for you. I found it inspiring that you searched for many days and hours to find Coursera. I haven’t personally experienced it but I have had similar experiences through Thompson River’s online university classes. I too did not manage to finish the course as it became very boring with the lack of deadlines, structure, and social interactions. I agree that even though there is some negative connotation and connection with online learning/open education there is possibility for them to improve in the future.
I really liked how in the next section you extended your post into the importance of course design for online courses. Like with many classes, face-to-face or not design, teacher, and how the class is run can truly make or break a class. You are so right, take student’s needs into account first.
Thanks again for posting this amazing response. It has really helped me to extend my own learning and understanding.
August 12, 2021 at 3:34 pm
Hi Linnea,
Thank you for your comment.
It’s interesting that you mentioned Thompson River University; I did take a course with them as well when I was preparing to enter UVIC and I didn’t manage to finish it for the same reason as you. It was also my first time taking an online course and I didn’t feel that the support was there, when I needed. I agree that they still could be improved and be more student-centered.
August 13, 2021 at 5:55 pm
Hi Livaktiv,
I enjoyed reading your post, I enjoyed reading it. After graduating from my teaching program in 2019 I became interested in EdX and some of the courses they offered. I really liked the idea of free online education and so I made an account in the hopes hat I would have enough free time to enrol in some courses. Unfortunately, I never had enough time to be able to enjoy such a service, because I became occupied with “external obligations” but I can definitely understand what makes this kind of learning appealing. On the subject of designing a course in response to the needs of students, I think that while I have taken student surveys for online courses, I actually wonder how much of that is used by professors to alter the design o the course or if these surveys are just meant to make us feel like the course is responding to our individual needs? I had a class last semester where the teacher was surprised to find out that I was a Circus Arts coach, saying, “Why didn’t you tell me?” to which I replied, “I did. I mentioned it in the survey.” I agree that we must really take into consideration the characteristics of our students but is there a way to do this prior to the class beginning or should a more appropriate method involve changes things up in response to student needs as they happen?
August 15, 2021 at 4:01 pm
Hi Klaudia,
Thanks for sharing your experience with the MOOC you enrolled in. Your story is very, very common. Back when MOOCs rose to popularity, the statistic was that less than 10% of students would finish courses. That stat brought up an important question of “if students dip in and learn the part of the course that they wanted to, does overall course completion matter?”. What do you think? In your experience, did you learn the portion that you intended to? Or did you drop off before you go there?
If you enrolled in another MOOC now, would you do anything differently?
Ryan
August 27, 2021 at 10:08 am
Hi Klaudia,
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post. When you stated that, āMy idea about open education was that it is accessible to anyone and students can learn at their own pace at the location that works for them.ā, I completely agreed with you as that was what my definition of open learning was too. However, as delved into the article by Weller (2017), I learned open education began around 1970, and at the time āopenā was associated with the physical layout of a classroom or the design of educational tasks (Weller, 2017). Although decades have passed, as such teaching and open learning has evolved, I still feel that in a lot of ways we
Upon further reading into the article, I was amazed when Weller (2017) highlighted Resnick (1972) paper promoting the ways that educational technology has the potential to support open education, such as āchoosing educational objectives, organization, and sequencing materials, displaying alternatives, providing learner control, enhancing motivation, and evaluating competence.ā (Resnick, 1972).
Learning about the history of open learning made me reflect on open learning today. Although technology and time have evolved, I seem to think that the core objectives of open learning today align with the objectives of open learning from several decades ago.
This then made me connect to your discussion about designing courses and the structural elements of online courses. I think as educators we should take into consideration the core objectives of open learning when designing courses today.
References:
Jordan, K. & Weller, M. (2017).Ā Openness and Education: A beginnersā guide.Ā Global OER Graduate Network. https://go-gn.net/research/openness-and-education-a-beginners-guide/