Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
The curriculum as contested narrative
By Paul Prinsloo
Some see Service learning as…
In this paper, we will explore…
•The context of Service-learning.
• The curriculum as emerging narrative of/for the future.
• Learning as negotiating/negotiated narratives.
Different angles to Service-learning
Learning theories
• Experiental learning
• Situated cognition
• Apprenticeship learning
Higher education
• The ivory tower
• Applying theory to practice
• Community service
Market demands
• Skills
• Graduates should land on their feet
• Commercialisation
Government
• Skills shortages
• Through-put concerns
• Unemployed graduates
Students
• Need for work experience
• Unemployed graduates
• Un-prepared…
Seems like a good idea, but…
• How do you prevent Service-learning to be an add-on?
• Where do you find employer-partners for 14 000 Economics 101 students in an ODL institution?
• How do you prevent them becoming cheap labor?
• How do you address the high expectations – of the market, the students, the government, Higher education?
• At present there is very little in the curriculum of Economics 101 that students will be able to apply…
• Outstanding credits and the through-put rate – all dressed up and nowhere to go…
• Practice does not make perfect (Britzman)
• Requires a team approach to curriculum development – power-games
• If it does not carry any credits – why will they do it?
Feeling sheepish about Service-learning?
A possible way forward…
Learning as negotiating/ negotiated narratives
• Enactivism
• Participatory networks of learning
• Seven layers of engagement…
• Four ways of coming to know
The curriculum as emerging narrative of/ for the future
• Planning for impact
• Kellogg’s Model meet Activity theory
The curriculum as contested space…
The market• Skills.
• Performativity.
• Consumption.
• Neo-capitalism.
The government
• National imperatives.
• Agents of capital.
• The end of the welfare state.
The academy• The death of theory.
• The survival of the discipline.
• Certification.
• Standardisation.
• The market as master.
Actions
Problems
Contexts
Roles
Tools
Rules
Stakeholders
SelfPeers
Texts
IMPACT
…a transitional, emergent, temporal space in which learners have integrated, authentic, multidimensional learning-experiences. A curriculum results in the transformation of the individual and society.
A curriculum flows from, perpetuates and results in socioeconomic and political belief-systems and structures.
The curriculum as…
The curriculum as…
1. An occasioned, noisy agora.
2. A dynamic, interdependent and interrelated system within systems.
3. Multilayered and multi-dimensional spaces for engagement.
The curriculum as…
1. An occasioned, noisy agora
Learning cannot be caused but can be occasioned.
• Not all learning I plan for, will happen…
• Some of the learning I plan for may happen…
• There is also learning I did not plan for …
2. A dynamic, interdependent and interrelated system within systems
The group of learners as systems within a system within a system – interrelated, interdependent.
• Change in one…
• Different loci of control.
• Learners-in-relationships-in-contexts.
3. Multilayered and multidimensional, transitional space for engagement.
• Participative networks of learning in context.
• Not Moses coming from the mountain…
but as negotiated and negotiating narratives.
“coming to know” is the result of participative networks of action in which the identity of the learner and the environment co-emerge “in enactments of cognition.
(Varela, Thompson and Rosch 1991)
Dynamic ecologies of learning where…
Such a curriculum results in…
Enactivism in a nutshell
• The relationship between an entity and its surroundings.
• Within these dynamic relationships and interactions, ->autopoeisis.
• These continuous changes in the entity to stimulation from its surroundings = learning.
• Constant modification of the entity’s structure.
• The entity and its context continuously co-emerge.
Towards an ecology of learning…
Learner
Him or herself
Peers
Textsresources
Facilitatorsof
learning
CommunityInstitution
Discourse
Conceptual
Practical
Perceptual
Affective
Four ways of coming to know…
An ecology of learning…
Learner
Him or herself
Peers
Textsresources
Facilitatorsof
learning
CommunityInstitution
Discourse
Teaching as banking education
Educator
Learner
Aim: A fulfilled individual, e.g.Obedient civil servantsSkillful technicians
Manager’s story
Other manager’s stories
Academic concepts and theory
Negotiated narrative
Group learning
Negotiating/negotiated narratives
Adopted from Watson 2001:388)
An ecology of learning…
Learner
Him or herself
Peers
Textsresources
Facilitatorsof
learning
CommunityInstitution
Discourse
Paul Prinsloo
Institute for Curriculum and Learning Development (ICLD)
TVW 04-069, Unisa
+27 12 429 3683
+27 82 3954 113
Thank you.
