Learner agency - who drives the learning?

I've been thinking about learner agency and who drives the learning. My online art history class uses a knowledge building approach. For us, this looks like lots of discussion, lots of student led activity, and generally working as a bit of research team. We're always trying to delve deeper into ideas to improve everyone's understanding.

Last week we had a power cut at my school during the scheduled video conference time. I was able to email my students on my cell phone to let them know to work together online without me using the structure on the class blog as a guide. I had a response from a student (I'm paraphrasing here) letting me know that she had tried to elicit a bit of verbal korero, but the others weren't comfortable taking the lead in the VC without my guidance.

This got me to thinking, have I unconsciously made the video conferences too teacher-centric? Or is this just the kind of learners I have this year? I am conscious that I am pushing a lot of their boundaries and expectations of what learning is.

Teachers using a Knowledge Building approach what are your thoughts?

Problems of practice

How can community be developed in the online space and how can authentic learning be captured?

These are the issues that I wrestle with in my teaching practice. I see community as totally pivotal to good online teaching, yet it is challenging to develop real community in a virtual environment where class members might be dispersed across the country. I see knowledge building communities as offering a relevant and innovative approach for online teachers. Knowledge Building, as I see it calls for students to work as a research team to solve authentic and emergent problems. The heart of the issue for me is how to create the space for authentic learning and inquiry, where the tail (assessment) is not wagging the dog (learning). In my view, online teaching has the potential to provide that space to step outside of the bounds of traditional school culture. This is what excites me about teaching. If this resonates with you, check out my video to find out more.

https://hail.to/nex/article/YUWWccu