The last week has been incredibly busy for me, with various deadlines for courses, presentations to give and trips with culture step! I am feeling tired but happy! Since I last posted an update I have been to three events with the culture steppers. The first event was a handbell concert and the Estonia concert hall. We gathered in the lobby before the performance, a few people came up to me to ask whether I had spare tickets (because I was holding the tickets for other culture steppers), so it was definitely a popular concert! The hand bell is apparently not a traditional Estonian instrument, but this group of musicians has made it pretty popular and travelled the world playing concerts! This was my first experience of going to a concert in Estonia, and I very much enjoyed it. I noticed that people dress up very nicely to go to concerts here, mostly in the UK we are more informal. Having walked past the concert hall a lot on my way to the old town, I was glad to finally see inside. The decor is very grand, but it doesn't feel overwhelmingly big, giving it a warmer atmosphere than some other concert halls I've been to. 'I went to a concert yesterday' was another must learn phrase from my Estonian language app, and it is obviously important to many Estonians! The next event was a trip to Tartu. We were there to visit the Estonian National Museum, which is a little bit outside of the centre, but luckily we had time for a quick stroll around the sights of the city. Lea was a student at Tartu university, so she was able to tell us a lot about the history! She said it's her favourite city in Estonia, and it's easy to see why it is so popular. There is a lot of green space, and the trees were beautiful and golden with the colours of autumn while we were there. We headed to the National Museum next, which is a uniquely designed modern building and I can see why it won a 'European museum of the year' award. The museum's permanent collection is an interactive timeline of Estonian history, and alongside the fascinating clothes, books and artefacts on display, there are a wide range of multi-sensory experiences for visitors to interact with. Exhibit captions are written in Estonian, but with a special card, visitors can tap the caption and change it to their own language, allowing people from many countries to learn from the collection, but not having to show huge amounts of text, which can be off-putting. This day at the museum was special because there was a festival to celebrate the Finno-Urgic peoples. These people include Estonians, Finns and Hungarians, who have their own states but also includes groups such as Sámi, who live in the north of the Nordic countries, and Mordvins, Udmuts, Maris, Komis and Karelians who are living in Russia. But there are others too! All of these groups have languages that share common root words which are usually the early words formed in a language (nature, body, numbers, animals etc.). There are also grammatical similarities between them, and they all lack gendered pronouns or articles (the Estonian for both he and she is 'ta'). We were able to attend a concert, in which groups of people from different Finno-Urgic nations wore traditional dress, played instruments, sang and danced. I think it is great that Estonia holds this Finno-Urgic festival to celebrate the connections that run between other cultures. The museum also has a second permanent exhibition called Echo of the Urals, which is devoted entirely to the history of the Finno-Urgic people. It was a wonderful experience to see that Estonia is treasuring these traditions and languages (related to, but different to their own). I think this understanding is a very important part of my journey of learning about Estonian culture. It shows that to really understand Estonain culture, we have to realise that there are multiple cultures that are relevant and related. It is important to preserve histories and cultural memory and I am so glad that Culture Step included this festival as a part of its programme. We also shared some food together and I finally tried kefir, which I've been scared to try because I do not like milk. It's a healthy fermented milk which is supposed to be very good for your gut. It was mixed with kama, which is a healthy mix of grains and peas made into a fine powder and luckily also sugar, so it tasted nice to me! Maybe I've said it before, but I think you can learn a lot about a culture from sharing food together! The whole day was fascinating and fun and we arrived back to Tallinn tired and ready for bed!
The next day we had another event to go to, it was the time of the month for another Estonishing Evening (I wrote about the last one on this blog). How has it been a whole month already? The topic of this month's event was Estonian and Russian relations, with the provocative title 'Can Estonia become a bi-ethnic success story?'. I had already been told that this can be a tense subject in Estonia. Additionally, with my placement being an integration project, this was right up my street. I really want to get my teeth into this subject and do it justice, so I think I will write a whole new post about it later. To log my hours, I have spent 16 hours at my placement events and classes and 3 hours on work at home since I last posted.
