University Education Reflection: Online Environment Changes Analysis

This reflective essay, written by a student in the Bachelors of Education program, explores the significant changes in the online learning environment and their impact on education. The essay highlights the development of future work skills, such as communication, analytical, and research skills, emphasizing the importance of cross-cultural communication and adaptive thinking in the context of online learning. It discusses the evolution of teaching methods, from traditional approaches to the current online platforms, addressing both the advantages and disadvantages of online learning, including the challenges of direct interaction and the credibility of online resources. The student reflects on personal goals within the unit, including understanding teaching theories and effective communication with Indigenous students, and how online resources have aided in achieving these goals. The essay also connects these unit goals with broader course goals, such as effective teaching in diverse contexts and communication with colleagues, children, and families, illustrating how the student has worked towards these objectives. The conclusion summarizes the identified importance and flaws of the online learning environment, stressing the significance of critically evaluating online resources and recognizing cultural backgrounds in online interactions, and how this unit has helped in developing communication skills.

Running head: REFLECTION ON CHANGES IN ONLINE ENVIRONMENT
REFLECTION ON CHANGES IN ONLINE ENVIRONMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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REFLECTION ON CHANGES IN ONLINE ENVIRONMENT
Introduction
I have undertaken the Bachelors of Education course for this semester and I look forward
to another enriching year of learning. Prior to undertaking this course, I possessed various skills
in vocational and academic field. However, there are certain skills that I need to refine in order to
achieve my goal in future. In the modern setting, the availability of online sources has changed
the way work is done. During my years as a student, I used to collect education resources from
the school library but now, with the presence of online library, students have access to sea of
resources (Nguyen, 2015). In this unit, I shall be reading about the future work skills that are
required to succeed in various fields not only just education. In this reflective essay, I will
highlight the areas of my future work skills. In addition, I will also focus on the development of
teaching from the early times to the present online environment.
Main Point 1:
Communication and analytical & research skills are the two areas of my work skills that I
plan to develop in future. It has been almost one and half years of my teaching period under the
course and I can confidently state that my skills have developed remarkably. Future Work Skills
refer to skills that include sense-making, social intelligence, novel and adaptive thinking, cross-
cultural competency, virtual collaboration and such (Iftf.org, 2018). These skills would help in
achieving multidimensional goals of the future including education. My experience with the
online learning environment has helped me develop these skills. Through the online platform, I
was able to interact with students from multicultural backgrounds. As a consumer of online
sources, I could collect information on various ways of refining the future work skills. The
learning in this unit has largely helped me identify and develop my Future Work Skills (Kesner,

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Larson & Dias 2017). Cross-cultural communication and novel and adaptive thinking are the two
areas in which I wish to develop my skills the biggest hindrance I have faced in learning in this
unit has been communicating with students from different cultural backgrounds. Apart from that,
I have also struggled in finding innovative ways to manage the class and catch the interest of the
students.
Nonetheless, I have had the opportunity to learn many new concepts and experience
enlightening moments with my students. the concepts like e-library, active learning, hybrid
learning, meta-effective awareness, self-regulated learning and so on were all new to me and I
had to utilize my analytical and research skills to learn thoroughly about these concepts of
teaching. Now I can confidently say that I am aware of the new concepts of teaching and I will
refine my Future Work Skills with the help of this knowledge.
Main Point 2:
Previously, I had little knowledge regarding several online sources that are there to assist
the teachers as well as the students. I was rarely active online apart from being at several social
media sites. Then, after undertaking this course, I came to learn about the various online learning
forums where teachers can directly interact with their students (Arnold-Garza, 2014). I also
learnt that there are numerous learning communities available online that interact to share
materials and resources related to teaching and learning. My idea on the online environment
changed drastically after joining this course. I must however add that the online learning has had
a negative impact on my experience as a student as well. I shall discuss this elaborately in the
next section. However, I still have a lot to learn and apply those learning within the classroom.

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I have observed that with the emergence and popularity of online learning environment,
the direct interaction between teacher and student has suffered. In the early days, we used to have
direct interactions with our teachers that used to be very fruitful because our queries were solved
instantly. Further, the sources available online do not have proper credibility and hence, those
have to be crosschecked. This leads to wastage of time that could have been utilized towards
achieving something better. In addition, online learning lacks the collaborative environment
where students could consult with their peers.
In the future, this learning would help me in understanding the best ways to utilize the
online learning platform. Further, with the help of this learning I would be able to enhance my
knowledge about online learning with both its negative and positive sides. In the future, when I
start my career as a full-time teacher, I would be able to apply these learning and achieve
effective results.
Main Point 3:
The two goals that I have set for this unit are, the ability to understand the theories of
teaching and learning in the 21st century and to achieve competency in communicating with
Indigenous students and their families. I have advanced a lot until now in achieving my goals for
the unit however; I aim to achieve my goals fully by the end of the unit. The unit has had
components that have enabled to learn the different aspects of online learning environment. I
have used the online sources for teaching and learning purposes and have contributed resources
to the online study portal. While working on the two goals that I have set for this unit, I have
received great help from the online sources. Apart from that, I also contributed my research and
learning material to the online forum.

