Search results for "learning "
Academia vs Practice
Wednesday, 13 January, 2010 - 22:28
A thought experiment around practice-led research in academia.
A practice-led PhD is normally assessed on a body of evidence which consists of an artefact - the product of the 'practice' in question - accompanied by an extended piece of writing in which the questions, world-views, investigative approaches and methods, disciplinary concerns and interim self-diagnoses are made explicit. So for example we might see paired materials such as: a piece of sculpture, accompanied by an articulation of the traditions within and against which the process of making the object has worked; a film, along with an essay exploring the disciplinary innovations and concessions that were revealed in its making; a networked set of documents, and some accompanying long-form text drawing attention to the conventions of mediation and aesthetics which are either challenged and rejected or accepted and extended in the pursuit of innovation in the production of such works.
So I wonder aloud what would such a submission look like if my practice were poetry? I write some words (in the form of poetry) and I write another set of words (in the form of academic explication). On the surface, it might seem that an assessment of the value of either of these sets of words is dependent upon the other. So, it is not enough to write poetry: in order to be judged expert enough for doctoral status you must translate the importance of your poetic output into academic language - the purpose of which is of course to ensure that you can articulate in a suitably neutral language what your non-neutral, poetic language has achieved. But note that the reverse is not the case: one may be recognised as doctorally qualified, wholly on the basis of an academically articulated thesis. Thus the primacy of academic language is established.
This primacy is predicated upon a number of assumptions:
- that academic language is neutral enough that audiences from disparate fields of expertise, and less expert in relevant fields than the author of such texts, can understand it
- that perseverant newcomers might interpret and understand academic texts without being expert in the areas of practice with which those texts are concerned
- that academic language is thus independent of the practices which it claims to be adequate to describe and analyse
- that therefore expertise in practices can be translated into neutral language and thus be encompassed by non-experts in the fields of such practice
I hope that the logical sequence as I have described it here demonstrates well enough the shortcomings in such assumptions. Certainly, if, like me, you are persuaded by the Latourian and/or Deleuzian notion that translation is transformation and production, then you will quickly concede that neutral articulations which permit mediation between two discrete fields of practice without distortion, problematisation and transmogrification are impossible and illusory. If you are not persuaded, then at least consider the possibility that academic language, rather like the poetic language produced by practice, has no claim to being anything other than a genre of writing, any more than other accepted genres such as journalism, prose fiction or drama. Academic writing is a non-neutral genre of language, constituted by a set of arbitrary conventions, no less than drama is convened through dialogue and performance, prose fiction is enacted through narratorially organised text, and journalism is constructed through the signs of format, voice and a reference to some convenient form of accepted reality.
All of which is to say that the requirements of the practice-led researcher are currently that they must make explicit in academic language what is implicit in their practice; and yet those who are not educated or indoctrinated into the conventions of academia are no more able to comprehend what is supposed to have been made explicit in that academic account, any more than competent academics with no expertise or experience in poetry might be expected to uncover the implicit value in poetic discourse. Another way of stating this is to say that if it is necessary to translate the implicit innovation and disciplinary excellence in poetry into academic language in order for it to be made explicit to a wider community of interest, there is no less need for the excellence implicit in academic language to be made explicit in yet another (meta-generic?) language for the benefit of a wider community of lay people. Indeed the irony here is perhaps that a wide community of lay audiences might be equally competent to grasp and appreciate the practical outputs and artefacts of practice-led research (if not more adequately equipped by virtue of the disinterested yet loving enthusiasm of the amateur) as is the proponent of academic discourse. This becomes especially true when one considers that the academic's livelihood increasingly depends upon a specialisation which moves ever further away from easy access by a lay audience, and further into obscurity and jargon.
At the risk of repetition I'll restate this once again: the notion that innovation and discovery in practice must be re-articulated in academic language, as though that academic language is an adequate meta-language for the communication of such innovations and discoveries, is no more or less true than the notion that academic language must be re-articulated in a third language, accessible to lay (or other) audiences who are not academics. The constant striving to establish the academic norms of language and writing over other forms is simply the will to power of the academic institution as a necessity in the social order. Excellence and sensitivity in the domains of practices can be achieved without recourse to academia.
