Connected

We are connected. We have had our first webinar and also meetings with the PBL-group.

To get started required some effort in order to orientate on the course web-site, set the blog and get a grip on what the PBL-group should do and who we are. But now it feels like I’ve started and things has become a little bit clearer.

Besides the presentations on the ONL 202 community space we have made a common presentation in our group to present us. It seems like we in The Silicon Allies, our PBL-group number 14, have somewhat the same ambition to engage, to encourage and challenge each other in our learning. As well, it is somewhat encouraging that many of us share the feeling of being out in unknown spaces, a little bit insecure. By the way, our name are inspired by the fact that number 14 is the number of silicon in the chart of the chemical elements by atomic numbers. Silicon is stretchable, flexible and versatile as we believe our learning process and brains will be.

I had some good time going through the other PBL-groups presentations, and met childhood dreams as well as animal personalities and also made a journey to places far away from where I live up in the very north of Sweden. It is nice to meet so many people with the ambition to improve our digital knowledge in order to be able to enhance digital literacies among our students or colleagues.  

When preparing for the course start I read some papers about PBL (problem based learning). As education is my subject I am already involved in re-thinking our concepts of teaching and learning, both in my practice as a senior lecturer, as an educational leader in teacher education and in my research. You will find some of my papers that connect to higher education in my different blogposts I believe. Bellow you will find one.

Anyhow, I found it very interesting to read about the different constellations of PBL that have developed through the years as the approach have been present in education since the 1980s according to Savin-Baden (2014). On this link you will find this article among others on the subject. I met PBL briefly in my own teacher education some years later, but as it has gained both praise and blame, especially blame when it comes to more rational educational and political agendas and the New Public Management-wave that has kidnapped the educational field in my opinion, the PBL approach have somewhat faded out in Swedish compulsory schools and maybe also in higher ed. I believe that theoretical frameworks that regard learning as a linear and predictable process may have contributed to this (for further discussion see Westman & Bergmark, 2018).

Actually, this morning, I found a debate article in the daily news about the importance of not letting students own questions guide their learning. I think that is a pity. In early childhood education for example, children’s own questions and practice theories are crucial for motivation and engagement. Kek and Huijser (2015) discuss the importance of empowering students and also us as teachers, and they point out that PBL can help us with that. They argue that PBL could be a way of “taking charge of the [evolutionary and sometimes revolutionary] changes, and more specifically problembased learning (PBL) as an adaptive educational approach” (p.407). They discuss learning and knowledge as something in constant change, and although don’t mention Bauman, the use of the concept liquid signals, at least in my world, that they are inspired by his post-modern theory about the liquid modernity/society. Still, they point out this to be the challenge with such approaches as postmodern theories and social constructionist perspectives sometimes are criticised for being relative, letting anything go, due to the fact they reject a single truth (for further reading see Bauman, 2000; Berger & Luckmann, 1966/1967; Burr, 2015; Dahlberg, Moss & Pence, 2015; Gergen, 1985).  

When I consider our teacher education programs in relation to the constellations Savin-Baden emphasizes, I would say that we mostly engage in PBL constellations that focus active learning, practice skills, critical understanding. This albeit we often don’t call it PBL, but rather projects or thematic groupwork and so on. In my research- and development projects with teachers, principals and management teams, I find us working mostly in constellations focusing collaboration and transformation, as we work with participatory action research.

So then, what can count as PBL? What are the significants and who decide? I will elaborate on these questions as the course runs and my reading and collaboration has increased. In addition, we are know starting Topic 1, Online participation and digital literacies (DL). I am looking forward to dig into this area, both when it comes to some kind of standards, concrete tools and strategies of how to support DL but also for exploring theoretical frameworks and (ontologies)epistemologies that constitutes the base for digital learning.

To be continued…