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REFLECTION ON CHANGES IN ONLINE ENVIRONMENT
Teaching and learning in the 21st century involves an understanding of the impact of
technology on contemporary education (Voogt et al. 2013). Being a part of this technological
advancement era, I was able to experience the impact. The impact has been both positive and
negative as far as I have observed. On the positive side, technology has allowed me to find
resources and materials for my personal progress. Further, with the help of this technology, I was
able to prepare video and PowerPoint presentations and upload them online. In addition, online
sources have helped me learn competent communication practices with Indigenous students by
allowing me to interact directly with them (Knott, Mak and Neill 2013). Communicating with
Indigenous students was not easy initially as I had little knowledge about their culture and
tradition. Gradually, with assistance from other teachers on the online forum, I could succeed in
developing my skill and move a step towards achieving my goal. However, I have to admit that
while preparing the presentation, I had to rely on sources that I was not sure were credible or not.
Main Point 4:
While working on my unit goals, I have to focus on developing and achieving my course
goals as well. Without the successful accomplishment of the course goals, my unit goals cannot
be accomplished (Samu 2016). The two course goals that I have set for myself are – ability to
implement effective learning and teaching in diverse contexts and capacity to communicate
effectively with colleagues, children and families. I was able to work on my goals with the help
of the sources available online. Further, working on these goals has also helped me refine my
Future Work Skills especially social intelligence and cross-cultural competency. During the
course of my study, I was able to teach a bunch of students in real classroom environment. It had
students from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds with whom I was able to interact lucidly.
However, I faced difficulties while making certain concepts clear to the students, as I was not

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able to demonstrate examples clearly. With the help of online sources, I was able to rectify my
issues in the next class.
After a thorough evaluation of the projects that I undertook during the course, I found
that my progress towards the two goals that I had set was steady and on the right track. However,
the progress was obstructed many times when I found that many online resources lacked
credibility. In addition, I had little idea about the process of uploading sources on the online
platform and hence I had to learn it from my peers. This led to my limited participation in the
discussion board on the online forum. Gradually, with increased focus on learning the process of
online submission and other things, my participation in the online discussion increased.
Analyzing my current progress, I can say that the learning in this unit would greatly help me set
my future goals in terms of both study and career.
Conclusion
To conclude, I can state that throughout the learning unit of my Bachelors of Education
degree, I realized the importance and flaws of online learning environment. While working on
this paper, I was able to identify and work the Future Work Skills. In addition, the paper helped
me focus on setting goals and work towards achieving those. I set two unit goals and then two
course goals to achieve until the end of the semester and I can say that my progress has been
more than satisfactory. I learned extensively about the online learning environment and the pros
and cons associated with it. The sources available online are not always credible and we have to
pay utmost attention while choosing an online source. Further, while engaging with students
online, it is important to recognize their cultural background. This unit also helped me develop
my communication skills especially in terms of cross-cultural communication.

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References:
Arnold-Garza, S., 2014. The flipped classroom teaching model and its use for information
literacy instruction. Communications in Information Literacy, 8(1), p.9.
Iftf.org (2018). IFTF: Future Work Skills 2020. [online] Iftf.org. Available at:
http://www.iftf.org/futureworkskills/ [Accessed 19 Jul. 2018].
Kesner, R., Larson, B. & Dias, M., 2017. An Applied Approach to the Teaching of Virtual Work
Skills within a Business School Curriculum. Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal,
10(2).
Knott, V.E., Mak, A.S. and Neill, J.T., 2013. Teaching intercultural competencies in introductory
psychology via application of the E xcellence in C ultural E xperiential L earning and L
eadership model. Australian Journal of Psychology, 65(1), pp.46-53.
Nguyen, T., 2015. The effectiveness of online learning: Beyond no significant difference and
future horizons. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 11(2), pp.309-319.
Samu, T.W., 2016. The ‘Pasifika Umbrella’and quality teaching: Understanding and responding
to the diverse realities within. Waikato Journal of Education, 12(1).
Voogt, J., Erstad, O., Dede, C. and Mishra, P., 2013. Challenges to learning and schooling in the
digital networked world of the 21st century. Journal of computer assisted learning, 29(5),
pp.403-413.

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