This document provides an overview of a workshop for a module on the philosophy of learning and teaching in higher education. The workshop includes introductions and discussion of topics like mentoring, the modular structure, work plans and targets, learning theories, higher education policy, and core professional values. Activities involve reflecting on concepts like academic identity, the hidden curriculum, and critical perspectives. The document outlines the aims and intended learning outcomes of exploring theories of higher education and applying understanding to improve various aspects of teaching and learning.

1. Cranfield UniversityPGCLTAHE Module 1: Scholarship and Philosophy of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education February 2010 George Roberts Oxford Brookes University

2. Purpose of the day To analyse and reflect critically on Higher Education policy and practice and the explanatory frameworks that underpin policy and practice Consider the “big picture” The bits that aren’t in the “papers” Reflection Peer review Keep getting to know each other: peer group development!

3. Introductions Introduce yourself and briefly say which School/Service you are with, what you teach or how you support learning Discuss do you have a mentor? (Handbook p. 3) what’s a mentor?

4. Modular structure

5. Work Plan/Targets

6. Activity: ABCD 1 Asset based community development (ABCD) Affective recall Describe a time and a place in your life before you came to this job when you felt really energized and creative. Describe that situation to your partner

7. ABCD2 2 pictures

9. http://www.artsreview.co.za/fashion/2009/03/19/fuck-the-rainbow-nation-coz-94-changed-fokol-blackwash/

10. Activity In pairs/threes, with chart paper… What [the heck] is “Philosophy of Higher Education”? Discuss, and on the chart paper write one idea, that, for you, is central to this question

11. Agenda http://www.xmind.net/share/georgeroberts/xmind-768070/

12. Agenda

13. Aims and intended outcomes Intended Learning Outcomes (Handbook p. 7) Articulate a critical and scholarly review of theories of higher education and its purposes Criticality (ILO 1) Contribute to the development of a scholarly & critical understanding of Higher Education in society Assess the relevance of these philosophies and mechanisms in context Globalisation (ILO 2) Apply your analysis of discourses of education and power to the sustainability of social order attributes and the institutions of society Access (ILO 2) Apply a richer understanding of your role in higher education to the improvement of learning for your students, yourself, your discipline and institution(s) Responsibility (ILO 2) Explore the contingencies of “truth” as it underlies disciplinary (experimental) methods Curricula (ILO 2) Explain and apply the concept of a hidden curriculum to objective-led learning, teaching and assessment (and management) Demonstrate commitment to core professional values of scholarship, development of learning communities, CPD and evaluation Community (ILO 3) Interpret and actualise values in practice

14. Card sort: Issues and drivers At your table Individually: sort the cards in order of the things that most influence your role Choose your top 3 and briefly explain to your colleagues Together: Each table choose their top 2 Explain to the room

15. BREAK

16. History of Ideas“purpose” Some people Institutions of society Purpose of Higher Education Academic identity

17. Institutions of society Estates Production Reproduction

18. Hidden curricular issues Overt curriculum of the early modern age “3 Rs”: reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmatic. Reproduction of these cultural goods, universal literacy and numeracy, would benefit both the individual as well as society. Today’s overt curriculum Flexibility, community/team work, personalisation (particularly in the ICT sense)

19. Covert curriculum: education as politics Industrial era covert curriculum: Punctuality, tolerance of repetition, subordination Post industrial “Knowledge Economy” covert curriculum Piecework, precarity, competition Normalisation Surveillance

20. Activity: let’s get critical Universities are supposed by the Charter [for Higher Education, 1993] to "deliver" a "service", namely higher education to "customers", in two divisions, firstly students, and secondly business which "buys" both education and the results of commissioned research. The "delivery" to students is by way of "teaching" or "effective management of ... learning", in "courses", all of which have "aims and structures" clearly described in advance, and any of which include "transferrable skills like problem solving and effective communication". The standards of these providers of teaching are guaranteed by "quality assurance systems" which will be "regularly audited" and will enable applicants to discover “… how well different universities and colleges are performing". Each of these phrases within quotation marks, and all of them cumulatively betray a conception of higher education which is not only not that of the university, but is actively hostile to the university. Maskell, D. & Robinson, I. (2001). The new idea of a university. London: Haven Books.

