3 Pedagogical considerations
The beneficial effect of the online active engagement through Hypothesis.is tool is emphasized as students demonstrated social participation while engaging with technology and each other. The method of teaching through the social annotation tool does set up the environment for cooperative learning which is one of the main characteristics of creating a positive influence and engaging students during online classes. (Brown, 2020). The learning techniques presented some challenges as students have not been previously exposed to learning that required the use of a social annotation tool.
It is the social pedagogy that can be reflected in the way the students learn by engaging with each other while reviewing the annotations that each made during learning. Understanding social pedagogy was one of the important lessons that I ascertained when using the Hypothes.is tool. Social pedagogy work has a holistic approach. I had the chance to directly experience how the knowledge incorporated in education, pedagogy, philosophy, sociology, medical science, etc. was enhanced when using this social collaborative tool. I always consider student’s well-being who attends online classes. It is also important to balance the amount of student’s work during the online classes with an appropriate number of questions that have a complex enough level of detail. The material was uploaded prior to each class, but the students did not read them prior to the class. The humanistic values are stressed through social pedagogy while ensuring our human dignity, mutual respect, trust, unconditional appreciation, and equality. Trying to balance the multilevel approach was surprisingly challenging, but worth the effort as many students had their first experience to learn by using the social and collaboration tools. Students who were mostly interested in social justice have shown online participation in Week 13. My direct experience acquired in social pedagogy will continue to improve as there is still a large area of social pedagogy that has not been fully explored while using the Hypothes.is tool. An area that I did not explore with the students was debating their own ideas while organizing them in teams.
Many students understood and responded positively to social pedagogy and as a result the work they completed during Weeks 3, 5 and 6, led to higher scores obtained in the final test (see Figure 6). If data is presented to students, they would discover that we all want the best outcomes for their future life. The topic subjects through this course required that I also used critical pedagogy, as the paragraphs are given had to be discussed, taken apart, and then recomposed by students.
