As I said at the end of the session, most of the material on groups is covered on the site. The page with links to all the others is:
In relation to inclusivity and practice, the dominant liberal Western assumption is that you should not discriminate against people for anything they "can't help"*. In the jargon, that means their "basic roles": the link is to a page on Banton's venerable but still useful angle on this.
I've tried to address some of the underlying principles and issues here.
We talked briefly about different kinds of comunication in groups; I try to explore the content and process forms here. It's one of those ideas which is simple enough when you get it, but it's not easy to explain, so get back to me next week if it doesn't make sense.
We only touched on the weirder manifestations of the "group unconscious" (if it is a useful idea at all), but the way into it is introduced via group cultures here. Certainly it does help to account for some of the disproportionality of feeling which can be generated in groups, and the notion of projection, including the idea that "there's always one (whatever)" in every group or class. (Not yours, of course!)
I hope this gives you enough to be going on with, I'll deal with any matters arising at the start of the next session before we proceed to the first presentation.
* Of course, the educational system violates this all the time, because we assess people and fail them, even when they are trying their hardest... You could argue that this makes it all the more important to be as inclusive as possible in other respects.
Incidentally--in preparation for Unit 7, this page is a one-stop shop for all the recent reports and policy initiatives in FE.
Thursday 24 January 2013
Sunday 20 January 2013
Pecha Kucha
Thanks for the note, Emma.
As requested, the template (actually it's simply a powerpoint file; just add to it and "save as") can be downloaded from here. (The timer bar is there simply as an aid to pacing the spoken commentary--you can delete it when you've got that to your satisfaction. It's on the slide master--access that with Shift+the normal view icon.)
There's more about the format here. I first encountered it at a conference in Dublin in the summer, where a whole strand of the parallel sessions was delivered that way. It's a bit like a PowerPoint version of Twitter--it really makes you distil your material and, as someone mentioned last week--practice!
As requested, the template (actually it's simply a powerpoint file; just add to it and "save as") can be downloaded from here. (The timer bar is there simply as an aid to pacing the spoken commentary--you can delete it when you've got that to your satisfaction. It's on the slide master--access that with Shift+the normal view icon.)
There's more about the format here. I first encountered it at a conference in Dublin in the summer, where a whole strand of the parallel sessions was delivered that way. It's a bit like a PowerPoint version of Twitter--it really makes you distil your material and, as someone mentioned last week--practice!
Tuesday 15 January 2013
16 January: Curriculum continued
I've now up-dated this post in the light of yesterday's session: new stuff in this colour.
Happy New Year, and welcome back!
I'm writing this in advance on the off-chance some of you may want to refresh your ideas before class. At the end of last term I did say that we had effectively finished with curriculum issues, but on thinking about it, I realise that without complicating things too much, there are some more points which are worth making.
These revolve around evaluating the curriculum. In no particular order:
In the second part of the session we shall be setting up the groupwork on working with people with distinctive needs (which is not confined to traditional "special needs").
So please give some thought to how you would like to work on this--I shall interpret the brief very flexibly. I suggest working in twos/threes, to form three groups. You do not have to stick to what you know--this is all about developing perspectives rather than finding answers.
The principles underlying current practice are those of inclusion. Jim Crawley has a useful links page on this, with reference to the official publications and guidance from various interested organisations.
It is not easy to find material subjecting the idea to critical review, but look at;
Points arising from 16 January session:
The origin of standardised methods stems from the "Scientific Management" approaches of F W Taylor. Using Brookfield's "hunting assumptions" approach, it is interesting to note that there is almost no research base for all this.
A propos of the brief discussion of the effectiveness or otherwise of Assessment For Learning:
The issue of proxies is discussed here in relation to assessment (in no great depth, though) and touched on in relation to quality of provision here. The unintended consequences of targets are discussed here: it's pretty academic, but has the advantage of being relatively recent (2011) and well referenced.
"Working myths" are introduced and discussed in chapter 6 of a book of mine from my residential social work days. I wouldn't normally trouble you with Wolfensberger, whose concern was with care and education for people with learning disabilities, but in view of the unit's focus on inclusivity, his historical perspective on insitutional care is worth looking at--fortunately one of his essays is available on line through the Disability History Museum.
Argyris and Schön's ideas on espoused theories and theories in use are outlined here. My sceptical take on reflection (one of my party pieces) is here.
I made a mistake--the story of instant diagnosis was not from Gawande, excellent though he is: I've just wasted an hour obsessively looking for the source... Forget it!
Here are the categories of student whom we identified as potentially having distinctive needs (or resources) to which the inclusivity agenda applies:
(Incidentally, I just came across this short article on what it is like to have ADHD--in IKEA.)
The background to and a brief summary of the Moser Report on adult literacy and numeracy (1999) is here.
Next week, in the first half we'll look at some stuff on the class as a group which may give you some ideas related to the practical implementation of inclusivity. You can find some general material on teaching in groups here.
