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Should we consider students to have two separate lives--a relatively digital free life at school and a digitally saturated life away from school--or should we consider them to have one life that integrates their lives as students and digital citizens?

So what have I learned? I have learned who I am as a learner, and what I appreciate in a professor. I have learned that I need to let my voice and personality be known to my students because that is how we will connect and become emotionally connected to our course. I reflect on Professor Pickett’s introduction by her daughter. I immediately connected and realized that there was a human being behind the words, and she was relatable. This course is challenging and pushes my abilities, but the interaction with students and the professor helps me know that I am not a lone, and gives me space to evaluate my goals and reflect on what my presence is in our class and in developing the course.

What I have realized in this course, is that teaching presence and social presence and cognitive presence come together to create meaningful learning environments for students and teachers. We want to facilitate this in our classrooms but also in our schools, buildings and districts. We want to create shared spaces where teachers are working together connecting, asking questions, working together to find solutions. When we look at the Seven Principles of Effective teaching, all of these principles are centered around communication and interaction. It is about forming relationships and understanding each other. It is about connecting, creating and understanding.

This course held a mirror up to the learner in me. Inside I want to connect with others. The social element in learning is vital. I want to connect, I want to be validated and I want to feel safe in my learning spaces. I want to learn from someone who is passionate about their subject and teaching. I want to be inspired and I want to feel like I am making a contribution. All of these elements have been present in our discussion forum. We have exchanged ideas, thoughts and we have been able to thoughtfully disagree.

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After reading that statement, I felt as though many things clicked for me. The course design and teaching practices are closely linked. The social, cognitive, and teaching presence are related and depend on each other. What does this mean for my course? For me it translates to making sure my course design contains a careful balance to establish the community of inquiry, and that my teaching practices are supported by my course design.

First that instructors must give control over the learning to the students, and second that instructors must be skilled at guiding discussions in order to help students learn what is necessary through interactions with others. I especially liked an analogy that Luke used in one of his discussion posts, “Yoda (the teacher) guided Luke (the student) in the ways of the Force, he pointed him where he needed to go but had Luke do the work.” I think this is very relatable for those of us who are star wars fans. Yoda is this incredibly wise mentor, who says very little. The statements he makes are brief but have a lot of meaning. I do see how this relates to effective teaching online. I had to help facilitate a discussion in a past online class, and always felt hesitant to jump in. My sense was that you only want to add something when the thinking stops. You only want to ask enough questions, or statements to get the thinking going again.

I really appreciated that the course was able to allow me to reach these conclusions in my own way, rather than just telling me “the line between direct instruction and facilitation of discourse can be blurred”. 

I have been able to make the big connections, and form ideas in a way that previously has been difficult for me. 

I feel as though the reflection assignments have provided the context for my brain to think in a different way.  This not only gives me confidence for the future, but it also helps me to discover the connections I have made unconsciously!  It seems kind of strange to say that, but it is true!  I am hoping to continue to use blogging as a tool to document my insights and learning after the course ends.

I definitely was struggling with motivation when I felt the connection to my classmates and the instructor fading.

Through ETAP640, I have really learned how important reflection is for deep learning. It is through my blog posts that I have been able to tie all the ideas together in my head and makes sense out of the information. The course manual suggests that you ask your students why they are taking the course within the ice breaker.

Maree (4)