How Pilates is like Flexible Learning

I have recently undergone a 4 week beginner Pilates course to develop core strength, muscle length and general well being. For those who are not familiar with Pilates, it's an all over body work out based on stretching and correct engagement of muscles. James and I were lucky enough to have a gorgeous instructor Phoebe who is always reminding us to engage our TA's (transversus abdominis - major core muscles that wrap around our torso), relax the shoulders and breathe coupled with motivational quotes like "Who wants a flatter tummy? Who wants a tighter butt?". Some of the exercise can be tough and at times leave you feeling a little soar the next day. But at the heart of it, it's a workout and in order to reap the benefits a bit of motivation and effort on your behalf will get you on your way.

Being quite immersed in the field of flexible learning I devised an alignment between Pilates and flexible learning

Motivation
Pilates - A tighter butt, flatter tummy, stronger core.
Flexible Learning - reaching off campus students groups, creating new learning spaces and opportunity for peer collaboration, reusability of resources.

Activities
Pilates - Engaging your TA muscles is the core of every exercise - it protects your back, ensures correct posture and result in an all body work out.
Flexible Learning - Engaging your students is the core of every learning activity - it stimulates learning, maintains student interest and results in an overall learning experience.

Effort
Pilates - It is recommended to exercise 2-3 times a week, you have to train and strengthen your muscles to do more advanced positions
Flexible Learning - Facilitating a unit require you to visit Discussion board threads 2-3 times per week, you may have to up skill in new technologies as you advance to more advance learning activities.

Benefits
Pilates - A tighter butt, flatter tummy, stronger core.
Flexible Learning - teaching diverse students groups irrespective of location and time zone, new learning spaces and opportunity for peer collaboration, reusable resources.

e-learning and pedagogical innovation

QUOTE from paper :

" While e-learning in higher education is now considered (indeed, sometimes welcomed by many staff) for its potential, real development beyond projects initiated by innovators has so far been modest. Most HEIs are still struggling to engage a significant percentage of students and staff in e-learning. All HEIs are vulnerable to a wide variety of pressures but have a high resistance to change. They are awash with rich resources in the form of intelligent keen individuals who are rarely appropriately directed to pedagogical innovation nor are self-motivated to radically transform their teaching.

E-learning, whether combined with other forms of teaching and learning or not, is multifaceted and involves shifts both in understanding and behaviours. Most academics responsible for both the curriculum and the pedagogical processes arising from e-learning have not made these shifts. It is most unlikely that a whole university
can be ‘re-engineered’ (Brown, 2002) to accommodate the major changes associated with e-learning. Many academics still view e-learning as impersonal, constraining and insufficiently adaptive to the needs of a wide variety of learners."

http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/683122_750429621_727477304.pdf

Managing adoption of e-learning

A systemic framework for managing e-learning adoption in campus universities: individual strategies in context

http://pdfserve.informaworld.com/168454_750429621_909258367.pdf

PHD by Carol Russell under the supervision of Gilly Salmon - Very high level stuff !!!

Word cloud by wordle - (cheers for sharing this tool with me Connie P.)

Chapters of interest:

Page 2 - Context

Method: Action research developing cross discipline innovative teaching & edu technologies (ITET) fellowship program over 5 years.

Page 5 - Complexity and diversity: discussion on individual staff development, communities of practice, knowledge creation process, individual differences - as a rationale to "combine individual perspectives on adoption of new technologies in order to identify systematic patterns across university's learning & teaching activities as a whole"

Page 9 - Motivation, confidence & constraints

"evidence that building shared educational knowledge that is explicit (codified)

and externally acknowledged, within a cross-discipline community empowers the

individual teachers to make changes to learning and teaching systems and curricula in

association with their use of e-learning technology"

Page 13 - Discussion & Conclusion

"staff development for individuals, on its own, is not enough to bring about change"

National strategies + institutional strategies + individual strategies