Learned Outcomes - Likes and Dislikes - Future Suggestions
I learned so much from this course, I don’t know where to begin. Firstly, I learned about what adult and community education is, the importance of it, and how it manifests all around the world. It was interesting to learn about the timeline of how adult education became prominent in different parts of the world at different times. One of my favorite things I learned about the history was the different terms and phrases that adult education was originally called and how it morphed into ‘adult and community education’.
Another interesting thing I learned about was the different philosophical perspectives about education. I vaguely remember learning about these philosophies in some educational psychology courses I took in undergrad and it was beneficial to be reminded of them in this course. Taking these perspectives in the context of today’s educational state was fascinating as well. When I grew up, education was heavily focused on traditional philosophy, while now, post-covid and post-BLM, education has tried to evolve more towards radical and humanistic philosophies.
The last impressive thing I learned in this course was actually through informal education. Being able to work with and talk to other classmates about their ties with adult and community education was very fascinating and eye-opening to me. It was striking to me that so many of my classmates actually don’t work in formal higher educational systems, but still seek the benefit of learning about community adult education. Hearing about their different job positions and goals really put into context how important and widespread adult and community education is.
The only qualm I had with this course was the use of Blogger. I think there was definitely a learning curve for me to figure it out and I truthfully did not find a reason to take the time and learn how to properly utilize it. It was difficult to toggle between Canvas and Blogger to read other classmates posts and to comment between them both. I find this to be an accessibility issue for students, mainly because there is no streamline process for it and can cause students to feel overwhelmed and in turn, unwilling to put in the work to learn Blogger or even use Canvas.
I enjoyed the readings for this semester, overall. I think it may be beneficial to have some newer articles in the mix, as long as the older ones so students can see the comparisons and contrasts to how adult education was used in the past and how it is used now. I liked the different modalities of the “readings” as well, where you could choose to look at a PowerPoint, video, or reading, and all of them could equate to the discussion post or assignment for the week.
I also really enjoyed being able to choose different modalities for the assignments we completed. Not only was there flexibility with the discussion posts (like submitting a video instead of writing, or participating in a Zoom meeting instead is submitting anything—personally I think this option should be offered for all of the discussion posts), but that flexibility was there for the assignments as well. It really allows for students to be creative and confident in their work, especially if someone doesn’t feel confident in writing long, beefy papers.
I already mentioned my dislikes for the course, and I think omitting those or making them an option would just make this class better. If Blogger is going to be used, I think it should be the only platform or it shouldn’t be used at all. If the former is chosen, then perhaps a more in-depth and purposeful crash course is necessary. A way to do this could be by having a Zoom meeting as the first discussion assignment and with the students, physically go through how to use it so they can ask real time questions. Or making one of the course assignments to be about utilizing Blogger, like having videos the students need to watch and have to take a quiz or write a discussion with their knowledge on how it’s used.
I also think more professor check-ins could be beneficial. Every couple of weeks, the professor could send an individual email out to students to see how they are doing (though I am very grateful for how flexible and accessible the professor already is). Another way to do this could be having pre-recorded Zoom meetings with the professor talking to give a little overview of what to expect for the week. I think that could help students feel more connected to the course and the professor.
Have fun with this course!! There is so much to learn and you really have so many opportunities to learn about what you want to. Since there are so many readings with different modalities to choose from, you can really curate what you want to learn and how you want to learn it.
Do your projects about things that interest you. I found I really enjoyed working on the assignments that I got to have complete autonomy over and could dictate what I wanted to talk about. If you prefer working alone, I highly suggest doing it, especially if you get overwhelmed with group projects. It is completely feasible for you to do the projects by yourself in this course; it may just take a little more self-discipline.