Final reflections from the teacher’s perspective

The start of a course, and the end of a course are equally important. In the beginning there needs to be clear communication about what is to come, and in a distance course that means having the course content, materials and assignments ready months before the end. And when a course ends it’s time to reflect upon the learning experience, the activities during the course and the future benefits of the knowledge gained. Measured in time, we’ve had four meetings in Adobe Connect, we’ve written and spoken to each other, we’ve looked at each other and we’ve shared some laughs. In this virtual space many participants started reflecting on the importance of presence, usually physical presence in a course. Remove a teacher from the classroom and new challenges arise and ideas are born.

Keep in mind that interactions need to be planned for. Simply being in the same room as someone doesn’t mean they’ll be interacting or getting to know each other. The same goes for a blog, if you don’t ask students to collaborate or discuss online it won’t happen, and if you don’t assess those kind of activities you prove that they are not really important for your view on learning. We’ve all taken courses where the teacher provided some information, books provided some more information, and the final exam measured what we learned from lectures and books. No interactions between students needed at all.

In the first blog post the participants were expected to reflect upon higher education now or in the future. @alejodasilva analysed the relationship between universities and industries in Two sides of the coin: future of higher education.  @ainohakademienglish discussed the concept of productivity and higher education in Research -50%!!! Buy one, get one free! While @kofibrobbey wrote about virtual labs as part of the future for natural sciences in Digital revolution and virtual labs the future of higher education @igrigait raised questions about multiculturalism in higher education in her post Potential dangers of privilege games of future education Participants took time to provide support and critique in their comments, and I often found myself scrolling down to that section because these interactions are exciting to read and they were part of the assessment.

In the second blog post they were asked to develop a course and reflect upon the didactical questions; What, why, how, when and where. These are old ones, they can be considered the backbone of the theories first discussed by Comenius and Herbart. I like them because they can be used for short assignments as well as the whole course outline. These questions force you to rethink what you thought you knew about pedagogy and didactics. If you can’t answer one of the questions that’s probably the area you need to read up on and work more on. @hannaacke wrote in her second post Language and politics that

I will have to rethink how the learning goals I set corresponded to the teaching methods I used and the assessment I chose. From your critical evaluation in your comments, I will get more insights into potential problems and incoherencies.

This was a good approach, asking for help and listening to others to develop your course. It is never easy admitting that you need to improve. Teaching is often a lonely task and the feedback from students are often, but not always, helpful and encouraging. @waheedbhattiblog wanted to develop an online course in Green marketing and was able to ask some follow-up questions that I answered, that perhaps others might find useful too. @asaukko identified problems with a previous course and decided to try something new in her post How to make students want to date rocks. @paivima expressed a desire to create a more student-centered course in her post Teaching basics in chemical technology using student centered methods, which was the aim for basically all participants. They wanted more interactions with their students during lectures, seminars, laborations. This was something we discussed on the blog and in AC sessions.

There are so many good posts that I can’t list them all here, 114 posts have been published, and I commented on 65 posts. Only the second post keeping in mind the workload of the teacher, too. Some participants were active commentators as you can see below.

Those who put in the time and effort saw the benefits of this form of distance education. The learner has a responsibility to actively learn. That is why any evaluation should include the question: How much time and effort did you put into this course to actually make learning happen? In the final AC discussions I highlighted this in some groups, as a way to encourage teachers to take feedback for what it is. Sometimes it’s on you, but sometimes it’s on the student.

I often referred to problem based learning as one method that might suit many different courses presented on the blog as a way to support student collaboration, problem solving, creativity and communication, not to mention theoretical and conceptual knowledge. @marikaengblom wrote about her experiences from the method in Swedish in her post Problembaserat lärande en väg mot studenters självständighet? Sometimes participants know more than the teacher, this was one example of how her knowledge could support the whole group. Here you find my short introduction to it:

Many participants liked the TedTalks and the perspectives provided through videos. I hope they start thinking about the materials they provide their students, because it is important to vary not only your assessment methods, but also your course material.

The discussions in AC were generally considered important for learning more about a broad field that in this course included teaching, assessing and mentoring in higher education. And I made a conscious choice to start with the experiences of the participants, again I simply looked back to Key, Dewey, Locke and Rousseau. To teach you need to know your students, and what they know and expect. That is how you challenge them. It means a teachers need a lot of information before being able to actually start teaching. I got to know the participants through AC sessions, e-mail exchange and their posts on the blog. We had several forms of communication. In many groups participants started using the written chat in AC more frequently. It is important to hear the voice of a person and see their face, but there’s no need to underestimate the dynamic communication that can take place virtually.

I promised to gather some of my thoughts in writing which is what I’ve done here. My favourite virtual tools are webbased documents such as Google documents or Microsoft One Drive documents. I use them when planning courses and share them with students, any updates made are instantly saved. I collaborate with colleagues through them and carry my article drafts with me no matter which computer I use. These are excellent when giving feedback to students, but also when students are supposed to comment on the work progress of others. They open up the possibility for formative assessment that we definitely could be better at in higher education. They make collaboration possible between students (see PBL above). I prefer publishing what students do online because usually they make really good contributions that others might want to read and it’s a joint effort to create something new. It also supports collaboration and makes it easier for students to remain anonymous if they want to. There are many different platforms to do this such as wikis, Google sites, Tumblr, Pinterest, blogs, YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter. But the key is to re-read the learning goals and align them with the methods of teaching and assessing. The medium can support whatever you do, but it can also be more or less pointless. If you want your students to write or record something that no one reads, watches or listens to, or comments then you might as well stick to an assignment directed at the teacher or the student (a reflective diary of some sort for example). Virtual tools are excellent for sharing and collaborating.

In the future the previous higher education courses (25 ECTS) will be replaced with a new programme of 60 ECTS. This means teacher qualification for higher education. The project Higher Education Learning Lab (HELLA) will transform existing courses and develop new ones during 2018. In 2019 part of that programme should be available. There are still many questions about what, how and where. But Åbo Akademi University leads this project in collaboration with Vaasa university, Novia, Arcada, VAMK and Tritonia. The aim is for courses in Swedish, Finnish and English where different kinds of learning environments are considered.

During the final discussions some suggestions were made on the future for courses in higher education:

• The courses can offer time and space for developing teaching practices
• Flexibility is important due to the time restraints of the participants
• Assignments such as planning courses are important for reflecting on learning goals, methods and assessment
• Practical assignments such as recording yourself in a teaching situation, or being in charge of a discussion or workshop is a good way to reflect on your teaching style and potential as a teacher
• Formative assessment and constructive feedback is beneficial in these cases
• Relevant and up-to-date course material can inform teaching practices
• In depth discussions about course materials are important
• Searching for new materials relevant to your discipline is beneficial for learning
• Discussions with people from different disciplines are a good way to broaden the perspectives of participants

But to change the practice long term, collaboration with peers in the department is important. This can be done several ways, but it seemed like recurrent discussions among colleagues and input from educational experts are two ways to do this.

Thank you to all participants for their activity during this course and for the important feedback they gave!