Online Learning and other Disruptions

Enderun Library (Library of Sultan Ahmed III) in Topkapi Palace, Istanbul

Education has a special place in my heart since it runs in the family. My mother, my paternal aunt, and my maternal-grand aunt were public school teachers. My sister is also a public school teacher in my hometown.

Of course, teaching is a common profession, which partly explains why so many of my relatives are in the teaching profession.

Before I entered the seminary, I was also a teacher and was about to finish my MAT (Master of Arts in Teaching) in General Science. I belonged to the first batch of teachers who passed the Professional Licensure Examination for Teachers after it was transferred to the Professional Regulation Commission from Civil Service Commission – Board of Teachers.

Learning and education have always been part of life.

Kindly allow me to brag about my experience both as a student and as a teacher using online learning.

After completing my Ph.D., I discovered the MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses). I took some of these courses, which started my passion for online learning.

One course led to another until I found myself enrolling in online courses offered by various universities and institutes like the Israel Institute of Biblical Studies and HarvardX, where I took up lessons on the Bible and World Religions through its Scriptures. I also finished some courses on the Bible from Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. I also took up some online management courses as well as some education courses from other schools.

But I am particularly happy with those courses that I completed from Harvard.

I finished the Management Essentials Certificate course (January 2020 Cohort) of Harvard Business School (HBS Online). I am just waiting for my certificate to arrive from Boston.

I was also fortunate to be accepted to the Certificate on School Management and Leadership (CSML) program, which is a joint project of Harvard Business School (HBS) and Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). My cohort will start this June 2020.

Learning has become a hobby for me, albeit a little bit expensive. If I calculate all of my paid online courses ever since I started, I think I have invested more than 6,000 USD in total.

I told myself that my CSML program would be the last. I hope so, but sometimes learning can be very addictive.

Why am I enumerating all these credentials?

Will I think it is partly for “bragging rights.” But hang on, there is something more than just that.

I often told those who would say to me that it is just online that “Well, you try it yourself, then we will see!”

In Filipino, “Subukan mo, tignan natin.” It is a little bit taunting them if they have the discipline to finish an online course.

This brings me to some important points that I would discuss in this blog about education in relation to COVID-19.

Online learning has become the buzzword among educators. I think some of them are experts, but many of them, I think, never enrolled in a reputable online course provider. Well, as they say, “everybody is an expert overnight.”

It is not easy to finish a completely online course!

It takes a lot of discipline and will power. I am also guilty of enrolling in some courses but was not able to complete it.

I just forcefully willed myself to finish those courses that are expensive, like those that I took from Harvard. Or else I would be wasting thousands of dollars, which is not a pittance.

If our young school children have a completely online education during this time of the pandemic, I think they would need a lot of encouragement and an occasional “tough love” from their parents.

Last first semester (School Year 2019-2020), I created my website with a Learning Management System (LMS) component.

You may want to check it out through this link https://cblecourses.wpcomstaging.com/online-courses/

Through this LMS, I taught a course on Augustine of Hippo to Doctoral students. I was frustrated by the amount of work completed by my students. I was expecting that they would easily finish the online course given their presumed maturity and experience, only to find out that they can barely meet the deadline.

What was the problem?

Among many others, I think it was the lack of discipline and motivation to use the online platform given the novelty of this method of delivery. Furthermore, despite being professionals who are rising in their careers, they would often tell me that they do not have a reliable internet connection.

If ever our schools during this pandemic will go completely online (given that parents are afraid that their children might get infected in schools), there will be a lot of stress on the parents to make sure that their children are doing their learning tasks. Or I think those who are in the tutorial business will carry all the burdens that parents would just download to the tutors. This could be a good business opportunity, or this could be stressful disasters for tutors. Whichever way this would turn out, it is not fair to think that online learning is without its troubles.

This is the reason why educators need to foresee ahead what are the possible problems and difficulties in adapting a particular mode of learning delivery.

Sometimes, those who are in their ivory towers are oblivious of what is happening on the ground. Their heads are on the clouds creating almost perfect plans on paper but a dismal failure when it is implemented.

Of course, there is no perfect plan. Yet, it also matters if possible problems are already discussed and covered even before it happens.

TO BE CONTINUED…

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