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This week I am going to write about the article 'Instructional quality of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)' I had read a little about MOOCs for previous modules, mainly on the subject of student motivations (or lack of) to complete courses on MOOCs. I have done a few courses on MOOCs myself. I finished a couple of short Spanish courses on FutureLearn, but the majority of courses I took, I'm ashamed to say, went unfinished. Whether this was due to the quality of the instruction I received or my own motivations, I'm not sure. I'm inclined to say that I did learn a little from the modules I completed, but I simply did not have the incentive to finish the course. Maybe I need some 'push' factors, such as the fact that I invested money in the class (for example, I will always complete short courses that I have paid for), or maybe I need a specific time slot to do the course each week so it becomes part of my routine. This study analysed the instructional quality of 76 MOOCs using the criteria based on 'First Principles of Instruction' by Merrill (2013, cited in Margaryan, Bianco and Littlejohn, 2015). I must admit, I hadn't come across these principles before, and as the authors suggest, it is difficult to find a comprehensive framework to address instructional quality. The study found that most MOOCs achieved a low score on the majority of the principles. I was surprised that 'In 68/76 courses, learning activities did not require learners to relate the course material to their prior knowledge and skills' (Margaryan, Bianco and Littlejohn, 2015, p.80). This is something that is a key principle in English language teaching to activate students' prior knowledge so that they will remember content better and relate to it more deeply. It has become a part of my teaching philosophy, so it was surprising that so many of the courses didn't address this principle. One shortcoming of this study is that it doesn't explore the real experiences of MOOC users. It would be interesting to follow it up with a qualitative study which explores the perceptions of those who took the course to their own learning. The instruction is just one side of what we can see about the quality of the course, and without the learners themselves we can't get the full picture. It is certainly interesting to think deeply about whether MOOCs are providing good quality learning opportunities for students. Perhaps this is part of the reason that I dropped out of the MOOC courses I took, although I was not really conscious of it at the time. I'm not sure, because learning is tiring, I may still have dropped out, for example if I was collaborating more with my peers, I could learn more, but it may take more of my time. Reference:
Yesterday the culture steppers took a trip to the Estonian Theatre and Music Museum! We saw the award winning exhibition 'Songs and Stories', which was a journey through Estonian music, folk stories and theatre. I definitely recommend this exhibition if you are in Tallinn! One Estonian story from the exhibition that caught my attention was called 'The Werewolf'. It was about a mysterious young girl called Tiina who was adopted by a farming family and fell in love with her step-brother Margus. Unfortunately, his other step-sister Mari also has her eye on him, and starts a rumour that Tiina is a werewolf! She ends up running into the forest and living there for a while, and Mari gets to marry the (presumably very handsome) step-brother. The story doesn't really have a happy ending, Margus ends up injuring Tiina, thinking she is a wolf, and she dies in his arms. The exhibition outlined the historical context of the time, highlighting that in the early nineteenth century, many Estonians were living in rural settings like this story took place in. In rural society, strangers tended not to be trusted, and this story can give some insight into the way of life of Estonians in the past. Museums are a great space for informal and non-formal adult learning, and a particular favourite of mine. I appreciate the chance that museums give me to go at my own pace, and to learn through different media; text, images, objects etc. Having the chance to touch and interact with things is really great too, and this exhibition certainly provided that! I also liked that the museum provided chalk boards so that visitors could add responses, which is one way to facilitate some exchange of dialogue in such a space. It was good to see culture step participants and their families interacting with his exhibition! Last week I started my Estonian language classes, which I'm hoping to give the Estonian Institute some feedback on. It has been challenging but interesting so far! Estonian is easier in some ways than other languages I've studied, it's not tonal like Vietnamese, and I can read it unlike my ability with Japanese Kanji. But in some ways the grammar is very difficult for me, I've never encountered a language with so many cases before! It's good to be at least able to say some small things in Estonian now, and it makes me feel more confident doing simple things like going to the supermarket. I will write more about my classes next time. Over the last two weeks for my placement I have completed about 3 hours of work at home, 2 hours on a trip, and 3 hours in Estonian classes. I found this week's reading to be particularly fascinating, and although I didn't know a huge amount on the subject, the article really opened by eyes and changed my perceptions about free online resources. The Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement gives open access to education and information in the form of online resources for learning, teaching or researching. OER are generally found online for free and open to anyone, with many institutions uploading content, gaining recognition from UNESCO. However, Knox (2013) points out that assumptions have been made about OER in its presentation in the media and the academic literature on the subject. He has highlighted five important criticisms of OER.
References Biesta, G. J. (2013). Giving teaching back to education: Responding to the disappearance of the teacher. Phenomenology & Practice, 6(2), 35-49. Knox, J. (2013). Five critiques of the open educational resources movement. Teaching in Higher Education,18(8), 821-832. Todd, S. (2015). The People: The rise and fall of the working class. London: John Murray. We never want to make our students feel 'othered' but this is something that adult educators need to admit can happen in our classes.