Academic experience is not a necessity for excellence in the practices I pursue. There. I said it. It is a watershed for me, personally. I rather wish I had discovered this (in hindsight, rather obvious) truism a good deal earlier.
Communities of Practice: intersections between learning, fan-fiction and the institution
Friday, 27 March, 2009 - 10:38
Yesterday I was in two unrelated seminars which struck me as having interesting resonances with each other. The first was a Learning & Teaching seminar I led about Communities of Practice and the challenges of pursuing a 'participatory pedagogy' in the constraints of an institution. The second was led by Richard Berger and Bronwen Thomas in the Narratives Research Group, who both talked about fan fiction and slash fic.
In the first seminar which I was leading, one of the I was key ideas I was trying to articulate was the issue of domains of knowledge: academics work within specific disciplines and subject areas; common sense tells us that those disciplines and subject areas are generally stable and fixed; and students expect teachers to act as gatekeepers or transmitters of that body of knowledge. In Situated Learning (1991), Lave and Wenger suggest moving away from a conventional understanding of such bodies of knowledge as stable and external, objective entities which can be transmitted unmodified from tutor to pupil; instead they suggest thinking about disciplines and the engagement with them by a scholarly community as a set of socially reproduced practices. Disciplines are continually constituted by the practices which communities engage in: reading, interpreting, discussing, participating, negotiating and renegotiating. Far from having a constant and fixed set of axioms which teachers repeat to students until the students have learned them, rather, the social practices of academic life are continually transforming the individual and intersubjective meanings that participants construct.
In the second seminar, Richard presented a historical overview of fan fiction, noting the features of intertextuality, variation, and the evolving nature of the participants; Bronwen conducted a "bottom-up" analysis of some of the activities and conventions which characterised the online fan fiction communities. Popular source texts become the site for participatory adaptations; the tensions between the 'authentic' text - that produced by the original author - and the variations produced by the fan community, are resolved in myriad ways: in some cases through legal means (copyright holders try to close such communities down), but more often through mechanisms which start to look much more like master / journeyman / apprentice relationships. New fan fiction authors contribute their efforts, get feedback, rework and improve their work, and in the process of doing so, become recognised and increasingly 'senior' members of the community. Mechanisms are evolved for deciding what is permitted - i.e. what variations are allowed to to be included, and what contraventions of the source 'storyworlds' are proscribed. Original authors (such as Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy) often give their blessing to these communities and sometimes even allow the 'authorised versions' of their work to respond reflexively to new variations in the ever-evolving fan canon - or what Jenkins call the 'fanon'.
In both of these domains there are some crucial features: the notion of canonicity (whether in terms of a clearly defined academic discipline, or in terms of a source text or storyworld) and the participatory practices and conventions which characterise the continual reproduction of that canon.
So, participation, and the learning and adoption of the norms of the community, generate the necessary social capital for participants to become trusted members of the community of practice. It would be interesting to see what sorts of commonalities and differences emerge in comparisons between the two different domains: do fanfic journeymen and masters have to be good at writing fanfic themselves, or can they acquire their position of trust through expert knowledge of the canon, or through the continually respectful and constructive writing of feedback? May academics rely on their past achievements of qualification or recognition, or must they continually reinforce and reproduce their status through continuous participation?
What seems more problematic, though, is how the respective canons in each of the domains are viewed. Lave and Wenger note that a community of practice is characterised by the often antagonistic processes of participation and reification. One might understand the pressure to maintain the integrity of the 'authentic' canon in the face of variations produced by fans as a contest between reification and participation - indeed L&W note that there is inevitably a competitive tension between long-standing members (refered to as 'old-timers') and the newcomers; the latter are destined ultimately to replace the former. Hence the 'old-timers' seek to maintain the integrity of the body of work they have striven towards, while newcomers exert an evolutionary pressure on that work which inevitably undergoes transformation and contestation.