21. What’s wrong with? Deliver Service Customer Buys Teaching Effective management of learning Courses Aims and structures Transferrable skills like problem solving and effective communication Quality assurance systems Regularly audited Will enable applicants to discover how well different universities and colleges are performing

22. LUNCH

23. Learning Theory“difference” Social and biological bases of cognition -isms and –ologies Difference Criticality Competence

24. Biological bases of cognition Training (whether traditional, e-learning, or blended learning) is intimately connected and dependent on the human cognitive system. Learning means that the cognitive system acquires information and stores it for future use. If these processes do not occur properly, then the learners will not initially acquire the information, and even if they do, then they will not be able to recall it later, or/and the information will not be utilised and behaviour modified. It does not matter if the objective is learning new information (e.g., compliance regulations, product specifications, etc.), acquiring new skills (e.g., operating new apparatus, customer service, time management, etc.), or knowledge sharing and transfer within or across organisations, the processes of acquiring, storing and applying the information are critical. The question is how do you achieve these cornerstones of learning? The answer is clear: The learning must fit human cognition. See, e.g. Cognitive Consultants International (CCI) http://cognitiveconsultantsinternational.com/index.php?siteID=2

25. 2 orientations towards acquiring knowledge & … 2 functions of theorydeductivefrom theory to observationpredictiveinductivefrom observation to theoryexplanatory

26. another orientation towards acquiring knowledge & … another function of theoryholisticgenerative

27. So… theory is: predictive explanatory generative

28. and, which reminds me… theory is: nomothetic oops! typical Or typifying Or typologising

29. So, we have a typology of theory… a theory of theory explanatory predictive generative typical

30. And the last bit? Falsifiable Theory vs.. ideology: Ideology may well be predictive and explanatory, but instead of generative it is restrictive, instead of typical it is normalising and instead of falsifiable it is enforced. (Popper)

31. So, we have a (new) typology of theory… a theory of theory explanatory predictive generative typical falsifiable

32. Activity We’ve had a typology, but What’s theory for you?

34. through our students eyes

35. through our colleagues’ experience and peer review

36. through the theoretical literature Theoretical literature helps us to name our practice and to find that it is not idiosyncratic

37. That’s all very well in practice, but how does it work in theory?

38. ... learning can be enhanced through: a consideration of the context and experience of others, familiarity with received wisdom, reflection on these, and the use of the first hand experience of the learner. [however] Discussions of reflection in learning often emphasise the first hand experience of the learner rather than the role of formal theory, the importance of the broader social context and the experience of others (Dyke 2006) Reflective practice?

41. Socio-culturalSee De-localized Production of Scientific Knowledge. (2007, October 7). . Retrieved from http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mediaberkman/2007/09/21/de-localized-production-of-scientific-knowledge-2/

42. A theory of identity…?

43. Academic identity Disciplinarity as a dimension of diversity in higher education, showing an understanding of broad differences in epistemologies Disciplinarity may affect learning approaches curriculum outcomes current challenges learner characteristics…

44. Discipline… is a type of power, a modality for its exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets… And it may be taken over… by institutions that use it as an essential instrument for a particular end (schools, hospitals)… (Foucault, 1977, p. 215)

45. Activities 1 VAK Questionnaire 2 Think of something you have learned. How did you learn this? What processes did you go through? What did you do to learn?

