I recognize now that I’ve been quite privileged to work where I do. I have worked for a number of years in an organization specializing in online “Adult Education”. I knew little to nothing about education and pedagogy when I started, and the key part of my initial training was to understand that adult online learners, as we defined them, were living and learning under a different set of circumstances than children or full-time university students. Adult online learners might work full-time; they might have variable work shifts; they might be parents; they might live in remote communities; they might have limited Internet connectivity; they might have limited finances; they might have limited computing equipment; they might have limited computing facility; etc. In summary, under no circumstances could we assume that an adult, online learner’s primary responsibility was their learning – in fact, the opposite was likely true. We could also assume, sometimes, that they were self-motivated by reasons of improving or changing their careers, salary, effectiveness, knowledge base, and more.

Under the above assumptions, we designed courses that rarely required synchronous attendance; that provided multiple ways to access material (audio or video, but also transcripts and presentation files); that allowed sufficient time between deadlines to provide flexibility in time management; that were carefully built to modern accessibility standards; that explicitly permitted the submission of files created in open-source (read: free) applications; that were supported with fulsome, extended-hours support by email or phone.

Further, because we made the assumption that adult, online learners were motivated not by “getting grades” but rather by learning new skills and gaining new knowledge, we designed courses with little to no quizzes, exams, or other such summative evaluations. All activities, graded or not, were designed as formative – learning by doing. Activities were built to be as authentic to the subject matter as possible. Dialogue between learners was considered crucial to the process, allowing them to develop their own understandings of the material.

Needless to say, the topics we have covered in this course on Online and Open Learning have struck me as very familiar. The courses I helped build and support professionally were built carefully, with clear cognitivist and constructivist (both social and not) pedagogy behind them. Students were given as much freedom as possible to complete activities that were both authentic to the subject matter and to themselves. Principles of accessibility were persistently top of mind, such that our courses could be said to be built with Design by Accessibility. Concepts of UDL were emerging and integrated constantly.

Topic 4, and in particular the reading by Cronin (2019), represents to me where things are going next. The concept of emancipatory open education is eye-opening for me. Although we did a great job with (let’s call it) “Generation 1” of open education – Cronin (2019) describes it as “empowering individuals and groups within existing structures” – we are only scraping at the surface of emancipatory open education, which we might call “Generation 2”. Within my limited scope of understanding, I can see that the “authentic” learning activities we designed were authentic to the current and localized practices and requirements of industries, groups and knowledge structures. We allowed space for individual authenticity within those structures, but evaluation was driven by learning outcomes defined by the “existing”.

We have now begun to discuss concepts such as the decolonization of learning. I cannot pretend that I only grasp at the edges of what that means and will look like in practice. How do we design “courses” that will both allow learners to operate within existing structures (so that they can get a job) while also emancipating them such that they can effect real, fundamental, small or large, change (while they’re “doing” that job) towards a more just, inclusive industry/culture/economy/society? I’m a white, Northern male with a desire to understand how to be part of such an effort. And not simply because of the injustices of the past and present, but because of the mere hint that such emancipatory open education practices could open worlds of new understanding. If anyone knows where I go from here, please comment below.

References

Gray, J. (2021). Inclusive Open and Online Learning. https://edtechuvic.ca/vroberts/2020/10/21/week-7-udl-accessibility-in-online-open-learning-environments-webinar-josie-gray/

Cronin. C. (2019). Open education: Walking a critical path. In D. Conrad, & P. Prinsloo (Eds.), Open(ing) Education: Theory and Practice. Leiden: Brill. Open Access Version – http://eprints.teachingandlearning.ie/4345/