I found the session stimulated me to speak about my past learning experiences. For example, the Diploma of Teaching in which the learning was all done through self-directed and mentored assignments. Half the 120 credits were allowed to be attributed to RPL. The oral presentation at the end was where I had to present reflections about my learning journey and my teaching framework to a panel. That was scary.

The most memorable thing for me regarding flexible learning in my past life, was in the Certificate in Clinical Teaching because a facilitator from Christchurch used to travel to Dunedin to run two and three day workshops as part of the programme. Not only was the timing of her teaching innovative, her style was flexible because it was very experiential and she facilitated our learning rather than just lecturing us. She did a mixture of presentation, activities and discussion, self-directed activities, teleconference, block courses and peer work. Her assessments were also innovative, for example, a poster was the main assessment.

Since I started working at Otago Polytechnic in 1992 as a bioscience lecturer, I have seen a huge number of changes in the type of assessments offered to students right across the polytechnic. Now it is not just essays, quizzes and exams, there are a multitude of things offered to students. There are also a huge number of ways in which teachers communicate with their students. Once upon a time, lecturers used to be aghast at the idea of emailing students and now it is a given. Some are also using texting to communicate and chat and skype as well as web and video conferencing.

I am interested to hear how participants in the Flexible learning course assess and communicate flexibly. These are very important aspects of flexible learning, and even more important than content in my opinion. What do you think?

The horse analogy and flexible learning
The title of this post has come about due to the number of hours I have spent recently helping my daughter to teach a horse to get in a float. There was a lot of work involved to get it to even enter and then a lot more to get it to stay in the float. The experience reminds me of my work at Otago Polytechnic. Perhaps this sounds a bit silly, and you are thinking what has a horse got to do with teaching at a tertiary institution? Well I can see several similarities. Let me set the scene first.

Over the years as a staff developer and educational developer, I have spent many, many hours assisting staff – academic and general – with the use of technology in the workplace. I have also taught Health Informatics to health students with the aim of up-skilling them in computing for their practice. I have also spent a lot of energy leading people to the big eLearning pond, trying to get them to dabble their toes on the edge, walk out a bit even though it was chilly and scary and then swimming with them when they decided to take the plunge. Sometimes I pushed the occasional person in, but hey I did rescue them, mostly. Some I could not catch as they swam away to distant horizons once they found their flippers. 🙂 It\’s been like swimming with the dolphins – fun, scary, challenging and playful and also like swimming with the sharks – terrifying, serious, exhilarating. It is also very similar to the work required to get a scared horse to enter a float.
Image: Pond at Autumn – Teich im Herbst by Tobi_2008
Thinking back on my experiences over the last nine years, and about my experiences recently with the horse float, I realise that there is also a lot of merit in the expression, \”you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink\”. Just as we led the horse to the float and could not get him to go in..for ages…but with some repetition, gentle and firm persuasion, guiding ropes (structure) and patience, we got him in and we got him to stay longer each time. This is much like my experiences in getting teachers to accept flexible ways of offering learning.

And to continue with the analogy of the float. Some back off before they get even close, others walk up to it and watch, others walk up, sniff and turn round, others walk right on in and stay and never leave, others walk in halfway, and some go in, back out, go back in and so on, and some only ever keep one foot on the door, always looking side to side and behind… My motto is to keep trying, so if you see me coming towards you with a horse whip I promise to be gentle.

Life Insurance Corporation of India was created on 1st September, 1956, with the objective of spreading life insurance much more widely and in particular to the rural areas with a view to reach all insurable persons in the country, providing them adequate financial cover at a reasonable cost.

LIC had 5 zonal offices, 33 divisional offices and 212 branch offices, apart from its corporate office in the year 1956. Since life insurance contracts are long term contracts and during the currency of the policy it requires a variety of services need was felt in the later years to expand the operations and place a branch office at each district headquarter. Re-organization of LIC took place and large numbers of new branch offices were opened. As a result of re-organisation servicing functions were transferred to the branches, and branches were made accounting units. It worked wonders with the performance of the corporation. It may be seen that from about 200.00 crores of New Business in 1957 the corporation crossed 1000.00 crores only in the year 1969-70, and it took another 10 years for LIC to cross 2000.00 crore mark of new business. But with re-organisation happening in the early eighties, by 1985-86 LIC had already crossed 7000.00 crore Sum Assured on new policies.

Today LIC functions with 2048 fully computerized branch offices, 109 divisional offices, 8 zonal offices, 992 satallite offices and the Corporate office. LIC’s Wide Area Network covers 109 divisional offices and connects all the branches through a Metro Area Network. LIC has tied up with some Banks and Service providers to offer on-line premium collection facility in selected cities. LIC’s ECS and ATM premium payment facility is an addition to customer convenience. Apart from on-line Kiosks and IVRS, Info Centres have been commissioned at Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, New Delhi, Pune and many other cities. With a vision of providing easy access to its policyholders, LIC has launched its SATELLITE SAMPARK offices. The satellite offices are smaller, leaner and closer to the customer. The digitalized records of the satellite offices will facilitate anywhere servicing and many other conveniences in the future.

LIC continues to be the dominant life insurer even in the liberalized scenario of Indian insurance and is moving fast on a new growth trajectory surpassing its own past records. LIC has issued over one crore policies during the current year. It has crossed the milestone of issuing 1,01,32,955 new policies by 15th Oct, 2005, posting a healthy growth rate of 16.67% over the corresponding period of the previous year.

From then to now, LIC has crossed many milestones and has set unprecedented performance records in various aspects of life insurance business. The same motives which inspired our forefathers to bring insurance into existence in this country inspire us at LIC to take this message of protection to light the lamps of security in as many homes as possible and to help the people in providing security to their families.