Magister Educationis, mini-thesis, Department of Educational Studies (Adult Learning and Global Change), University of the Western Cape
Abstract
Constructivism is a view of learning centered on the credence that knowledge isn't a contrivance simply given by the teacher at the front of the room to students at their desks. Rather, knowledge is constructed by learners through an active, mental process of development; learners are the builders and creators of meaning and knowledge. Educational curricula and teaching methods are changing; one component of the current redevelopment of all subject area curricula is the change in focus of instruction from the transmission curriculum to a transactional curriculum. In a traditional curriculum, a teacher transmits information to students who passively listen and acquire facts. In a transactional curriculum, students are actively involved in their learning to reach new understandings. Comparing Theoretic Perspectives on Learning Constructivism is a view of learning centered on the credence that knowledge isn't a contrivance simply given by the teacher at the front of the room to students at their desks. Rather, knowledge is constructed by learners through an active, mental process of development; learners are the builders and creators of meaning and knowledge. Constructivism draws on the developmental work of Piaget (1977) and Kelly (1991). TwomeyFosnot (1989) defines constructivism by reference to four principles: learning, in an important way, depends on what we already know; new ideas occur as we adapt and change our old ideas; learning involves inventing ideas rather than mechanically accumulating facts; meaningful learning occurs through rethinking old ideas and coming to new conclusions about new ideas which conflict with our old ideas. A productive, constructivist classroom, then, consists of learner-centered, active instruction. In such a classroom, the teacher provides students with experiences that allow them to hypothesize, predict, manipulate objects, pose questions, research, investigate, imagine, and invent. The teacher's role is to facilitate this process. Piaget (1977) asserts that learning occurs by an active construction of meaning, rather than by passive recipience. He explains that when we, as learners, encounter an experience or a situation that conflicts with our current way of thinking, a state of disequilibrium or imbalance is created. We must then alter our thinking to restore equilibrium or balance. To do this, we make sense of the new information by associating it with what we already know, that is, by attempting to assimilate it into our existing knowledge. When we are unable to do this, we accommodate the new information to our old way of thinking by restructuring our present knowledge to a higher level of thinking. Similar to this is Kelly's theory of personal constructs (Kelly, 1991). Kelly proposes that we look at the world through mental constructs or patterns which we create. We develop ways of construing or understanding the world based on our experiences. When we encounter a new experience, we attempt to fit these patterns over the new experience. For example, we know from experience that when we see a red traffic light, we are supposed to stop. The point is that we create our own ways of seeing the world in which we live; the world does not create them for us. Constructivist beliefs have recently been applied to teaching and learning in the classroom. Educational curricula and teaching methods are changing; one component of the current redevelopment of all subject area curricula is the change in focus of instruction from the transmission curriculum to a transactional curriculum. In a traditional curriculum, a teacher transmits information to students who passively listen and acquire facts. In a transactional curriculum, students are actively involved in their learning to reach new understandings. Constructivist teaching nurtures critical thinking and produces active and motivated learners. Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde (1993) state that learning in all subject areas involves inventing and constructing new ideas. They suggest incorporating constructivist theory into a curriculum, and advocate teacher created environments in which children can construct their own understandings. TwomeyFosnot (1989) recommends that a constructivist approach be used to create learners who are autonomous, inquisitive thinkers who question, investigate and reason. A constructivist approach frees teachers to make decisions that will enhance and enrich students' development in these areas. These are goals that are consistent with those stated by Saskatchewan Education in the 1984 government report, directions that launched the restructuring of Saskatchewan's curricula. This demonstrates that constructivism is evident in current educational change. Phenomenography definitions have a broad germane; some definitions are helpful in narrowing down the spectrum to an accurate shared interpretation of the term. Finding a universal definition has been a real challenge for all discussion groups,where some define Phenomenography as “an empirical research tradition that was designed to answer questions about thinking and learning, especially in the context of educational research, Marton (1986). Others define Phenomenography as “a qualitative research methodology, within the interpretivist paradigm, that investigates the qualitatively different ways in which people experience something or think about something” (Marton, 1984), or as “an approach to educational research that appeared in publications in the early 1980s and initially emerged from an empirical rather than theoretical or philosophical basis” (Wikipedia.org, “Phenomenography”, Åkerlind, 2005). My over all understanding of Phenomenography is as “the empirical study of the differing ways in which people experience, perceive, apprehend, understand and conceptualize various phenomena in all aspects of the world around us.” (Phenomenography Crossroad, p.4). Conversely, several discussions among peers appeared to point out that phenomenographic research explores what students learn and how they learn it, which supports the view of Phenomenography as both a research approach and a perspective for understanding learning and teaching. Unlike Constructivism, Phenomenography does not appear to make many epistemological and philosophical assumptions. Instead, it is presented as an approach to understanding certain dynamics of current attitudes towards teaching and learning. In Phenomenography learning is based on learners’ awareness of the object of their study. Phenomenographic variation theory views such awareness as the result of the experiencing of variations, which are considered the main building blocks in the learning process. (Marton and Trigwell, 2000) In The Experience of Learning, Marton et al. propose diverse recommendations for how teachers can improve their understanding of their students’ learning approaches and include such understanding in their teaching practices. I found it very interesting to read about the clear examination of deep and surface learning approaches and its relevance to final learning outcomes. There also appears to be disagreement on the accuracy of such dichotomy, as shown in the articles by Ekeblad and Webb (Ekeblad, 1997; Webb 1997). However, given the ephemerality of the paper, further discourse is impossible. I am of the belief that Phenomenography as a learning approach plays an important role in understanding the perceptual differences that exist between teachers and students. It offers a way to help students recognize certain aspects of their learning experience, and also assists teachers in making their teaching approaches more attuned to their students’ needs. This final perspective, Socio-cultural perspective, emerges from the work of Etienne Wenger. It develops as a well-thought and highly structured approach to learning stemming from the social tenets of Constructivism, even though Etienne Wenger explicitly acknowledges that his theory of learning, unlike Constructivism, does not focus on epistemological and philosophical questions but emphasizes instead on its practical applicability. (Wenger, 1999, pp. 9-10) He views learning as a “fundamentally social phenomenon” (Wenger, 1999, p.3) that emerges from the continuous and intense interplay of several factors at the interface between the frameworks of communities and the practice of their participants. Communities of practice are the setting for such learning. At the community level, learning derives from a shared experience of meaningful identity building enterprises. (Wenger, 1999, Ch. 3) In his theory, Wenger takes a holistic and systemic approach, which he presents as a relational and situational web of communal and personal scenarios. Learning is the multileveled outcome of active social involvement developing from a complex process that encompasses stages of negotiation, participation and reification through which experiential meaningfulness is attained. (Wenger, 1999, ch.1) Even though his theory may sound very dry, its step-by-step outline also shows the transformative potential of his model, something that was not specifically addressed in the other perspectives presented in this course, although Marton and Trigwell (2000, p.384, p. 392) recognize the role of participatory learning communities in shaping a learner’s identity. Wenger’s systemic approach efficiently presents several levels of personal and social interactive participation as ways to promote communities and individuals both at the local and at the global level. Learning, ensures from meaningful community practices that shape the identities of both participants and communities, thereby reinforcing the social value of each learner’s experience. Identity is therefore viewed as trajectory that encompasses several stages of a person’s life and unifies them within the context of an ever evolving learning process. (Wenger, 1999, p. 163) As earlier explained, Constructivism is concerned with learners’ ability to construct their own reality. Generally, within the three variations of constructivism (cognitive, radical, and social), active interaction between learners and teachers shape the context where learning occurs and knowledge is built. Such interaction must be participatory in nature and collaborative among learners as Constructivism values social interaction in learning by promoting a learner-oriented environment within the context of each learner’s prior experience. Furthermore, in order for learning to occur, the context must be meaningful and must facilitate invention. (Jaeger; Lauritzen, p. 6). In addition, the context in which learning takes place reflects and is heavily based on the learner’s personal and cultural experience, which includes all aspects of a person’s life. (Cobern, p.1) Meaning in Constructivism is found in the learner’s ability to construct his/her own reality based on mediated information and social negotiations. As learners are at the forefront of their learning experience, the content of