Prep. for 5 December

As I mentioned when I met you briefly yesterday, there are some things you might find it useful to look at for next week:

• What has this got to do with curriculum?

• I know we are not about schools, but try to read chapter 1 of Illich's polemic if you can; it's an interesting argument...

• From a similar stable, Friere is almost unreadable, but this page is a good introduction, from a brilliant site (and see below*)

• These people are talking about transformative rather than simply informative learning. 

• You may conceivably be interested (although it is unlikely!) in this paper, which touches on the argument from another side--some consequences of the banking model and the constraints we talked about on 21 November.

• ...which touches in turn on to Anna Sfard's two metaphors for learning.

• and from a different angle, related to the Becker article I mentioned last week, look at this page on situated learning, just as a reminder, because we did mention it very briefly in Unit 2. Do follow the link to the Infed page on this, too, for more detail.

Which sort of comes full circle to the first bullet point.

That's probably more than enough to be going on with, but please come with your questions and ideas arising from your reading for the next session, and we'll see where the discussion takes us... (Saying which is begging** some questions about the nature of the curriculum, of course.)

(PS --and also relevant is this excellent tirade by Frank Furedi in today's Times Higher Education, which I think I shall link to from my more moderate pages here and here.)

(PPS --possibly of some interest in relation to the diversity and distinctive needs component of this unit, an interesting NYT piece on employing people on the autistic spectrum. It only touches in passing on the issue of how they may best be helped to learn, but that is the kind of question you may want to address in the groupwork.)

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Friere and the "Banking Model" of education; the page I linked to does not spell out the characteristics of the banking model in detail, but Friere himself sets them out thus:

•  the teacher teaches and the students are taught; 
• the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing; 
• the teacher thinks and the students are thought about; 
• the teacher talks and the students listen - meekly; 
• the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined; 
• the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply; 
• the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher; 
• the teacher chooses the programme content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it; 
• the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his own professional authority, which he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students; 
•  the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects. 

(Paulo Freire, 1970, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 59.) 

** Yes, it is "begging" the question, not merely "raising" or "posing" it--it's a nice point of usage.

Resuming for Unit 5: 21 November

(Sorry about the date error in the heading, earlier)

Welcome back to the blog, which I have re-activated for Unit 5.

It was a useful conversation last Wednesday, which threw up various ideas, and arising out of which I have come up with a provisional schedule (which I have amended to get the dates right [I think], following this afternoon's discussions);

We'll assume that outcome 5.1--Understand the range of contexts in which education and training are offered in the lifelong learning sector has already been addressed.

21 November

2—4     What is “curriculum”?

• 5.2—Understand theories, principles and models of curriculum design and implementation and their impact on teaching and learning
• 5.6—Critically evaluate the rhetoric of curriculum discussion.

4.30—6.30    Models of curriculum: Academic/vocational, Mastery/developmental,

(28 November) Wind up Unit 6

5 December

2—4     Situated learning, Critical pedagogy, top-down/bottom-up etc. Devising curricula; values, stakeholders, influences, stages

4.30—6.30    Devising curricula exercise;  Evaluating curricula—Brookfield’s lenses; Gibbs

• 5.4—Understand and demonstrate how to apply theories, principles and models to curriculum development and practice.

16 January

2—4     Current issues and debates about curriculum

4.30—6.30    Set up Group working

• 5.3--Understand the significance of equality and diversity for curriculum design, and take opportunities to promote equality within practice.
• 5.5—Understand  how to evaluate and improve own practice in inclusive curriculum design and development
• 5.8—Further develop skills in collaborative working…
• 5.9—… and contributing to the learning of colleagues

23 January

2—4     The social experience of the learning group; helping and hindering; group processes and development; roles and labelling

4.30—6.30    Group working

30 January

2—4     Loose ends/assessment guidance

4.30—6.30    Group working

6 February

2—4     Presentations 1

4.30—6.30    Presentations 2

Note  5.7—Further develop skills in addressing outcomes at the appropriate academic level  will follow from the preparation of the submission.

Some of you couldn't make the session today so I'll try to fill in some of the points from the discussion.

We started with the critical question: What is the "curriculum"? Some of you raised the question of whether it makes sense to talk about "curriculum" in general terms. Indeed, the term is used in so many ways that it is confusing to list the possible definitions. (See Neary, 2002 if you want to know more.)

We tried to get at some of the issues by looking at the concrete elements which may or many not be components of the curriculum; items were scored as 1: definitely not, to 5 definitely is part of the curriculum; the results have been re-ordered to reflect the scores from the group:

		Score	Order
1.	Syllabus	26	1
14.	Assessment strategy	23	2
3.	Marking scheme	21	3
5.	Educational technology	19	=4
11.	Scheduling of sessions	19	=4
10.	Lesson plans	17	6
7.	Late submission policy	16	=7
12.	Behaviour policy	16	=7
2.	Calendar	15	9
6.	Comfort breaks	12	=10
9.	Uniform	12	=10
13.	Library facilities	11	12
8.	Sports team mascot	10	13
4.	Seating plan	8	14
15.	Car parking	7	15

As we discussed the specifics it became apparent that the boundary of the "curriculum" is fuzzy and contestable. (Of course it also contestable how useful the term itself is, if it can mean so many things...)

Elements such as the syllabus (content), the assessment regime, and possibly practice (either on placement or in ordinary work) are clearly central. Many other elements are often left to administrative convenience, such as scheduling/timetabling, room layout and available technology, but they do impact on the learning experience, and so they may be brought into the designed curriculum.

• Some practical sessions need to be scheduled for solid blocks, so that skills can be developed,

• whereas other more academic sessions work best on a "drip, drip" basis, allowing for reading or research between classes

• The seating plan says a lot about the expectations of how students will participate and interact,

• and the available technology changes the manner of teaching.

The curriculum then becomes anything which affects the students' learning. Sometimes it is hidden, and sometimes unintentional, even to the extent of being counter-productive.

So the in vocational education curriculum sits between the real-world requirements of a job, and the detailed implementation of training, we'll probably look at how all this gets negotiated, later;

(Note that when we next meet we'll explore some of the complications and limitations of this model.)

There is an overview of some of the things we talked about in the second half on my site:

• There are a couple of clips from the "Simple Minds" video here (we'll look at threshold concepts again later)

• The distinctions of approaches to curriculum can be found here.

Pupils tailoring their responses to what they think the teacher wants to hear are discussed in Holt J (1969) How Chidren Fail London; Penguin.

I gave out copies of the Saber-tooth Curriculum, which we may look at next time (or not).

And you might find it helpful to read "School is a lousy place to learn anything in" for our next meeting.

The Ken Robinson talk on changing educational paradigms is here:

Here is the source of my objective, that you would be "confused at a higher level than before".

Incidentally, given that we may well be looking at some forms of neurodiversity later on, you might be interested in this and this on what it is like to have Asperger's.

See you on 5 December.