Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Learning contract: self-reflection

Self-reflection:
Did i achieve my objectives? Use the criteria what you developed to assess how well did you work. Reflect, what worked and what did not?

Basically yes.
First category of questions was about educational science and I have deeper understand about them. I have gone deeper into theory, I tried to observe the environment around me and I tried to make sense about my previous experience, to analyse how learning takes place; how to understand self-directed learning and intrinsic motivation. Non of those questions is black or white question with only one correct answer - so there is a lot of discover in the future as well. But: with this (theoretical) part and with my thinking about it I am actually extremely satisfied.
Second goal was: to have some knowledge (just facts) about different technological possibilities how to implement good elearning course. Well: I did have some knowledge about it. Some of them while reading course materials, going through different environments and writing/reading stuff about good/bad criteria.

With my criterias I am not very satisfied because they are not fully supporting my goals :). Some feedback about this would have been useful. But still:

1. Know how to use different technological tools while implementing good elearning course.
I know how and why to use different social technologies.

2. Reading and learning reflections are done.
They are done.

3. Reflections and/ or comments and/or contributions to the group-work consists argumentation about self-directed learning, intrinsic motivation and different approaches to the learning.
Here I have not formulated my criteria correctly (one reason is my developing skill writing in English). Reflections and comments to the reading material do consist argumentation. My contribution to the group-work does not. But I'm not sure whether it would have been helpful to write there thoughts like I have about these subjects. Still: the contribution to our group-work has not been small and during discussions I tried to add ideas and support them with some argumentation.

What worked and what did not….

I wrote quite many comments on that what did not work :)
I still think that course needs to be redesigned. Sry for that :(. The load of the first weeks was extremely high and left no room for groups to start communicate. The communication part (why I have to write so many reflections about learning and reading if nobody reads them and we have no discussion about them???) did not work. I think that forum might help here and writing comments to each others blogs as one weekly assignment, but surely facilitators comments are the one's everybody is waiting.

Students of this course had too different backgrounds: from undergraduate to doctoral studies. It is clear that those people do have different needs, but the course did not consider that. Plus we had different backgrounds (some IT, some education). Again: forum might have helped to find people with common knowledge or background. I think it would have big help to me. The idea about people sharing their knowledge with each other works better for people with similar backgrounds. Otherwise some don't understand and some are not motivated because there is nothing in it for them.

Materials were good. Most of them I liked very much and they helped me to achieve my goals and they made me think. One suggestion: have some material as compulsory and some as elective. This gives you also possibility to support self-directed learning and intrinsic motivation.

This different cultures thing … it's a bit problematic. One possibility is to set up some common rules how to communicate. And it is very important for facilitators to know and understand different cultures. I discussed this with my husband (who has lived in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania) and he said that these all are quite different cultures: although people are the same everywhere the attitudes about them selves and about the power (!) is still quite different.

One of my criteria was satisfaction with me. Well, I am satisfied. First: because I did not quit this course and endured. There were many thoughts about leaving this course. I was not so enthusiastic as I might be, but all assignments are done and I don't think that my contribution to the group-work has been small. So: I'm satisfied.

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