Openness in teaching

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.