Category: PBL group 01

Reflecting on an Online Networked Learning course (ONL191)

ONL191 is an Online Networked Learning that was developed as a response to a growing need for courses dealing with the use of digital tools for teaching and learning. The course design is based on open, collaborative and networked learning practices and participants explore how a problem-based learning format can be utilised for CPD in an online learning environment.

The structure of the course unfolds over 12 weeks: an introduction week; a second week for members of problem based learning (PBL) groups to get acquainted with one another; and then five two-week periods with each focused on a different topic (Online Participation and Digital Literacies; Open learning – Sharing and Openness; Learning in Communities – Networked Collaborative Learning; Design for Online and Blended Learning; Lessons Learning – Future Practice). Within each two-week topic there is a relatively small amount of content to go through compared to other free online courses/MOOCs in this area (academic readings, videos, other open online resources) an overall webinar on the topic, a tweetchat, and within each PBL group there are a number of online meetings as the group discusses the topic, examines a related scenario, and use the FISh method to analyse and come up with a way of answering some or all of the issues raised in the scenario.

Fish model

The bunch-o-humans PBL approach in this course was interesting, productive and set it apart from similar courses that I have taken, which usually tend to use the model of providing much more content with a supporting facility for comments providing the point of human contact. I think it scared some participants off early in the course but it made me fully commit to this course, attend regularly, and do the related work as I felt a commitment to the group I was in. I found there was good utility in the PBL model as a basis for CPD activity, and I will consider using it in CPD activities I design for colleagues. The FISh model is also an interesting tool that I have added to my toolkit. The course has also pushed me to start blogging on my professional practice, which is a good or bad thing depending on your point of you. I am not sure the world needed another EduBlog. Finally, interacting with my PBL group has highlighted to me that I know more than I realise about some topics, and that my obsessive hoarding of references, resources, models etc. can reap benefits when I share them in such a community.

I enjoyed this course and recommend it to others 🙂

The Empathy Map as an Early Learning Design Activity

Topic 4 for  the ONL191 course focuses on how to support and design for learning, with a particular emphasis on accounting for emotional presence (in the context of the Community of Inquiry framework) in learning design. My problem based learning group decided to focus on an Empathy Map learning design exercise that would be used early in the design process. This exercise, taken from the Extend Ontario materials, helps to empathise with, and better understand, the learner for whom we are designing a learning experience. It is, perhaps, an exercise better suited to those scenarios where you are working on something that students are already encountering/using so that you can base the map on formal and informal feedback you already have. If you are working on something brand new then mocking up personas may be a more effective way to go (for examples see Grainne Conole’s augmented 7Cs), or at least mock up your personas first before using the empathy map. Here are some examples of my groups early attempts at using the empathy map.

The Value of Learning Communities

Rather than try to answer the question myself of why there is value in being a member of a learning community, or even better several learning communities, I decided to ask some of the other participants at the marvellous OER19 conference that took place in beautiful Galway city, Ireland on the 10th and 11th of April. What they said is here in full in this Youtube playlist. Cherry picking my favourite parts of their answers the value of being in a learning community is that it is a route to continuous learning as you learn from interacting with others, being exposed to different perspectives, and that is is simply more fun to walk the road with others than alone!

Thank you to to &  for being willing to give their thoughts!

Piloting an Open Pedagogy Assessment

In the 2018-2019 academic year I have worked to introduce an open pedagogy assessment in the online BA in Humanities (Psychology Major) programme. I was inspired by some excellent presentations at the 2018 OE Global conference hosted by TU Delft in beautiful Delft, Holland that gave examples of different possibilities in incorporating open pedagogy assessments into a module.

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Following the open pedagogy principle of empowering students to create and share useful information, we sought to enhance the assessment design for an undergraduate developmental and educational psychology module such that its third and final assignment changed from being an applied assignment where students produced a ‘mock’ report for schools that was marked but not shared outside of the module, to one where they produce a communication to the public that will be shared openly/publicly. The assignment brief asks students to first write a literature review on mental health and wellbeing in the young in the context of the steps post-primary schools take to protect adolescents from risk and increase wellbeing. Secondly, students are asked to create a communication, in the form of a digital information pamphlet or an infographic, that can be shared with the public, advising schools and educators on how to improve adolescent mental health and wellbeing. At the point of submission students will have the option to grant permission for the team to publicly share these digital pamphlets and infographics. We are planning to conduct a follow up research study to evaluate the pilot.

Digital Identity & Literacy: Who am I in the Digital Age?

As a ‘third-space’ (Whitchurch, 2008) academic working in online learning, my digital identity is inseparable from my professional identity, and also deeply ingrained in my personal life (which I keep separate through the use of separate accounts for email, social media, etc.). I identify strongly with where I work, Dublin City university’s (DCU) National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL), and within that the Open Education Unit, as well as our brand/platform for online programmes, DCU Connected.

DCU Connected

DCU Connected programmes run by the Open Education Unit use a teaching and learning model created specifically for online, off-campus study where small teams of full-time academic staff work with larger teams of part-time, off-campus, adjunct faculty who fulfil specific teaching and learning roles (described in Brunton et al. 2018). Most work days in online learning land are, for me, spent more inside digital technologies (using digital literacies) such as email, Google Apps, the internet, online classrooms, (traditional) social media, basic-intermediate audio/video tools like Audacity or Camtasia, YouTube for video production/delivery, institutional reporting tools and dashboards etc. than it is in physical rooms with people I share a building with. I think I am digitally literate in these, maybe digitally fluent in some. However, as someone from a subject background (psychology) rather than online learning specifically, and only working in the area for eight going on nine years, I am always hesitant to claim expertise or fluency.

my desk

When I first started working in online learning I found that digital literacies were just that, literacies. But like a lot of instances where educational concepts and approaches move into a digital realm, they often become more stark and obvious and need to be addressed more explicitly than their often invisible offline counterparts. Working in the “third space” can feel like I’m a ‘master of none’, able to do things better than explain what I’m doing and why, so I also want to solidify some of my digital literacies/work so I can confidentially speak to it. Working in online learning brings new tools, platforms and related literacies all the time. My goal is to keep chipping away at the new areas I want to expand into. This work can be overwhelming, learning about new techniques and technologies, and incorporating them systematically into a module/the programme, working with/training in (great) off-campus adjunct faculty, and providing support during piloting etc. And with limited resources. My way of dealing with the complexity is to try and use digital and offline tools to be better organised and project manage my work, both what I do individually and especially the team-based work I do with my psychology team. There is a great blog post on this from  that sprang out of a discussion on Facebook. I also think it is important to frame the testing out of new digital tools etc. within a framework, e.g. a structured innovation pilot model, so what is being done is captured, for ourselves and others.

Brunton, J., Brown, M., Costello, E., & Walsh, E. (2016). Designing and developing a programme focused assessment strategy: A case study. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 31 (2), 1-12.

Whitchurch, C. (2008), Shifting Identities and Blurring Boundaries: the Emergence of Third Space Professionals in UK Higher Education. Higher Education Quarterly, 62: 377-396.