Week Two: Course Reflections Post

For week two this is the first of two posts. Today’s post is structured around the specific assignment questions set by the OLC course, and therefore is a bit more regimented than my style would be otherwise.  My second post, coming this weekend, will provide a summary of my research thus far and another curated list of resources from the news and CoP’s this week, following the pattern I established in week one.  So if you’re following along to see new information and research, you might want to check back Sunday.

Reflections on the Learning Process in Relation to Week 1 Learning Goals:

What were your learning intentions for the week, and did you follow through on those?

My goals for week 1 were defined in a post on September 17.  To summarize, they were:

·      Join Communities of Practice to learn more about these topics, including the International Institution for Innovative Instruction at Franklin University, Instructional Design Central, eLearning Industry, and the Gamification Research Network.

·      Participate in discussions and engage with posts by these groups, particularly on Twitter

·      Begin identifying and locating both recent and seminal works on these topics to explore in weeks 2-4

I joined the email list or community (LinkedIn or Twitter) for all of the groups identified in the first goal.  I also began following leaders in Gamification and Instructional Design (who have published on these topics or were affiliated with these groups) on Twitter.

In terms of discussions, I have also attended a two-day conference presented by Quality Matters on online education, including listening to presentations on OER and student engagement topics and engaging in the chat for online conference participants.  I am also enrolled separately in a workshop on Gamification that runs this week, which I had registered for several months ago.  That enabled me to discuss some articles and readings directly with other ID’s and faculty members. 

Lastly, I have identified and gathered articles and books on all of my trends and theories identified in week 1: Open Educational Resources, Gamification, and Component Display Theory.  I have begun to read through these, although that process was delayed by the heavy reading load and additional assignments associated with the other aspects of this course for week two (on critical and creative thinking and metacognition).

If you were sidetracked, was it beneficial or do you need to revise your learning strategies to stay on track?

I was not sidetracked by my CoP’s or research, since those are fluid tasks anyway and one needs to maintain a broader contextual awareness of all the things being discussed while focusing on the specific details one is researching.  I have extensive practice at this, since history as a field is all about learning how to research and noticing patterns in the research at the same time one is paying attention to specific details and storylines. 

That said, I was hindered in this task by the cognitive overload of having to read almost 20 different articles and websites about critical thinking and metacognition.  Frankly, that is valuable information but there is too much going on in this class to do both effectively in one week while working and attending conferences (and running my own pedagogy sessions for fellow faculty on campus).

I have put the first assignment related to critical thinking due this week on hold for now.  Since I have prior experience and training in designing and assessing critical thinking in higher education (including through the AAC&U VALUES rubrics reference in the reading as well as with Paul and Elder’s booklet Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools also referenced in the readings), I am confident I can develop a short assignment to submit by the weekend.  I feel my time is better spent researching OER and Gamification, which are more directly relevant to what I am doing professionally right now.  My strategy to stay on track is to minimize the time I spend on what I see as the less fruitful and less important tasks (i.e. if you have only one day to do them, you can only spend one day doing them, which is one technique for minimizing distractions).

How does what you learned this week relate to what you’ve previously learned?

In terms of the critical thinking and metacognition, very few of the readings were new to me.  Therefore, that existing knowledge directly relates to what I read and was simply a review.

What I have learned about gamification and open education resources has enriched my understanding of the ways in which both can be designed and implemented in higher education.  In essence, I have a more complex view of how both contribute to Constructivist and Connectivist learning theories, and the specific elements and processes one should consider when developing or using both in courses.  I have had less time to read about Component Display Theory given everything else, but what I have read has helped me to understand the origins of the theory and how it was later incorporate into other instructional design theories.

Your Community of Practice Involvement: 

What types of interaction have you engaged in with your CoP?  Is there anything you have learned intentionally or unintentionally from your interactions this week?

My engagements have been both face to face and online with at least four different Communities of Practice.  Interacting with presenters and audience members at the Quality Matters conference involved chatting online while I attended the conference virtually through Zoom.  Likewise, my interactions with the Gamification workshop have thus far been online through discussion boards or through engaging with posts and articles shared on Twitter.  The remaining two CoP’s were face-to-face on my campus—engaging with instructional designers also enrolled in OLC workshops or familiar with the theories we are discussing and with my peers in the social sciences discussing pedagogy techniques and practical applications of theories, practices, or resources (including OER).  Most of my learning has been filling in details on the larger framework of my understanding of these topics and was intentional—i.e. I sought out posts, presentations, or discussions that impacted something I wanted to learn more about. 

Unintentional learning thus far probably is best summarized as interpersonal skills like how to network and start discussions on intellectual and theoretical topics with people you do not know well—because it’s just weird to be like “hey, how about that constructivist interpretation of adaptive learning tool X?  Do you really think the learner analytics and platform support that kinds of social learning?” to a total stranger, even at a conference.  

How is your involvement in this CoP similar to, and different from, other learning networks or CoP’s you’ve interacted with, and what might you need to change/keep the same in order to improve your experiences?

I’ve found most of the CoP’s that were suggested in this course to be limited in their scope and/or utility.  That’s the nature of recommending general groups that address broad topics or whole professions.  The only one that I have found somewhat useful in locating articles or materials relevant to my topics was eLearning Industry.  That said, the existing networks I have developed of instructional designers or other faculty interested in pedagogy and instructional models, or through professional organizations in which I am a member, have continued to be helpful in finding information of relevance to these topics and facilitating conversations with practitioners.  In that sense, I don’t think I need to change much but instead to continue building connections with individuals I meet in person or virtually as part of professional organizations, conferences, and workshops.

I hope to post more of a summary of the research and topics later this weekend, after the assignments for this week are completed and submitted.