This blog post is a summary of three topics of the ONL181 course. Topic 3-5, networked collaborative learning, the design of online and blended learning and, lessons learned and future practice.

The midwifery profession is as known a profession where the connection with and to the patient/client is the basic core for a good experience of care for the patient as well as for the caregiver. Midwifery education with its long history of apprenticeship has also a basic core in collaborative learning between the master and student. I was fascinated by the emotions role in online teaching and learning by Bart Rienties and Bethany Alden Rivers (2014) and immediately saw the relation to the midwifery education. Midwives work with people in highly emotional situations and need to be extremely tens on reading the patients emotions as well as deal with their own emotions in critical stressed situations. the article by Stenbom, Hrastinski, and Cleveland-Innes (2016) clarified the emotions essence as a distinct part of learning. This connected me to the emotional bond between the master and the student during clinical practice in midwifery setting and how it is essential for a good learning experience which outcome will hopefully give a good emotional bond to the patient too.

I have without thinking of it put a big effort in my teaching on my student´s emotions, how they are feeling in the class as well as out in the clinical setting. Now I got confirmed I am on the right track. My challenge will be how to implement the emotional part in online teaching when the contact with the students does not physically be face to face. On the other hand, I feel I got permission from this course to put as much or even more effort on the emotional part. As a crucial part of learning especially online is emotional as the article by Cleveland-Innes and Campbell (2012) gave me. I also got confirmed I do not have to get everything online, some emotions can be good to have face to face.

To be able to change my teaching habits from face to face teaching towards online I have to shake the whole course in a new shape. The ONL PBL2 group presentation of Topic 3, ONL PBL2 where we did a mindmap over strategies for creating effective collaborative learning and a SWOT analysis will be helpful in the course design. Gilly Salmon´s Five-Stage Model is useful especially when you got, as a student the experience of a course that had used it in the framework creation. I wish I had it earlier this semester when I tried to do a topic of a course I am in charge of online and failed totally. The students did not show up on a chat in the course. I cannot blame them because the structure of the course was not clear and progressive as it should be, and I have a feeling that my instructions for the chat were unclear. Next time I will hopefully have more success when I got all these models and materials for creating online courses.

When I attended the course ONL the intentions of my own learning was to see if there is something I could use in my teaching. I thought that midwifery is such a traditional profession where the focus is very much on hands-on skills and to cope with emotions and strategies of coaching, supporting and the online method is partly useful for it. After this course,  the profession is still what it has always been but I have realized that you do not have to be face to face to teach all those skills. Some skills might be even better to do online especially when more and more parts of the midwifery work are interaction online.

This puzzle of Universal design as a pedagogical strategy by UDLL an Erasmus-plus project is visually clear and useful when designing an online course, thank´s to our supportive facilitator on the ONL181 course for sharing it with us at the end of the course. I will certainly use it when designing my next online course.

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The learning experience of the ONL course has been interesting and fulfilled with work. I have to say that I didn´t know how much work it was to finish the ONL181, and I am glad not knowing. The dropout rate on online courses is high, one experience we had in our PBL group and a reality to remember in the future. On the other hand, I have to thank my Finnish sisu not to drop out during the journey even if it was really close. That experience helps me in coaching and supporting students in online courses I will facilitate in the future.

Thank´s to ONL 181, PBL2 and my colleges at UAS

-Pernilla-

References:

Stenbom, S. Hrastinski, S. Cleveland-Innes, M. 2016. Emotional Presence in a Relationship of Inquiry: The Case of One-to-One Online Math Coaching in Online Learning – Volume 20 Issue 1 – March 2016. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1096376.pdf

Cleveland-Innes, M. Campbell, P.  2012 Emotional Presence, Learning, and the Online Learning Environment, The International review of research in open and distributed learning  (IRR ODL) Vol 13, No 4 (2012). file:///C:/Users/stenbape/Downloads/1234-10784-2-PB.pdf

Rienties, B. Alden Rivers, B. 2014 The Learning Analytics Review, published by the LACE project at the University of Bolton, Bolton, UK. ISSN:2057-7494. Licenced: Bart Rienties and Bethany Alden Rivers, for the LACE Project (http://www.laceproject.eu)

I have been involved in an online course with topic open learning – sharing and openness during the last two weeks. The topic is interesting in several aspects; how open are we? And how open should we be in midwifery?

