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Monday 9 November 2015

#survivephd15 Challenge: connect with others and develop ourselves

Having now completed Dr Inger Mewburn's online couse, How to Survive your PhD, today I undertook some reflection, to determine what I had learned from this edX MOOC.

Most of the courses I deliver have a reflection component to the assessment regime. My students are currently completing their reflections on their 15 week courses for me, so it seemed a good idea for me to undertake the same process to close my 10 week  experience.

My reflection contains what I have processed and what I think I have learned from the ANU team, the MOOC environment, and the platforms used, thus far. It can be found here.


There were so many great people on the MOOC, and I learned a lot about the vast doctoral and post-doctoral community on the planet. Thank you all for the sharing of knowledge.

As well as being a teacher and a scholar, I am also a career practitioner, and a member of the New Zealand professional career community (CDANZ). Fellow CDANZ member, Tui Needham, commissioned a waiata for CDANZ from her brother, Dr Teriu Lemon, in 2011.


I was lucky enough to be part of the CDANZ team who aided Teriu to bring the waiata into being. Teriu created a taonga for our organisation that we trust will last beyond us (Lemon, 2011): 

Ma te whakaatu ka mohio From discussion there will be understanding

Ma mohio, ka marama By understanding there will be light

Ma te marama ka matau Ma matau, ka ora e From light there is wisdom and from wisdom there is wellbeing


I love that link between the concepts: discussion | understanding | light | wisdom | wellbeing. That encapsulates what I have gained from undertaking the MOOC: a sense of wellbeing.

Debsnet, a fellow #survivephd15-er and aka the édu flâneuse, posted a challenge to those who have undertaken the blog: to "connect with others and develop ourselves". She suggested that we who choose to participate in her challenge write a post and share it.

This is my contribution :-)


Sam

References:

2 comments :

  1. Thanks Sam I enjoyed reading your reflections. I absolutely love the fact that you actually drew up a reference list of all that went on during the MOOC and are now slowly working your way through it! I, on the other hand haphazardly just proceeded to favourite those that interested me and opened the tabs on my mac. At the end of each Periscope session I had a heap of tabs which I slowly made my way through that evening and into the next week LOL! I also found it frustrating to work my way through the discussion and follow up on conversations, although I did click follow and then ticked the notifications box so I received an email everytime someone posted but it was a complicated process to go through and find the thread many times. Thanks again!

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    1. Thanks Jo: glad I was not alone in my frustrations with the discussions. Awesome tip for the Periscope sessions to open all the links in tabs: then have them in your browsing history. Why didn't I think of that too?! I certainly will next time :-)

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