This week I am going to write about the article 'Othering in Online Learning' by Phirangee and Malec. This is a qualitative study of six online students and their experiences of feeling like the 'other' in online courses that they were enrolled in. The aim is to consider the underlying reasons why students might experience a sense of isolation in online learning, even when the teacher attempts to build a social presence in the online classroom. The authors highlight that many online students feel isolated, and there are high drop-out rates. Perhaps if we can understand these tendencies, we can begin to think about how we can improve the motivation of students to participate in online learning by facilitating a deeper connection with the content and their peers. The authors categorise three different types of 'other' that were uncovered through their research:
'our participants were othered through work obligations, academic expectations, and ethnic identities that were in misalignment with their peers, their instructors, and the course con- tent.' (Phirangee and Malec, 2017, p.169). Although these students did not actually drop out of their courses, it was a possibility that their feelings may have led them to do so. I thought that this article was an interesting study of online learners and uncovered some reasons for 'othering' that I personally found surprising. As a language teacher, I am already conscious of the possibility for ethnic and linguistic othering in the classroom. For example, if you are teaching a class of multi-lingual students, it is very likely that students will want to group themselves with peers who speak the same language as them. This can lead to othering of those who do not share languages with their classmates, as was the case in the article. I was particularly surprised by the academic othering that was experienced by two of the participants. These students felt that they were othered because they had different academic expectations to their peers. One felt that their classmates were only concerned about getting their own points of view across, while the other felt that the discussions were not challenging enough. They both blamed peers for not creating discussions that they felt were in line with their own academic expectations. I thought this was interesting, as it is quite subjective. I wonder how the other classmates felt about these two participants. Could other people in the class have felt othered too, by those who have higher academic expectations, who might think classmates are 'naval gazing' (Phirangee and Malec, 2017, p.167)? Perhaps one way that this example could be countered would be to give clear guidelines of expectations for interactions in forums. Then it could reduce the instances of students posting content that they think will get them a good mark, but rather responding to one another in a constructive way to build an effective social presence. However, it could go the other way, with more rigid guidelines limiting the creative freedom of online students, and thus still perpetuating possible feelings of isolation. In my personal experience of online learning, I was quite happy with the way that we were given examples of 'good' forum interactions from our tutor. We also got clarifications and feedback from him when we were unsure. Perhaps my class is a unique case, as a 'meta' online learners who are learning about online learning! Students studying other subjects online may not have so much awareness of the academic expectations, which could lead to some learners becoming marginalised in discussions. The authors admit that one limit of this study is that they only interviewed six participants. Morrow (2005, p. 255) has suggested that it is more important in a qualitative study to focus on procedure and depth in the interview than sample size. but perhaps this study is limited in that each category of 'other' only had two interviewees. Perhaps a future study could look at interviewing one particular category, for example people from minority ethnic groups in online contexts. References
This week in our teaching online course, we read about the various roles of adult educators and learners. Since I started this Master's in Adult Education, I have realised that, like many fields, there is a huge variety of language used to refer to almost all aspects of education. It becomes fashionable or unfashionable to use certain words in the literature, for example, are we talking about 'adult education' or 'life-long learning'? Am I a 'teacher', an 'educator', or a 'facilitator of learning' and do I work with 'students' or 'learners'? I am quite often guilty of using these words inter-changeably and it warrants thinking about the use of them more deeply.
This week I read Giving Teaching back to Education by G. Biesta. Biesta is extremely critical of what he sees as the decline of teaching, and increase in what he refers to as the 'language of learning' (Biesta, 2013, p.36). Although he writes this in counter to conservative arguments that the teacher should gain more control and authority. He feels that constructivist perspectives in educational discourse have facilitated a move from the actvities of the teacher to those of the student. The important conclusion from this paper is 'that teachers should teach, that they should be allowed to teach, and that they should have...the courage to teach' (Biesta, 2013, p.45). I agreed with many of Biesta's ideas, particularly with regards to not putting quotas on teachers. Biesta is heavily critical of pedagogies that refer to 'facilitation of learning'. I do agree that a teacher has an important guiding role to play in the classroom. I disagree however, that constructivist changes to the language of learning have "repositioned the teacher from someone who is at the heart of the educational process to one who literally stands at the sideline in order to facilitate the learning of his or her 'learners'" (Biesta, 2013, p.38). I do not think pedagogies that are concerned with learner-centredness really do place the teacher as simply a 'by-stander' in the classroom. In my professional experience, I actually think it is usually more work for the teacher to create learning that is student-centred. Although it may not look like the teacher is standing at the front of the room, with all eyes on them, they are still central in designing the activities that will facilitate learning, deciding the order that they will happen in, designating groups etc. Their voice may not be the loudest at all times in the class, but they are still teaching. He suggests that when we 'learn from' our teachers in this way, that they are 'structurally at the same level as a book' (Biesta, 2013, p.42). I disagree, because a teacher is still human, and not neutral. Even if they choose to use student-centred tasks, or are concerned about their student's learning they can build knowledge together, which we cannot do with a book. I do agree that there are changes being made to curriculums that are sidelining teachers, but I don't see this coming from constructivist paradigms. I do understand that this is part of what Biesta means about letting teachers teach. I think a tightly controlled curriculum or increasing targets for teachers that prevent them from freedom to create the lessons that they want to is certainly a bad thing, but I perceive it as coming from a different place that Biesta suggests. When I first read this article I was quite strongly opposed to much of it, but after a conversation with one of my classmates I went back and reconsidered. I do think it is saying something important for us as adult educators. Perhaps I get frustrated when we spend a long time on semantics. Perhaps because I lean more towards the interpretivist/constructivist paradigm I felt protective. I think balance is important here, Biesta is right, teachers should be allowed to teach, but not at the expense of students learning. In my opinion, teachers and students should learn from and teach one another. The teacher is never side-lined, but I like the thinking of critical pedagogy on this, that we 'must emphasise the collective dimension of of learning and knowledge creation - reading and transforming the world together' (English and Mayo, 2012, p.128). A quote from one of my former teachers! References Biesta, G. J. (2013). Giving teaching back to education: Responding to the disappearance of the teacher. Phenomenology & Practice, 6 (2), 35-49. English, L. and Mayo, P. (2013). Learning with Adults. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. |
LaurenI am an IMAESC student, English teacher and adult education researcher from the UK. Categories
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