The document discusses the changing nature of knowledge in the digital age. It notes that knowledge is growing exponentially and is increasingly being generated outside of academia. As a result, the most important skill may be the ability to access just-in-time knowledge as needed rather than retaining large amounts of knowledge long-term. However, others argue that some essential knowledge is still worth retaining. The document also examines debates around assessment and how it can drive shallow learning focused only on passing exams rather than deep understanding.

1. Learn it and Forget it or Just-in-
time Knowledge
Nathan Loynes

2. Shift Happens
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig27w_YIx0s&

3. Chris Anderson
• How have you ever learnt anything?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rduzbpHQoA&list=UUj6LQCjRmqY4VZBBMtTN6BQ&index=42&

4. What do you need to know?
• Knowledge used to be like gold. The more you
had – and hung on to – the more powerful
and useful you were. These days think of it
like milk. If you hang on to it , it goes off”.
• Ian Gilbert

5. Jim Carol – The Future of Knowledge
• Rapid knowledge obsolescence
• Rapid knowledge emergence
• Disappearance of existing careers because of
1
• Rapid emergence of new careers because of 2
• Need for knowledge replenishment because
of 1-4

6. Jim Carol – The Future of Knowledge
• Migration of knowledge away from academia
because of the faster need for new knowledge
deployment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc5KHyJjFRk
• Furthermore: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt_osynpEY4
• Massive increased challenge from overseas
knowledge generation.
• Fast emergence of micro careers because of
specialized knowledge.
• An economy that succeeds through knowledge
deployment
• A fundamental transformation in knowledge
delivery.

7. Knowledge growing exponentially

8. The foundation of knowledge is no longer
academia (Peer Reviewed Journals)

9. Knowledge is being impacted by
velocity
“Is our future narrow in terms of
what we deliver? Is our future wide?
Do we focus on narrow niches, wide
areas of knowledge or both?”.

10. Jim Carroll – “Let go of the milk?”
• “By 2020 or sooner, it will be all about ‘just in
time knowledge’. In a world of fast knowledge
development, none of us will have the
capability to know much of anything at all. The
most important skill we will have will be the
ability to go out and get the right knowledge
for the right purpose at the right time”

11. “Let go of the milk?” – Not in the
reading material
• There are critics of commentators such as Carroll.
• Remember the postmodern ‘nihilism’ argument
that I introduced you to in semester one?
• Some say that there are some essential things
that need to be known.
• Remember Ken Robinson’s RSA speech?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uGgxN6Pa9s
• The prospect of this post modernist state of flux
can prompt some to respond defensively...

12. Clay Shirky – ‘Here comes everybody’
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Tbdz8aTe8

13. This leads us on to the juxtapositional
argument.
• There are some things worth knowing, and these
things should be taught, and children (students)
should be assessed against these ‘facts’.
• Once we establish what this corpus of accepted
‘facts’ are, we can assess students as being able
to demonstrate this ‘knowledge’.
• ...These processes have led to counter allegations
of ‘teaching to test’ and a ‘learn it and forget it
culture’

14. Jarvis, Holroyd and Griffin
• How do we know when someone has learnt
something? – NOT A SIMPLE QUESTION...
• In practice the role of assessment has many
other effects.
• Rowntree (1987) educators have found these
other effects, to be more important, or at
least more urgent, to just discovering how
much learning has taken place.

15. Jarvis et al :158
• “Assessment is not a ‘neutral’ technique for
measuring the performance of learners. It has
become a central feature of how education
and training are organised in almost every
society. Assessment shapes how students,
teachers, and administrators think and feel
about education and training systems.

16. Jarvis et al :162
• Contextualized learning and assessment:
Ecological or performance based. Knowledge
must have a ‘realistic’ application, and often
centres around ‘problem solving’.
• Up until recently (1980’s) schools, colleges
and universities emphasized
‘decontextualized’ knowledge. (Abstract).

17. Jarvis et al :163
• Learning involves active engagement between
learner and what is learnt. This is known as
‘constructivism’.
• The learner, not the teacher determines what is
learnt.
• This points us towards a difficulty: The issue is for
the teacher to help students construct
understandings which are ‘progressively more
mature and congruent with accepted thinking.
(Biggs, 1996).

18. Jennifer Moon
• Assessment DRIVES learning.
• What makes a ‘good learner’?
• What makes a ‘poor learner’?
• ‘Deep’ versus ‘Surface’ approaches
to learning.
• Read from para 4 on page 117.

19. Fisher on Post 16 Education
• Concerns about the A-level system, introduced in
1951, led to the Curriculum 2000 reforms.
• Intended to tackle the lack of breadth in post-16
studies, and that students were being required to
specialise too early.
• Replaced 2 year A-level with six module courses.
• A-levels had long been considered the ‘gold
standard’ of courses.

20. Teachers were critical of Curriculum
2000:
• Hargreaves (2001) – A climate of ‘cramming’.
• Hodgson & Spours (2005)Courses were rushed
with more didactic teaching and less scope for
practical work.
• Subjects had become more concerned with
‘Spoon feeding’ and passing exams than about
genuine engagement with the subject.

21. Fisher (2007: 109)
• Head of History 1 (AS Level):
• “I’m not sure it’s challenging. And I feel
it’s just exhausting students, and a bit
boring. It’s not very exciting. It’s about,
it’s not about learning, it’s about passing
the exam”.

22. Fisher (2007:109) Furthermore…
• Head of History 1:
• “Learn it, forget it… the old A Level was
more kind of liberal, open, exploratory.
You had time to make mistakes and time
to explore issues. Now you’ve got this
tight schedule”

23. So… What should students be taught?
• Santome:
• Page 68: Table 5.1 Misguided Curricular
Interventions.
• Page 68 Table 5.2 School Culture.
• Group tasks 1 – 9.

24. Conclusions
• Historically, knowledge has developed institutionally, and
with this acceptable technologies of ‘knowing’ (Foucault) and
authority.
• The needs of the information society have forced societies to
re-evaluate what counts as ‘knowledge’.
• Some institutions are continuing to use ‘old vehicles’ to with
new ‘occupants’, however these occupants are regularly
replaced (‘shifted’). This can lead to responses of ‘post-
modern’ nihilism.
• Is there any intrinsic worth in knowledge anymore? Or are we
reduced to nihilistically and pragmatically ‘playing the
education game?’
• Is the alternative to let go of the bad milk….?