In academia, however, I sense that the reverse is often the case: newcomers in the form of students, raised in the behaviourist hot-house of secondary schooling, and forced to commit to large investment and future debts, are resistant to the idea that academic disciplines might be reflexive, unstable, and more importantly, open to modification and reconstruction by their inexpert selves. Indeed, why would they be asked to pay such a lot of money for 'tuition' fees when 'tuition' is not the necessarily the high-road to the valuable commodity of knowledge? They expect lecturers to transmit considerable quantities of information and distrust the idea that they might learn as much from each other as they might learn from an academic expert. Those same lecturers themselves recognise the pedagogy of situated learning and actively encourage students to question and challenge the handed-down-ness of academic authority, being fully aware of the constructedness of their own expertise and of the discipline as a whole. Meanwhile, the institution itself imposes upon those teachers and students yet more behaviourist assumptions and structures. These take the form of VLEs into which tutor-created resources are fed for students to consume, the minimisation of social and embodied tutor/learner contact in favour of income-generating activities, and locking up contemporary knowledge advancement in the closed-access academic publishing industry which in turn perpetuates itself by persuading scholars that they must lock their knowledge up in the pages of their journals in order to acquire 'esteem'.
Lave & Wenger's model of situated learning makes clear that learning transforms not only the learner but also the subject to be learned. It seems ironic then, that this profoundly liberating and politically significant insight is often lost on learners and ignored by learning institutions.
On blogging
Thursday, 12 February, 2009 - 16:39
I was recently invited to say a few brief words about the value of blogging. The event was a conference of uni staff who are taking part in a 'research-enhancement' programme of activities with a view to developing their research careers.
Not that I know much about research careers - I have cunningly managed to avoid disturbing anyone at the uni who keeps track of people's research activity. No journal papers, no conference papers, nothing that carries any esteem indicators whatsoever. I earn no esteem.
But anyway, I do write a blog, but more importantly have used blogging in teaching for four years now, so did have a couple of things to say about it. We ask students to start a blog when they begin the course, though we don't make it compulsory via assessment. I think it is important to make things elective, since incentivisation usually encourages instrumentality. (And only a cynic would note that this is the story of HE generally...)
Since the blogs aren't compulsory, you quickly find that the 'participation pyramid' (the imbalance between contributors and lurkers) which we see on sites like Wikipedia also characterises student participation. I increasingly think it is important to accept and allow such inequalities in uptake. By making things compulsory you infantilise the activities and the participants, and so those who would have contributed anyway get less benefit (who benefits from being infantilised?) and those who are compelled to join in do so in a tokenistic way. Ultimately, we want to encourage responsibility and independence, and micro-managing everyone's participation in various activities undermines that very aim.
Those who do participate voluntarily go on to experience many of the useful outcomes of writing in public. Of course, sometimes the writing is a whinging stream of consciousness, but actually this is a tiny part of it. More often, students write about the progress of their group work, or they articulate their desire to be better organised; sometimes they mull over the consequences of postmodern thought on their own dearly-held beliefs. I have read students link their own ideas to the Zapatistas, or share design ideas with clients. They write commentaries on oddities they have found in the wilds of the web, or they talk about the distresses and calamities of everyday life in eloquent ways. The range of subjects are fantastically kaleidoscopic, and it is, dare I say it, a little patronising to suggest it is simply an opportunity to whinge.
Just the act of writing (and especially in public) has many meta-cognitive benefits. Formless ideas are given form through writing. Feelings find expression. Thoughts which struggle to make sense become more sensible when we force ourselves to interpret them through language. There is something transformative and risky about writing ideas down and sharing them with others.
Jeremy Crampton, a Foucault scholar who keeps a blog, writes about Levy Bryant, a philosopher and author, and his blog, Larval Subjects, a blog I enjoy hugely. These thoughts capture the relationship between articulation and actualisation.
Larval subjects. Larvae are creatures in a process of becoming or development that have not yet actualized themselves in a specific form. This space is a space for the incubation of philosophical larvae that are yet without determinate positions or commitments but which are in a process of unfolding.
