“Tell a story. Make a plan. Think and do. Draw it. Take it outside. Try a new way. Watch
first, then do. Share it with others.” (Pain Australia, 2012)
Between completing my MOOC and doing some mandatory training for the Army (and this MSc), I’ve spent a lot of time as a student this week learning online. These experiences have made me reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the available resources. In the case of the MOOC and Australian Defence Force mandatory training, it has primarily been the weaknesses on my mind and this has lead me down a pathway of exploring how this state of affairs could be improved, firstly through TED and TEDx talks but then onto deeper readings. Some of the things I’ve not liked are the one-way transmission of information, a focus more on knowledge than skills and assessment that is more about box-ticking than actually checking that knowledge has been acquired.
The above weaknesses are certainly not specific to online or open learning of course but it just feels devastating to me that future generations of learners should suffer in the same past as those in the past when it could be so much better.
I was initially intrigued by Niema Moshiri’s TEDx talk where he recommended MOOCs could, and should, evolve into MAITs (Massive Adaptive Interactive Text) that encourage more active participation, greater levels of community engagement and, ultimately, a more effective learning experience. This video then linked on to Jonathan Levi’s TED talk on ‘What if schools taught us how to learn’. I was particularly struck by one part where he suggested that we should learn from the past and how hunter-gatherers acquired knowledge and skills. This linked to my own practice with the ‘8 Ways of Aboriginal Learning’ (Pain Australia, 2012) as this includes pedagogies that I employ (or at least try to employ) on a regular basis but are necessarily part of everyday mainstream schooling, such as non-verbal, land links and non-linear.
These pedagogies are often lauded as being especially suitable to Indigenous Australian learners. However, I would argue (and my anecdotal experience would back this up) that these strategies are suitable for ALL learners. Why shouldn’t the online space embrace these and allow quality teaching to be shared more widely?
(Pain Australia, 2012)
Pain Australia (2012), 8 Ways of Aboriginal Learning Factsheet, Avaivable online at https://www.painaustralia.org.au/static/uploads/files/8-aboriginal-ways-of-learning-factsheet2-wfklwmnralub.pdf, Accessed 1 March 2020