After completing the readings for week two, I noticed that several of the concepts brought up in “A Guide to Theory, Research and Practice” are ideas that I’ve experienced throughout my courses. I noticed that this book had examples of successful open and online courses and the strategies that were implemented by their professors to create this next level type of course. As someone who is in a computer science major, I found the examples about computer science courses the most intriguing. These courses were asynchronous, something that pretty much none of my computer science courses were. Alan Levine’s DS106 lets students pick and choose the assignments that they wish to complete, “rather than being given, say, a specific audio assignment, they have to finish fifteen stars’ worth of Audio Assignments (each one is rated for difficulty by ds106 participants)” (Major, 2015). This flexibility gives students more say into how they will be evaluated in each area of the course. I think this idea of picking and choosing your own assignments is really powerful since it helps to encourage students rather than discourage them with overly complicated problem sets. This choice reminds me of exams/midterms where the professor has 10 short answer questions and says that you only need to answer 7 of them. This choice lets students gauge their knowledge on all 10 questions allowing them to answer the questions they feel most secure about. This flexibility in computer science assignments reminds me of those pick and choose exams, which I find enjoyable since I am given more say into how I will be evaluated. Assignments can be really difficult and there is nothing worse than spending 2 weeks on an assignment and still knowing it doesn’t work properly. By giving students more choice in the assignments they complete, they are at least being given some opportunity to show that they understand some concepts, and might just need more time and assistance with others.
In terms of applying some of the concepts from the readings to this course, I think there are several ideas that have already been put into action. First, this course is fairly asynchronous, which allows me as a learner to go at my own pace, rather than having that pace set for me. I do sometimes get worried that my pace might be too fast or too slow compared to other students, but the readings assured me that with this type of learning environment, people will always be going at their own pace and that no pace is wrong. Another concept that I think I can apply to this course is that everyone is a learner and a teacher. As mentioned in the readings, teachers aren’t always the ones who are instructing others, since there are often times when students have more knowledge about certain areas. This idea was mentioned in Claire Major’s book (Major, 2015) and how for some of these open courses, teachers were relying on students to help pave the way for a course. This concept shows that everyone’s level of knowledge and expertise is valued when it comes to learning since the person leading us through a course might not always know the best path along the way. I think these two concepts of pace and being a teacher/learner are ideas that I can help apply throughout this course. Both of these concepts are relatively straightforward and so I can pick and choose when I want to apply them to my learning.
After analyzing these readings, I do wonder if open learning is something that more institutions will try to incorporate into their repertoire. Especially for someone like myself who is in a technology focus degree, it would be interesting to see more flexibility and room for creativity being added to my computer science courses. With technology and the world around us changing so quickly, I wonder if open learning will become the new wave of education. Perhaps, after these times of Covid-19, open learning might be our only option to continue education.
References
Claire Howell Major. (2015). Teaching Online – A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874 (pp. 88-105)
Jordan, K., & Weller, M. (2017). Jordan, K. & Weller, M. (2017) Openness and Education: A beginners’ guide. Global OER Graduate Network.
July 15, 2020 at 5:01 pm
Hi Tess,
I appreciated how you applied your real life experiences to the readings. You focussed on the aspect of flexibility and choice in the examples from the readings and I think that speaks volumes to the effectiveness of UDL. It is important that teachers offer students flexibility in how they demonstrate learning outcomes because it promotes engagement and also allows learners to represent their learning in a variety of modalities.
It sounds like some of your computer science courses are behind in incorporating UDL in their pedagogy. I hope that changes in the future. It is amazing to think about where the future of education will go with distributed and open learning. When I was doing my undergrad, online courses really just started to gain traction. I have to admit that I was biased and sceptical of online courses when I first heard about them and avoided doing any online learning until it was out of necessity. The first few online courses I took had experiences like yours with little flexibility or collaboration and I did not think distributed learning could be as effective as traditional learning. I am now starting to see that distributed learning can be just as effective with good pedagogy. As technology improves, I have no doubt that distributed and open learning will become much more prevalent.
-Michelle
July 18, 2020 at 8:22 am
Thank you for your thoughtful post Tess. You and I approached these readings in very different ways which is great. While I concentrated on the “nuts and bolts” of the various pedagogical examples, you had a much more personal take on things. You compared the various examples to your computer science experience. You bring up the point around the “asynchronous” model and the choice that is built into such an educational experience. I agree with you in that having some choice, students are more likely to buy into the system as they feel they can choose to demonstrate their understanding in ways that best suits them. Having the chance to pick assignments they feel they understand allows them to feel confident in their learning. Another thing you brought forward was the idea that the asynchronous model allows every individual to work at their own pace and that, fast or slow, no pace is wrong. Finally, I appreciated the concept that everyone is simultaneously a teacher AND a learner. We would be doing a disservice to our students if we considered ourselves as teachers alone….we need to be constantly learning to ensure we are providing the most effective and pedagogically sound learning environment for our students.
Thank you again,
Todd