Larval Subjects
This captures the spirit of not knowing where you're going when you set out, a kind of lostness. [...] But there is something experimental to blogging, as a technology of the self. recall Foucault's comments about the pointlessness of writing a book if you already know what you're going to say.
Foucault Blog
Writing moves our ideas along, and develops them, determines and exposes their form and offers the potential for them to be further shaped and worked. This is true even if you write your diary in an underground cave, burn it and lock the ashes in an iron vault which you sink in an abyss (or write it in Blackboard). It is even more true if you do it in the open, out in the wild, and use the writing of your ideas to send out taproots seeking out people with similar interests, who can respond to you constructively, or people who couldn't disagree more, who will tell you exactly why your ideas stink. It is the ultimate in peer-review.
The objection raised to this is often that you shouldn't write about your research publicly in a blog because people will steal ideas from you, or you'll struggle to publish it in a journal later because it will already be in the public domain. I think both of these objections highlight the two main things that are wrong with academia. There are no ideas that can't be improved by being exposed to criticism, and the desperate need to retain ownership and exclusivity over ideas is, it seems to me, antithetical to the premise of education.
So, in the 30-or-so seconds I spoke at the mini-conference, I didn't manage to say quite all of those things, but those are the things I meant.
Win?
Thursday, 04 December, 2008 - 08:53
I have been given the Bournemouth University Award for Oustanding Contribution to Student Learning, alongside another 31 members of staff. It comes with the benefit of a cheque, but also the cost of receiving undeserved reward for my work.
I see it as undeserved since I have colleagues who are pushing further and doing better with the kinds of thing I was recognised for. On the other hand, the cheque does at least scrape the surface of the huge amount of unpaid overtime I put in. It's unfortunate that everyone else who puts in the extra effort can't also be recognised and remunerated. Even then, the cheque equates to about two weeks' pay. I do more overtime than that every single term.
And there is also the string, that in the new year I'll be expected to deliver learning and teaching seminars about why I got the award. The sad truth is that all I can really say is that the university's policies and efficiency drives all impact negatively on the potential for student learning, and that being engaged and trying to innovate costs a lot of time and effort, often for little reward and sometimes even attracts student resentment. Is that what they want to hear in a seminar on learning and teaching from an 'outstanding contributor to student learning' I wonder?
Broken university
Thursday, 01 May, 2008 - 17:49
I have a lot of other stuff to write about, and I will get around to it. In the meantime, I just want to note an observation which occurred to me recently. A moment of realisation.
I've been delving into writing code for collective intelligence, and as I worked through some of the intellectual ideas behind the various algorithms and principles, it occurred to me that universities are exactly the sorts of place where collective intelligence does not emerge.
Despite the fact that universities form a hub and focus for people who value intelligence, and sometimes, even creative thinking, actually the entire tertiary education system is set up to discourage collectivity, and incentivise secrecy and competition.
Universities do not exist for the benefit of learners, they exist for the benefit of researchers. Reward systems recognise research and publication, exercises which demand 'originality' and 'novelty' - which discourage people from sharing their ideas - and scarcely notice pedagogy. Researchers talk more about whose ideas are whose rather than what those ideas are.
The minor army of people who are there because they want to help people to learn are invisible, unrecognised, overlooked, ignored, tolerated. How have we managed to have such broken universities?
Old audiences, new producers
Wednesday, 21 February, 2007 - 15:25
MA Radio Production Seminar, Bournemouth Media School, 12 Feb 2007: Old audiences, new producers
In a time of hypermediacy, in which forms and genres are in flux, and experiments can happen, it's worth considering, what is radio, what is sound, what is art, and what is / might be the intersection? What happens when you hand your schedule over to the wisdom of the crowd? What are the people we used to call the audience now making and doing? What is the difference between amateur and professional? Here are some links to get you thinking...
