Upload
corey-boyd
View
215
Download
0
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Thoughts on curriculum reformthe contribution of pedagogical research
Dr. Laura Colucci-Gray
School of Education
17 April 2008
(picture by Neil and Liz Curtis – presentation to the steering group, January 2008))
What do we see?
The nature of knowledge
We need to reflect on
• the role that graduates play in the current global society
• how we know within the University
• the role and purposes of education within the academic
institution.
Current issues
• A tension exists between humanitarian concerns versus utilitarian,
pragmatic concerns: enhancing the individual or providing skills for
performing specific activities (i.e. jobs)?
• A challenge exists for building new bridges between University and
Society which can create new avenues for human life.
• A need for a reflection of how we produce knowledge…
… considering the values underpinning and shaping the
what and the how of our university…
Students’ beliefs of science and knowledge
• Evidence from many studies suggests that students hold
naïve views of science (objective, neutral, certain, fixed)
• and expert-dominated views of knowledge
School students, graduates (from all disciplines!) but
also teachers in school.
How are beliefs formed?
• Implicit curriculum: selection of content, assessment, teaching strategies,
epistemological posture of the teacher, learning environment, relationships
• the shortage of time and the amount of new data is such that scientific
knowledge is increasingly presented as the knowledge of ‘something’, rather
than a kind of knowledge which is socially constructed and negotiated.
Implications:
• increasingly specialised university education, with universities turning into
schools of transmission of consolidated knowledge.
• implicit divisions between who knows and who does not know, expert/non-
expert, perpetuated at all levels, from schools to society.
The role of the University within a knowledge enterprise in transformation
• Complex problems, fast changes, facts are disputed, values are in conflict,
decisions are urgent, responsibilities for all.
• Necessity to recover mutliple rationalities
• Involvement of the extended peer-community
New criteria for knowledge production:
• Recovering dialogue;
• Reconsidering how knowledge is validated and legitimated (this includes
looking at criteria for inclusion and participation).
From transmission to dialogue and breaking of the vicious cycle
• To revise the ways in which we teach (product
and process; interdisciplinarity, epistemic
awareness, awareness of time and space scales
etc…) but also
• To look at the nature and quality of the
relationships between teachers and students
AT4512 Material Culture and MuseumsEL40BL Frankenstein to Einstein: literature and science in the 19th century
To contextualize, both historically and epistemologically
Some ideas from interdisciplinary research
1. Give a title and explain the meaning of the vignette.
2. Make a list of Life Sciences subjects and issues you connect to the scene
Interpretation of a vignette
Some ideas from trans-disciplinary research pedagogy, language, biology, art, anthropology
IRIS at Aberdeen 2008
Description Interpretation / reflection
Opinion / Judgement
Two real life situations are illustrated: a fisherman while fishing, and a man buying some food at the supermarket
The vignette aims to explain the relationship between the activity of fishing and the production chain that leads to offer the same product on a supermarket shelf
The fisherman in a poor country while caching the fish that we then find in the supermarket. Economic power and multinationals control the process and become rich.
From fresh to freeze
North South inter-dependence
Your shopping bag can unbalance ecological
equilibriumTechnology influences human
activities at various scales
Some RESULTS:
a) a variety of views
Aberdeen 2008
Some RESULTS:
b) a variety of Life Science subjects
Food chain, food
conservation, micro-
organisms
Ecosystems, aquatic
environment
Energy flows and matter
cycling
Natural resources’
management and
consumption
++++++ ++++ ++ +
In the plenary session, the role of technology in opening
ecological boundaries was discussed
Aberdeen 2008
Some examples and possibilities for action
• Interdisciplinary dialogues between specialists (i.e. IRIS at Turin
University)
• Revisioning academic training (post-doctoral students, at Turin
University; Teacher training, at Turin University and Aberdeen
University)
• Valuing and legitimising pedagogical research
• Adopting some of the techniques derived from pedagogicla research
to undertake a form of self-training and reflection on one’s discipline
and one’s way of knowing.
“When we use a kaleidoscope, we can’t only focus on the beautiful configuration of colours and patterns, but we also need to consider the eye that is looking and the hand which is acting” (Ravetz, 1998).