Sharing Knowledge

The final step of the learning trends and roles assignment was to have a web-conference meeting with our learning partner.  As we live on opposite sides of the province, I expected we would be using online media to close our shared research loop.  It was a pleasant surprise to be able to have the meeting in person, in Golden, BC, as Ruth was travelling through to visit her family.

In this day and age of online learning, it's interesting to think that we were both motivated for and inspired by a face-to-face meeting.  We'd tried a number of times to finish the assignment with a Skype conference but failed due to family commitments and personal struggles.  So how is it that a face-to-face meeting was so much more effective and immovable?

I think that the personal commitment to an in-person meeting is higher than for the electronic equivalent because there is no electronic barrier.  It calls upon your empathy, understanding and need for personal touch.  Perhaps this is the same reason why electronic classrooms have some much more sharing, interaction and challenges to the instructor's expertise: because there is a barrier and protection for personal vulnerability.

Other than the accountability lesson noted above, I was also pleased to have Ruth remind me of the importance of summative evaluations.  While I was so focused on thinking about how teachers can learn from the students with the vast supply online information and the tribe mentality, I completely forgot about technical pursuits where there are right and wrong answers, standards and procedures.  The role of the instructor cannot completely transition to one of facilitator as there must continue to be evaluations.  

Ruth's description of her role as an instructor of nursing reminded me that while there is a place for inspirational leadership and facilitation in all fields, the role of an instructor must also maintain aspects of "being the expert."  In many fields (I can only think of accounting and medical examples right now), experiential learning must be preceded by an instructor prescribing methods and standards.  Learning from experience, while it may be transformational and possible, could also have disastrous outcomes, if undertaken to early in the educational process.  

I was very pleased with the conclusion to this learning process in that I had two important take-aways from the sharing session.  It's also interesting to think that if we'd not had our final sharing session in person, I would have only had one take-away (or so I assume).