- Let them sing it for you
- Sound Art at Wikipedia
- Soundseeing at AudioCollective
- Own [Sound] Art Podcast
- Learn on the go podcasts
- Open Culture Podcast directory
- Podcast Directory Genre List
- Silence Radio
- Podcasting resources
- UBUWEB sound archive
- Martin Luther King at Jewish Journal
- RSS feed for most popular mp3s at delicious
- Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything
Our last session is on Monday 26th, and it would be great to know what things you'd like to know how to do. Post a comment below for suggestions :)
Hypermediate Radio, part 2
Monday, 29 January, 2007 - 15:06
MA Radio Production Seminar, Bournemouth Media School, 29 Jan 2007: Hypermediate Radio, Part 2
Again, unedited rushes of the second part of our seminar - remix, re-use, re-mash, redistribute, re-purpose, re-send...
Show notes:
Direct Download for MA Radio Production Seminar podcast part 2 mp3
Hypermediate Radio, part 1
Monday, 29 January, 2007 - 14:55
MA Radio Production Seminar, Bournemouth Media School, 29 Jan 2007: Hypermediate Radio, Part 1
Here's the recording of the first half of our seminar. Unedited rushes... feel free to remix, re-edit and re-purpose, and post back what you made if you like :)
Show notes:
- Hex the Dex
- Radio Free Calamity
- Creative Commons
- Creative Archive
- Art Mobs
- Mashups
- History of podcasting
- RSS & Syndication
Direct Download for MA Radio Production Seminar podcast part 1 mp3
Reflective pedagogic practice
Tuesday, 10 October, 2006 - 21:53
...is a big way of saying that it pays to stand back and think about what you're doing when you're teaching - or more properly - creating environments in which people learn.
I recently started as tutor on a brand new MA course at BMS, which is delivered entirely online. The course is work-based, so the students are all professionals in their field, using their professional practice as a vehicle for reflection, learning and development.
Since everything happens online, I've been thinking quite hard about how to approach it. Normally when I'm in a forum, I can be quite argumentative and provocative, and I particularly like trolling people for reactions. Yes, I know, I'm a child. When I read /. I go for the funny comments, by and large.
However, as a tutor in an online environment, I'm trying very hard to hold back, so I don't end up dominating conversation, or closing off conversations with statements that mark closure rather than aperture. Poor me, having to engage in rational-critical discourse, eh? Which of course makes me wonder whether I oughtn't to do that in the other online environments I visit...
In f2f teaching, I found it fairly easy to develop a practice of balancing tutor-led activity with creating spaces in which learners can argue, conjecture, discuss and explore - but of course a lot of that is mediated by body-language, tone of voice, and physical presences.
More significantly, though, it has made me think hard about how and why I write at all. For me writing is transformative, because it is often how I actualise my understanding of something. Putting something into words changes it from a nebulous idea to a concrete perspective, even if the perspective is subject to constant shift thereafter. Hence I realise my writing style has become very positive, statement-based and argument-driven.
So, all in all, I guess standing back and forcing myself to be more reflective is probably, um, a good thing. No, hang on, that's not right: is it not a good thing that I am standing back and forcing myself to be more reflective? Mmmm, maybe need more work on that :)
Blackboard can...
Wednesday, 02 August, 2006 - 20:39
...suck my balls.
Blackboard has just been awarded a patent on educational groupware.
I used Blackboard in the last place I worked, and it sucks balls badly. Nasty interface, clunky functionality, seemingly designed to make otherwise intelligent people despise computers and feel stupid. Employs a 'closed garden' model in which educators have to enrol you onto their courses in order for you to access material. The opposite of open learning. My current employer is also panning to move to it.
Stephen Downes provide a great roundup of critical reactions to the decision.
I'm particularly arsed off about it because I'm currently building some modules to provide 'educational groupware' functionality. My guiding principle throughout development is: whatever Blackboard does, do something else because Blackboard blows. Now, it's also evil.
Here's my favourite slashdot comment on the subject :)
Blackboard can suck my balls.
Solar simulation
Saturday, 08 October, 2005 - 18:44
Well it's been a pretty hectic couple of weeks, what with the start of term and all.
I have, however, managed to launch a pet project I have been developing for a while, which is a 3D simulation of the solar system. The idea is to explore using interactive simulations or tools for learning.
At the moment, the simulation has only basic interactivity, but in time I expect to add in info about the solar system, and interactive responses to actions such as altering the planet size, spin speed and oribtal period.
