Blog Post 4: Weekly Reflection

EDCI 339

This week’s material has prompted me to reflect on what meaningful engagement through online learning platforms entails in comparison to traditional educational roles and learning.

Barnes (2016)Barnes (2016) highlights instructor presence as a key factor in cultivating students’ learning. He creates an engaging and authentic community.Through interactions, teachers provide feedback and communication to their students, encouraging open communication and a setting that provides a secure and welcoming space for people to work together and express who they are. 

Similarly, Stewart’s (2016) Podcast promotes networked pedagogy, where students’ roles are to build knowledge through participation in digital networks, which, through student participation and collaboration, creates a sense of autonomy over their learning. It is important to understand that the idea of “network pedagogy” seeks to design for equity, discourse, and student representation, making sure that all students feel at ease, even when some platforms may establish hierarchies and divisions.

Within the readings, Martin Weller’s (2020) Chapter explores the idea of connectivism, which can be explained as learning as a process of forming connections between people, ideas, resources, or platforms. 

All of these resources expand my understanding of digital education and how it necessitates rethinking and creating new identities, communities, and spaces where students feel comfortable and connected, thereby better supporting their digital learning, which may be something they aren’t accustomed to. This is a dynamic process where teachers must be present, and the learning space should be a co-constructed environment where students feel safe to collaborate and connect within relationships, technologies, and commitments. I have personally had great experiences with online instructors and horrible ones. The ones who provided feedback and communication were the ones that I felt supported my overall learning and learning space. For me personally, the instructors who put in the most effort getting to know the students were the ones I felt more comfortable talking to; having said that, the classes that I felt comfortable with and where my learning was supported were the classes I did the best in as well, I saw the results, through the teacher’s involvement as well as my participation, the co-construction is what worked in achieving the goal in the end. 

Resources:

Curating Episodes that Have Most Impacted My Teaching – Teaching in Higher Ed says:, Networked Pedagogy with Bonnie Stewart | totallyrewired says:, & Group Work Task: Networked Learning : | debsphdblog says: (2019, August 3). Networked pedagogy. Teaching in Higher Ed. https://teachinginhighered.com/podcast/networked-pedagogy/ 

DeWaard, H., Barnes, C., Taleo, W., Nerantzi, C., Mitchell-Holder, S., Spellman-Cann, S., Hendricks, C., Roberts, V., Luong, E., Krasheninnikova, L., Grant, K., Al-Freih, M., Bartoletti, R., Bali, M., & Whitney Kilgore. (2016, November 14). Where’s the teacher?  defining the role of instructor presence in social presence and cognition in online education. Humanizing Online Teaching and Learning. https://pressbooks.pub/humanmooc/chapter/wheres-the-teacher-defining-the-role-of-instructor-presence-in-social-presence-and-cognition-in-online-education/ 

Weller, M. (2020). “Chapter 17 – 2010 Connectivism.” 25 Years of Edtech. AUPress. https://read.aupress.ca/read/25-years-of-ed-tech/section/198057f5-1a3e-4436-a4b8-c6e1a3e0bd69#ch17