Week 12 – A look back

This being my seventh course in the M.Ed program, I didn’t think I would be as surprised as I was at the difference in instructional methods this course used. I really enjoyed the PBL portion of the course and working with the same group throughout the course, it was a nice change. I also really enjoyed the blogging aspect of this course. I have had a few courses that required weekly discussion posts done through Blackboard and to be quite honest, they were awful. I didn’t enjoy writing discussion posts and dreaded having to come up with something on a topic I may or may not have had any interest in. The blogging option in this course allowed me to explore areas and topics that I wanted to, with some guidance from Rob of course. I looked forward to writing my weekly blog almost as much as I looked forward to reading other people’s weekly posts. If I could pick one thing to continue in all of my remaining M.Ed courses it would be the blog posts. Should I not get the chance to continue my blog due to time constraints over the next year I will certainly come back to it upon completion of my M.Ed.

My learning throughout this course has been incredibly timely. I have been able to use the learning from class in my work almost immediately. From analyzing digital tools to instructional design methods. Multiple times throughout the semester I was able to use something from the readings or lecture and apply it directly to my professional work. It wasn’t all new material though, some things like ADDIE and ASSURE I had mothballed a little bit, but now that the dust has been kicked off I am starting to make the design phase of my projects more priority.

This semester was difficult in terms of time management, between this course, work, part time teaching and a couple of other projects I found myself learning in ways that were new to me. I found that I developed a passion for the connectivism learning theory, where I have always considered myself as more of a constructivist, both in terms of how I learn best and how I feel others learn best. I realized just how dependant I am on my ability to quickly traverse the internet and find information that I need. Connectivism brings my mind back to my accounting days and just-in-time (JIT) ordering, kind of an odd leap I know but every time I hear “connectivism” my mind jumps to JIT. Perhaps it’s my ever growing experience, but I found that looking at connectivism in this course the information resonated more with me compared to other courses where this particular learning theory has come up. Was it the way the material was delivered, or was it me maturing as both a student and educator? Perhaps a little of both?

In closing I would like to say thank you to both Dr. Power and the rest of my classmates for a wonderful course. I had the pleasure of working with Kyle and Carl on three successful projects and got to witness some amazing work by the rest of the PBL groups. My only regret in this course is I didn’t get the opportunity to work with more of you. Perhaps in one of my three remaining courses I will get that chance, until then…

Cheers,