The Journey So far: Looking back at 2023

by Samson Adeoye--

As we approached the end of the year 2023, Dr. Curt Friedel took us on a journey of capturing the year in pictures and keeping memories alive. An insightful blog post that connects reflection with learning and experience. In a seemingly orchestrated order, Dr. Megan Seibel provided an educative blog post on how one may approach a new year with new perspectives, drawing connections to cognitive styles and decision-making. As part of reviewing and reflecting on the previous year, members of the AWT4CL met virtually to discuss their teaching and learning experiences. They shared practical wisdom from engaging with their students based on PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) projects, synchronous and asynchronous learning, and implementation of digital learning badges.

The conversation and reflections indicate that the AWT4CL project is creating avenues for cohort members to create engaged learning environments, where instructors create opportunities for students to participate actively in their own learning. For example, cohort members empowered their students to contribute to class activities leading to more participatory learning. A faculty member explained how she achieved this in her class in the video snippet.

In the quest to foster the acquisition of employability skills and bridge the education-to-workforce pipeline, directly engaging students and raising their curiosity to learn is critical (Adeoye & Kaufman, 2023; Kaufman & Adeoye, 2023). It is also encouraging to hear about how cohort members plan to incorporate professionalism, communication, and other employability skills in flexible manners into their class designs. A cohort member stated:

“One of the badges I have to do this spring is ‘Build Professional Relationships … and the assignment is to help the students organize a club meeting. … I thought about it and decided to have the students organize a meeting with a professor because that’s something they’re not doing. … [at the end], we changed gears on that one and we’re going to work on professionalism and being comfortable speaking with faculty.”

Members of the cohort are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead in 2024. More attention is being focused on the implementation of the digital learning badges. Enhancing learners’ development of employability/durable skills remains at the center of the AWT4CL project, and the digital learning badges are one way to spur students to learn skills that will help them in the job market. While our pilot test suggests positive students’ perception of their learning and a slight correlation with the desire to earn badges, we aim to continue to explore different ways to facilitate students' learning of employability skills. Literature shows diverse perspectives on digital badges and learning (Dyjur & Lindstrom, 2017). The overall aim of the AWT4CL project, however, is to use learning badges as a means to an end and not an end in itself. This particularly raises the importance of flexibility, adaptability, and collaboration in the implementation of learning between instructors and students.

References

Adeoye, S., & Kaufman, E. (2023). Co-generative learning: Applying the undisguised case teaching method. Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy, 75-76. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/114242 

Dyjur, P., & Lindstrom, G. (2017). Perceptions and uses of digital badges for professional learning development in higher education. Tech Trends, 61, 386-392. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-017-0168-2 

Kaufman, E. K., & Adeoye, S. (2023). Enhancing learning through undisguised teaching case studies: Both instructor-facilitated and student-written [Conference session]. American Association for Agricultural Education Southern Region Conference, Oklahoma City OK. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/114241 


Acknowledgment

Image from Free Range Stock

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