On August 4th Stephanie Hadden and I had a zoom meeting about the blogs we have done on Trends in our Field and Trends in Adult Learning. Additionally, we talked about how the course we are taking at Vancouver Community College, the PIDP 3100 – Foundations of Adult Education is going for us.

Monika’s Blogs Summary:

Blog #1 – Trends in Your Field

The first blog that I wrote about was how the Artificial Intelligence (AI) trends are affecting the  “programmer’s job” (Szucs, 2022). I found some articles online where people were complaining on how AI will take over all the development jobs. AI can create code automatically and find ways to solve problems on its own. AI is a lot more efficent and faster then the average coder. However, I also challenged this idea because AI has to be created by developers as well. AI has a sense of logic that needs to be setup in the backend. This means there will still be a need for developers. They will need to tweek and improve it. Additionally, AI is also meant to make coders jobs more efficent. The way it can do this is by automatically populating certain code fields. Thus, making the work get done more efficently. This will leave the developers with more time to do other projects and take on more clients.

Blog #2 – Trends in Adult Learning

The second blog that I created was about how MOOC is becoming a really popular online learning tool. MOOC is extremely popular in Europe and has been growing a lot especially during the pandemic. However, people seem to fail to realize how low the actual completion rate is for these courses are. The completion rate for online courses on MOOC is “15% or less” (Szucs, 2022). Just because a lot of people sign up for courses it doesn’t mean that people are actually sticking through it all. It still seems that the old traditional way of going to a real university with strict deadlines and meetings with teachers, seems to have a bigger impact on students completion rate for a course/program.

Stephanie Hadden Blogs Summary:

Blog #1 – Trends in Your Field

Stephanie did the trends in “How WorksafeBC handles its day-to-day operations” (Hadden, 2022). She mentioned how she had to always commuite to work before but then that eventually all changed in 2020 due to the pandemic. Now everything has switched ot being online for her. Since this change happened it looks like teaching has streamlined to fit the digital world everyone lives in now. Now, people can get the infromation needed a lot quicker. Because of this, WorksafeBC instructors have also transitioned to online learning. This online learning, as mentioned by Stephanie, has made it a lot easier for teachers who live in different areas to work from the comfort of their own home. Instead of having to have WorksafeBC pay for the teachers to fly to different locations, the company can now also save money on this.

Blog #2 – Trends in Adult Learning

The trends that Stephanie has mentioned in adult learning pertained to how online training has a lot “more cons then pros” (Hadden, Trends in adult education, 2022). There is a loss of connection between people that happens when everything is online. There are also no instructors that are leading classrooms if students are just finding free courses online. This is extremely hard for someone who is unable to dedicate their time and efforts to learning on their own. On the other hand, if they had in-person classes or were with universities that required teachers to interact with the teachers each week this will give a sense of support throughout the course. This way the students are more likely to complete the course.

What was similar about our trends?

The thing I found the most similar between us is that we both agree that technology has helped make peoples lives more efficent. It has saved time to do certain tasks online. However, when it comes to having classes online it does not work if there is no dedicated teacher for the course. Having students physically go to class or even if it is online, but having a meeting with the teacher once a week helps keeps students a lot more motivated. The more support students have, the better the outcome for the students and the more likely they will be to complete the course.

What was different about our trends?

We have different levels of experience in different areas. Where Stephanie has already been teaching for a while now and knows what has happened in the teaching industry while working with WorksafeBC. On the other hand, I have done a bit of teaching here and there but my real formal sense of teaching really doesn’t begin until the fall. A lot of the things I have written on my blog are merely just based on a hypothesis of what I think because I have mostly been working in the IT and development industry. I know what is it like for workers directly and having to constantly find jobs can be tough. However, I bring a low of knowledge as to what employers are directly looking for when they apply for jobs within the IT field.

How is the PIDP 3100 – Foundations of Adult Education going for us so far?

We both are enjoying the course so far. Stephanie has had a gap in going to school since 2010 and it was a bit of a challenge for her to get started again. The most challenging was to figureout how to cite her references. However, she wants to complete the Provincial Instructors Diploma to move up within her company.

I have similar goals to Stephanie where I need to complete this program to get a better understanding when it comes to teaching. I am starting my teaching career at BCIT this September. They require me to take the Provincial Instructors Diploma. I am happy to take this program because it is also giving me ideas on just how to better present materials to others in an organized way. Overall, we are both really enjoying this class and program so far.

References

Hadden, S. (2022, July 24). Trends in adult education. Retrieved from PIDP Course: https://stephaniekayhadden.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/trends-in-adult-education/

Hadden, S. (2022, July 14). Trends in my field. Retrieved from PIDP Course: https://stephaniekayhadden.wordpress.com/2022/07/14/trends-in-my-field/

Szucs, M. (2022, July 22). Trends Affecting the Development Field 2022. Retrieved from Feifei Digital Ltd: https://feifeiltd.com/2022/07/22/trends-affecting-the-development-field-2022/

Szucs, M. (2022, July 30). Trends in Adult Education 2022. Retrieved from Feifei Digital Ltd: https://feifeiltd.com/2022/07/30/trends-in-adult-education-2022/