Afterthoughts on significant learning experiences

I was talking to a fellow educator today about student engagement in an online learning environment and referred to Dee Fink's book I finished reading a couple of weeks ago "Creating Significant Learning Experiences". As we both shared some of the significant learning that we have experienced I realized that not many educators have experienced significant learning in an online learning environment or even formal educational setting. I personally can think of one or two during completing my masters online. But what about the educators that have not experienced online learning as learners or they have but they have not been lucky to have a significant learning experience as I did. The questions that lingered in my mind after that conversation and motivated this post are:

- Is it fair to ask of educators to design significant learning experiences for their students online if they have not experienced such learning themselves?
- Can they just 'transfer' expertise and significant learning experiences they have designed for the classroom to the virtual online learning environment?

Will be interesting to hear what others think.

Creating Significant Learning Experiences

Currently reading "Creating Significant Learning Experiences" by Dee Fink. A great book suggesting an integrated approach to course design and providing valuable advice on what higher education organizations can do to more effectively support better teaching. In his book Dee poses a fundamental question to all teachers: "How can I create courses that will provide significant learning experiences for my students?". To be able to answer that question as educators first we need to define what significant learning experiences are and then find ways to create courses that will result in such experiences.

A significant learning experience in my view is one that engages and inspires learners to learn and continue learning even after the class/ course is over and results in significant and lasting change or transformation in their lives.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Testing Flock the social web browser

Got my Flock browser today and trying to figure out how to flock and post to my blog from the flock open blog editor.

So far not a bad experience but it looks like it will take a bit getting use to as any other new tool. If I manage to stick with it for a while I may be able to master it.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Critical Reflection on New Literacies

Here is a long coming critical reflection on the last course I completed exploring New Literacies and Multimodal Texts.

What has changed this decade!

Amazing changes and transformation in the last decade. What could we expect in the next one?

Source: Online Education