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Reinventing higher education for a networked age Graham Jeffery Reader, School of Creative and Cultural Industries

Reinventing higher education for a networked age

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Presentation for the UWS learning and teaching conference given on 23rd June 2011. For some notes and thoughts as a follow up to this, please visit http://generalpraxis.blogspot.com

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Page 1: Reinventing higher education for a networked age

Reinventing higher education for a networked age

Graham JefferyReader, School of Creative and

Cultural Industries

Page 2: Reinventing higher education for a networked age

different metaphors/histories of the university

Cloister/ walled garden/retreat? Community of scholars? Repository of knowledge? Liberal arts curriculum with roots in Classical civilization

Page 3: Reinventing higher education for a networked age

higher education after the industrial revolution

University as knowledge/skills producer for an industrial economy?

e.g. Strathclyde motto: “Useful knowledge”

19th C industrial/vocational/utilitarian tradition

Public service/private industry: contested terrain

Page 4: Reinventing higher education for a networked age

vocationalism and critical thinking

Functional metaphors of higher education: university as factory, university as technopole, university as training provider

large knowledge factories produce alienated subjects – ‘rehumanisation’ needed?

Page 5: Reinventing higher education for a networked age

the rise and rise of mass higher education

technical colleges reinvented as universities

the ‘polyversity’?ever widening range of

demands – teaching, research, business/community engagement, knowledge exchange

the ‘popular university’?

Page 6: Reinventing higher education for a networked age

University as ‘validation machine’Certification, validation,

assessmentTension between propositional

knowledge and procedural knowledge (“know what” and “know how”)

Knowledge is contested, multidimensional, situated, dynamic

Students want ‘degrees with value’

Universities as places to codify, classify and sort knowledge: the authority to award degrees

Page 7: Reinventing higher education for a networked age

models of pedagogybeyond provider-consumer

relationshipsindustrial/factory metaphors and

functional thinking – but the growth of ‘network enterprise’ supersedes a production line model: multidisciplinary teams in workplaces and communities

student as producerhow is knowledge generated?

How does innovation work? How do we need to adapt?

creativity as guiding metaphor for 21st century learning

Page 8: Reinventing higher education for a networked age

The informational university

Information systems and knowledge management

Procedures to manage large scale educational systems across multiple sites – efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, feedback

Functional thinking and metaphorical thinking

The risks of being risk averse and wasting time – questions of professional judgement and responsiveness

Need to encourage sharing and open-ness: making space for innovation/experiment and promoting ‘quality’

(Hornsey College of Art, 1968)

Page 9: Reinventing higher education for a networked age

2011: the networked university?

Increasingly porous institutions

Enabling collaboration? Interdisciplinary problem-

solving should be a major theme given interconnected challenges for societies/communities/businesses

Page 10: Reinventing higher education for a networked age

Re-imagining the universityBuilding exchange between communities

of practice inside/outside the organisation

Developing tools to work in transdisciplinary ways: tensions between ‘deep subject knowledge’ and applied knowledge?

Bringing fields of study together in innovative ways? Who decides? What are the risks/constraints?

RESOURCING collaboration and partnership: technologies are part of the answer but not the whole answer

Page 11: Reinventing higher education for a networked age

time. space. resources.physical infrastructure

(buildings, resources)

human infrastructure (networks, communities,

groups)

digital infrastructure(web, media, platforms)

…how this is designed at the level of modules, programmes, schools etc creates ‘learning architecture’…

Page 12: Reinventing higher education for a networked age

where does learning take place?

What is a campus for?Where is ‘the classroom’?How do we access learning?

How do we learn?Where is ‘the university’

anyway?How do students and staff

access and experience our “learning communities”?

Page 13: Reinventing higher education for a networked age

the relational university?‘Quality’ in education boils

down to the quality of relationships between members of the learning community:

– trust, confidence, support, communication, good systems, good resources, good use of time.

Relational forms of knowledge construction (Bernstein, Illich, etc.)

Return to ethical questions about purpose/value

Page 14: Reinventing higher education for a networked age

www.twitter.com/UWScreative

uwscreative.wordpress.com

www.uwsmediaacademy.com

generalpraxis.blogspot.com