Practice to Teaching: a Diplomats Experience

• In Event: TLC at APSA Luncheon: Online Learning and a Global Student Body

Abstract

This paper will discuss how online methods enable rapid, global delivery of professional learning, and how online learning communities and applications can enhance continuous learning and bridge study and practice. Global online learning synthesizes the online medium with global participation; a-synchronicity with geographic and participant diversity across time zones. An online learning community drawn from across the globe offers inherent learning opportunities for international relations participants. A challenge is to experiment with new means and ways of online learning exchange using varied media. As online learning delivery tools approach and crowd against multiple apps at learners' fingertips, their potential may be measured by their usefulness as a continuous learning, work reference, and discussion tool.
An online course launched in 2018 by FSI for American diplomats assisting Congressional delegations visits, for example, combined programmed instruction with a downloadable support app summarizing SOPs, checklists, and best practices. After completing the course, the user could refer back to the downloaded app to refresh planning considerations- while waiting on the tarmac as it were.
An online learning community drawn from across time zones adds diversity of perspectives and participation, and may deliver unforeseen learning ideas based in the diversity of the global community of a particular learning activity.

Author

• Paul Kreutzer, U.S. Department of State