It's both an experiment in interaction design, and an expression of my nerdy enjoyment of space science and Lingo programming :)
3D Solar System simulation
Science week part 8
Final podcast from the OU Practising Science residential school, wherein the author returns, exhausted, to the real world, head full of rigourous knowledge found through well-established methodologies.
Science week part 8 podcast mp3
Science week part 7
The end of the last full day, and the world is full of decay...
Science week part 7 podcast mp3
Science week part 6
Thursday, 21 July, 2005 - 08:24
Biology and Titan day. In Life Sciences we looked at mitosis and the effect of radiation on chromosomes, and then I went to a seminar about the latest data from Titan...
Science week part 6 podcast mp3
Science week part 5
Wednesday, 20 July, 2005 - 18:55
Last night was karaoke night at the OU residential school. Fortunately I was spared the humiliation of singing, but one of the girls in my tutor group has was fantastic, so you can hear Faye sing...
I'm not very with it in this podcast ;)
Science week part five podcast mp3
Science week part 4
Tuesday, 19 July, 2005 - 17:13
Group research project today and a very brief post and podcast :)
Science week part four podcast mp3
Science week part 3
Today was field trip day - a trip to Birling Gap and Newhaven on the south coast, to study the geology and ecology of the area and their relationship to each other.
Fantastic day if long and tiring... But really good experience of acquiring raw data and using it.
We looked at the geology of the chalk cliffs, the flint seams and the other rocks and soils at the top, and figured out what they tell us about the history of the area. We also examined the kinds of vegetation on the cliff-tops and figured out how the geological history has shaped the kind of plant life that exists now.
Almost too shattered to speak...
Science week part three podcast mp3
Science week part 2
Wow. Today was chemistry day. We put samples of metal salts into a bunsen burner flame and compared the colours of the flames. Then we did spectroscopy to get a more precise measurement of the different metals' spectral fingerprint. Once you can do this, you can tell what distant stars are made of. How cool.
Then we mixed up different reagents into metal nitrates, and saw which ones produced precipitate and how they changed colour. Then went on to use these techniques to assess the amount of aluminium present in drinking water. Hands-on practical stuff.
Chemistry was always my least favourite part of scince at school, but the stuff we did today was really engaging. The activities are brilliantly constructed and prepared, and the tutors are great.
Tomorrow we do the field trip on the South coast. Early start...
Connecting via mobile is WAY expensive, so sod that, I'm off to find some free wifi hot-spots in town :)
BTW - thanks to 5511 5305 in Brighton whoever you are for letting me stowaway on your broadband wireless!!
Science week part two podcast mp3
Science week part 1
Saturday, 16 July, 2005 - 23:50
This is the first of a week of podcasts from my science practise residential school with the Open University.
I've come to the University of Sussex at Lewes near Brighton, UK. The course is SXR103 Practising Science. I'm going to use these podcasts to keep notes of what we do, and see where using podcasting as a learning support will take me.
The first thing I've learnt is that while Sussex Uni doesn't have wireless internet access, I can use my mobile to connect to the internet!!! So these podcasts will be short and sweet, cos its slow and expensive :(
Science week part one podcast mp3
Podcasting and online learning
I've been thinking about how podcasting can add a new dimension to the learning experience, especially in the realm of distance/online learning. Some quotes and highlights from an online article published by the Univeristy of Illinois:
"Audio blogs can add an element of humanisation to an online course through voice. by way of diction, word stress and inflection, one gains a richer understanding of the enthusiasm or passion of the speaker... Some stories are told better orally than with text alone."
In summary...
- Great for students who have an auditory preference.
- Great for students with visual disabilities.
- Great for learning in the car - portable professional development which completely knocks the balls off "Learn French in 22 separate tapes which you have to rewind and forward wind without any fun element or personality at all".
- Great for totally up to date info. Online courses are generally written months in advance. They can't capture what's going on right now and relate today's news with learning. "Contemporizing course content" means that the learner is more likely "forge a more memorable bond with the content"