48. heteroglossic/dialogic: all thinking is largely determined by prior cultural experience (ideological or identity commitment)

49. language is an actor (weak linguistic determinism)

50. meaning is characterised by ambiguity

51. context is everything

53. Models Linear Beetham Cyclical Kolb Laurillard Hierarchical Bloom Salmon

54. Beetham’s typology Assimilative Constructivist Social constructivist Situative

55. Kolb’s Learning Cycle experiencing planning reflecting thinking

57. Conversational model Borrowed from http://www.elicit.scotcit.ac.uk/modules/intro/unit3.htm

58. Levels of learning: Bloom evaluation synthesis analysis application comprehension knowledge ATHERTON J S (2005) Learning and Teaching: Bloom's taxonomy [On-line] UK: Available: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/bloomtax.htm

59. Sequence & Stance Sequence Where are you in the course? Is it the first week or the 8th week? Have groups been used in other settings? Do people know one another yet? What is the interactional function of groupwork (as opposed to the instrumental or regulatory orheuristicfunctions?) Maxims of stance (Scollon 1998) Channel Relationship Topic e-Tivity Sequence (Salmon)

60. Education levels and taxonomies Pedagogical pragmatism Face Posture Stance

61. BREAK

62. Higher Education Policy Levels of analysis Drivers Outcomes Pragmatics

63. Policy: the Big Picture Globalisation Liberalisation Participation Innovation Education and training policy replaces industrial policy as the means by which governments seek to make regions economically competitive

64. Critical reflection “Reflection becomes critical when it has two distinct purposes: … to understand how considerations of power undergird, frame and distort educational processes and interactions. … to question [hegemonic] assumptions and practices that seem to make our teaching lives easier but actually work against our long-term interests.” Brookfield (2005: 8)

67. http://www.crdi.ca/acca/ev-103646-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html andhttp://www.cbnrm.net/

68. Peer review How have you drawn on a process of peer review? Formal e.g. teaching observation Informal e.g. note of a lunch-time conversation after you gave a good lecture Programmatic e.g. programme development team meetings, course review events, validations, examination committees, etc

69. Values Core values Respect for learners Commitment to scholarship Developing learning communities Encouraging participation in higher education Commitment to personal CPD (or CPPD)

70. Outcomes Debate 2 This course and others like it are taught from a very pronounced “perspective”: Constructive Alignment Stated simply: Description, aims, outcomes, activity, assessment are all clearly articulated in a common language

71. Outcomes Debate In the 1970s and 1980s, learning outcomes were seen as a progressive attempt to overcome the “old-school-tie” effect where who you knew and who you were were more important factors in determining educational success and employability than what you could do. By making learning outcomes explicit and linking them to real-world evidence, it was hoped that a greater meritocratic ethos would prevail. This became known as the “competency and outcomes movement”. However through the 1980s and 1990s competencies and outcomes became associated in the public mind with performative targets and managerial micro-control of learning and teaching. Far from being seen as a progressive attempt to wrest education from the hands of social elites, competencies and outcomes were seen to be a reactionary imposition on academic freedom.

72. M-level Masters degrees, PG Certificates and PG Diplomas systematic understanding of knowledge, and critical awareness of current problems and/or new insights, much of which is at, or informed by, the forefront of their academic discipline, field of study, or area of professional practice; comprehensive understanding of techniques applicable to their own research or advanced scholarship; originality in the application of knowledge, together with a practical understanding of how established techniques of research and enquiry are used to create and interpret knowledge in the discipline; conceptual understanding that enables the student: to evaluate critically current research and advanced scholarship in the discipline; and to evaluate methodologies and develop critiques of them and, where appropriate, to propose new hypotheses. Quality assurance agency for higher education (QAA) http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/FHEQ/EWNI/#framework

73. Looking forward Workshop programme

74. Wrap-up Questions? Academics anonymous

75. Thank you George Roberts Senior Lecturer, Educational Development OCSLD Wheatley Campus Oxford Brookes University Oxford, OX33 1HX groberts@brookes.ac.uk http://www.google.com/profiles/georgebroberts