Page 109 - Reimagining Higher Education : Case Studies On Designing For Inclusion, Equity, And Access In The Buka Project
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A. K. T. Marcial et al. · Sustainable Institution Building for Open Learning (SIBOL) Initiative
- University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU), Philippines
Encouraging more Open and Collaborative Discussions
At the outset, teams were expected to work on the group assignments together and
discuss the module topics before the online synchronous workshops. However, not
all teams could do this consistently for all modules. There was a tendency to rely on
particular members to prepare and present the group assignments during the
synchronous workshops. The problem was partly addressed by requiring di erent
members of the team to present at each session and requesting members of the
other participating institutions to comment after each presentation. Grouping the
participating HEIs with similar experiences and concerns made this process easier.
Sustaining Engagement
The duration of the training proved to be challenging for the participants, most of
whom held administrative positions in their respective institutions and had other
work assignments to which they had to attend. This challenge was partially
addressed by the training design where individual participation in the online
discussion forums and other asynchronous activities was self-paced, and the
minimum requirement for the synchronous workshop was attendance by at least
one team member from each institution. Assignment deadlines were also adjusted
to provide su cient time for the participants to work on the assignments as a
team.
Findings and Lessons Learned
Despite refinements to the training design as the course progressed, a decline in
the number of individual participants who engaged in the asynchronous module
activities as the training progressed was noted (see Figure 16). Most of the
participants simply viewed the module forums instead of posting responses to
discussion questions and to other participants’ posts.
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