A personal journey of discoveries through a DIY open course development for professional development of teachers in Higher Education

This paper is the author's exploration into the story behind the development of the pedagogical ideas for the open course around Flexible, Distance and Online Learning (FDOL), its design and implementation, and the opportunities and challenges this presented to the author through three iterations, FDOL131, FDOL132 and FDOL141 during 2013 and 2014. Flexible, Distance and Online Learning is an open course developed by educational developers in the UK and Sweden for teachers in Higher Education (HE). Formal and informal continuing professional development opportunities are blended to bring higher education teachers from different disciplines, institutions and countries together into a community to learn autonomously or in groups supported by facilitators from different institutions. Personal discoveries and learning points are shared, based on reflections, observations and related research activities carried out as part of a PhD research project by the author together with a description of the pedagogical design developed for and used in FDOL. Findings shared might be useful for other open course designers who are interested in providing extended, and extending, collaborative learning opportunities for their students through opening-up and joining-up educational provision and practices.