Happy New Year, and welcome back!
I'm writing this in advance on the off-chance some of you may want to refresh your ideas before class. At the end of last term I did say that we had effectively finished with curriculum issues, but on thinking about it, I realise that without complicating things too much, there are some more points which are worth making.
These revolve around evaluating the curriculum. In no particular order:
- If you can, please read Graham Gibbs' report Dimensions of Quality prepared for the Higher Education Academy. It may be all about HE, but it's got a lot of distilled wisdom in it. You might also be interested in my notes on Gibbs' possibly last public lecture.
- Last term, I hope you remember the Simple Minds video, which discussed how teaching science sometimes resulted in students knowing less after teaching than before. Carl Wieman (recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics in 2001 and the Carnegie Foundation’s U.S. University Professor of the Year Award in 2004), makes similar points very trenchantly in this article from 2007.
- Going back through the blog, I see rather to my surprise that there is no mention of Hattie's meta-analyses on "what works best". I'm not sure how that has slipped past us, but I'll mention it again just to see if we have covered it but somehow I haven't mentioned it.
- We shall refer to Brookfield's "four lenses" for evaluation: there's a good micro-site on them from the University of Sydney here.
- ... and to the Kirkpatrick four-stage model. This is the official Kirkpatrick site, and here is a critique.
In the second part of the session we shall be setting up the groupwork on working with people with distinctive needs (which is not confined to traditional "special needs").
So please give some thought to how you would like to work on this--I shall interpret the brief very flexibly. I suggest working in twos/threes, to form three groups. You do not have to stick to what you know--this is all about developing perspectives rather than finding answers.
The principles underlying current practice are those of inclusion. Jim Crawley has a useful links page on this, with reference to the official publications and guidance from various interested organisations.
It is not easy to find material subjecting the idea to critical review, but look at;
- Inclusive Education; Knowing what we mean from the OU.
- Topping K and Maloney S (eds) (2005) The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Inclusive Education Abingdon; Routledge Falmer (I confess I haven't read all of it! Part VI explicitly addresses post-school issues.)
- "Art for inclusion's sake: Cultural diversity policy substitutes political goals for artistic standards" by Josie Appleton (It's about cultural policy rather than education, though)
- Ecclestone K and Hayes D (2009) The dangerous rise of therapeutic education Abingdon; Routledge Link is to library record--a more general polemic but thought-provoking.
- Lindsay G (2003) "Inclusive Education: a critical perspective" British Journal of Special Educational Needs vol.30 no.1 pp 3-12 (available electronically from the library; try pasting the link once you have accessed e-journals. But it is specifically about children with SEN and disabilities)
- Knight T (1999) "Inclusive Education and Educational Theory: Inclusive for What?" paper from BERA conference
- And here's an angle from me (in devil's advocate role).
Points arising from 16 January session:
The origin of standardised methods stems from the "Scientific Management" approaches of F W Taylor. Using Brookfield's "hunting assumptions" approach, it is interesting to note that there is almost no research base for all this.
A propos of the brief discussion of the effectiveness or otherwise of Assessment For Learning:
"There are very few schools where all the principles of AfL, as I understand them, are being implemented effectively [...] The problem is that government told schools that it was all about monitoring pupils' progress; it wasn't about pupils becoming owners of their own learning. [...] We have (DfE officials) saying: 'We tried AfL and it didn't work.' But that's because (they) didn't try the AfL that does work." Dylan Wiliam reported in TES 13 July 2012
“we had a highly bureaucratised and ossified way of turning AfL into some kind of weird amalgam of formative and summative assessment where everything had to be recorded to the nth degree” John Bangs (Cambridge U.) ibid.My page on Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is here (with references).
The issue of proxies is discussed here in relation to assessment (in no great depth, though) and touched on in relation to quality of provision here. The unintended consequences of targets are discussed here: it's pretty academic, but has the advantage of being relatively recent (2011) and well referenced.
"Working myths" are introduced and discussed in chapter 6 of a book of mine from my residential social work days. I wouldn't normally trouble you with Wolfensberger, whose concern was with care and education for people with learning disabilities, but in view of the unit's focus on inclusivity, his historical perspective on insitutional care is worth looking at--fortunately one of his essays is available on line through the Disability History Museum.
Argyris and Schön's ideas on espoused theories and theories in use are outlined here. My sceptical take on reflection (one of my party pieces) is here.
I made a mistake--the story of instant diagnosis was not from Gawande, excellent though he is: I've just wasted an hour obsessively looking for the source... Forget it!
Here are the categories of student whom we identified as potentially having distinctive needs (or resources) to which the inclusivity agenda applies:
(Incidentally, I just came across this short article on what it is like to have ADHD--in IKEA.)
The background to and a brief summary of the Moser Report on adult literacy and numeracy (1999) is here.
Next week, in the first half we'll look at some stuff on the class as a group which may give you some ideas related to the practical implementation of inclusivity. You can find some general material on teaching in groups here.
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