We got literature and material about the topic and my first reflection is on Short TED-talk by David Wiley. He opened up my eyes for what openness is in teaching when he commented that teachers, in fact, are very open by default. He said that we are sharing our knowledge in a very open way to all our students when we teach, guide, support and coach them to achieve competences and skills. This simple comment has not crossed my mind before, even if I have followed it and agree with him when referring to midwife students. Midwifery is a topic with a lot of interest for each and everyone, but there are also some topics within midwifery which are only for professionals. Am I open enough if I shear my knowledge only within my specific context or profession?

Openness was also our focus during the past two weeks in my study group in ONL (open network learning). To be able to learn you also have to unlearn and relearn (Alvin Toffler). I do know midwives like to unlearn, especially non-evidence-based care and relearn evidence-based care. In midwifery, we have a long history of learning by doing in apprenticeships. This way of learning is still a part of education and will stay as an important way of implementing evidence-based care and action. The challenge is, how can we open up this way of teaching and learning and for whom should it be open?

As a teacher, I like to be put in challenging situations, as these discussions about openness in learning did for me. To be out on the sea in heavy waves is challenging if you do not know how to navigate. The discussions about openness and the teacher’s changing role to be a facilitator navigated me to new thinking and learning, even if I still feel the waves are big they are manageable now. The profession-specific learning should and is open within the profession but could be even more open between professionals and multi-professional. There are existing open channels where midwives can share and learn together in a safe environment. I think there is still space to new open rooms and forums for open learning within our context. But I am a little bit resticted in open up everything in midwifery to each and everyone. Due to the fact that we are dealing with and protecting the midwifery profession as the oldest registered profession for women.

During three days last week, I had the opportunity to do an international mobility in the midwifery and teaching context. I was invited as a key-note speaker at the international conference  Society Health and Welfare at Riga Stradins University (RSU). 

During my stay, I also had a workshop with the local midwifery students at RSU. The topic of my workshop was the interpretation of cardio-toco-grafi (CTG). In the workshop, I use a web program (iSimulate online) the program gives you an opportunity to create CTG tracks with all the details as voice a real CTG will have.  During the workshop, the students and a midwife working in the local hospital interpreted CTG tracks and discussed how and what we interpret and what are the guidelines and clinical actions regarding the interpretation.

To be able to use a program like this you have to be familiar with the program and flexible. This program as well as other online, programs seem to live their own life according to wi-fi or network connections as well as program updates. During this workshop, the program drops out of connection and made some small unexpected reactions and solutions. This time I was prepared for these unexpected solutions and every time it happened I used it as an unexpected reaction from the patient. This way the network problems did not disturb the workflow of the students instead, it gave some new discussions and viewpoints of how and what we actually are interpreting.  The students gave feedback that they did find this workshop useful because of the discussions around and about the theme.  One student gave me a chocolate bar after the workshop to thank me for the active teaching method.

Even if I see myself as a residence in this specific online program I do have to act as a visitor because of the program living its own life. To learn and use online features and programs in education and teaching is fascinating and gives me as a teacher new opportunities and methods to achieve competences I in the past tried to give from the lectern.  By using online programs like this I can activate the students in a different way and the learning moves from being one way to be a together achieved competence. It is also easier to relate to the clinical reality when you have a program similar to the ones we use in the clinical setting.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

This blog is a part of my journey in the online teaching world within the midwifery context.

I see myself as a rather beginner in this field even if I have been a teacher for six years and use online features and material quite a lot in my teaching.

I am a bit out of my comfort zone and that feels both great and scary.