Learning - Moments of Mist and Clarity

When you enter a new course like ONL you come with the expectation that the teaching materials will offer you new pedagogical approaches and ideas. Topic 4 on the course concerned design for online and blended learning. One of the keynotes as well as key reading for this section concerned Community of Inquiry as a pedagogical approach. It intrigued me right away and when I read more about it, I was a bit puzzled; the name of the model was new to me, but the contents were somehow all too familiar. It seemed that I had organized many of my face-to-face courses   pretty much according to the principles of Community of Inquiry approach but long before the book ‘Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry´(Vaughan, Cleveland-Innes and Garrison   2013) was published. Then it came to me, all this was pretty much the same stuff that I learned and have practiced since late 1990s’ under the label 'Cooperative Learning’ (Yhteistoiminnallinen oppim

I have been lucky to have worked in a community of practice (Wenger, 2011) when I was a PhD student and young post-doctoral researcher. It was fantastic to be engaged in collective learning in developing our departmental practices, teaching and research. We had shared passion in one or all the domains we shared. Much of my learning took place without intentional effort just by participating in collective activities; by being invited to participate, by been giving voice and responsibility; by sharing my enthusiasm; by developing teaching collaboratively and teaching collaboratively and by collective writing and generous commenting and information sharing. Engaging in the activities of the community of practice molded me; turned me from a student into a researcher and educator with particular values and understandings.    I realized how much I had learned only when I left the organization and entered another one where I put all my learning into practice.  Reflecting back on my experience