their learning must be relevant to the individual. Doolittle identifies eight tenets that would ensure that learners retain a central position in their own learning. (Doolittle, pp.4-7) People interpret reality through a process of intersecting, interconnected and self-improving stages of learning. These will include, and are not limited to information acquisition, mental representation, schemata, accreditation (Winn & Snyder, 5.3.1.4), mapping, adaptation. Meaning is arrived at through the interaction of such processes. This appears similar to Marton’s theory of variations. (Marton, 2000) Within Constructivism, experience may play different roles. Cognitive constructivism, for instance, does not include the subjective nature of knowledge, as learning is based on information processing through which knowledge is arrived at as an extrapolation of an external reality. Nevertheless, in spite of some ontological differences, personal experience and its social dimension maintain a pivotal role in each individual’s learning process, as it provides the background against which new knowledge is measured, understood, and internalized. In summary, the three dimensions are essentially intertwined and part of one and the same learning process. Learning occurs within the context in which active learners construct new knowledge and meaning from their experience. Learning must be significant to the learner, who achieves a different level of understanding through a stage of perturbation (von Glaserfeld, 1989, p.6) or dissonance (Jaeger; Lauritzen, p. 6). Thus learning occurs as the result of the dynamic process of interplay between meaning and experience and develops within a context that is both personal and social. Through the preceding paragraphs as a basis, I will address similarities and differences in the three dimensions of the other two perspectives. Whereas Constructivism is based on a dualistic view of an external and an internal reality, the phenomenographic perspective does not recognize the dichotomy between a subjectively experienced world and an outer objective reality. The phenomenographic context is therefore the environment in which a learner experiences learning through several stages of variations in the learner’s perceived level of knowledge of a certain subject. (Marton and Trigwell, 2000) Phenomenographic analysis points out the existing conflict between the personal and institutional aspects of the learning context. This issue is addressed by Charles Andersons in chapter twelve of The Experience of Learning. In my present teaching experience thus far at the College of Technology, Dammam – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I find his argument relevant. At the College, I combine formal teaching and tutorial strategies and it is sometimes challenging to counter the strict academic requirements to the open-ended approach typical of self-directed learning, which is presented as a pivotal part of the institute’s learning experience. It has been noted that students’ perceptions of curricular constrains have an impact on their learning (Paul Ramsden, in Marton at al., 1984, p. 198). Albeit the learner is seen as the locus of her/his own learning context, Phenomenography seems to lack the social depth typical of Constructivism. If in truth that in both Phenomenography and Constructivism the environment includes the learners’ prior experience, phenomenographic analysis does not appear to cogitate aspects of the human experience such as culture and gender. In VariatioEst Mater Studiorum, Marton and Trigwell (2000) mention the importance of learning communities as loci for identity formation, but do not specifically address the role of cultural differences this, I believe impacts person’s learning experience. If phenomenographic research does not address fundamental cultural differences among students, by restricting the scope of the inquiry only to certain aspects, would that not invalidate the applicability of the findings? In Phenomenography meaning is derived from the relationship between a learner and the world. Unlike Constructivism, where the mind constructs its understanding of reality, Phenomenography views knowledge as the result of a relational connection between a learner and the world (Hales & Watkins, 2004, p.4, p.6). Meaning is arrived at individually by each learner within his own learning environment. According to Hales and Watkins meaning varies among individuals and within each learner on three levels: 1) The meaningful combination of the components of an experience; 2) How awareness organizes them; 3) “How the phenomenon is delimited from other phenomena.” (2004, p.6) This approach emphasizes the very personal nature of each learner’s experience, where meaning is postulated as a process linked to subjective awareness. This differs greatly from the social nature of learning found in Constructivism and also from the collaborative learning approach outlined in the socio-cultural perspective. As earlier mentioned, the three dimensions are actually interconnected. Both in Phenomenography and Constructivism personal experience stands at the epicenter of individual learners’ learning and is the medium for the development of meaning, knowledge and understanding. Phenomenography recognizes five levels on which experience develops: 1) Increase in knowledge, 2) Memorization, 3) Fact acquisition, 4) Abstraction of meaning, 5) Understanding reality. Whereas intrinsic motivation seems to improve the effectiveness of learning leading to a deep approach, external concerns may limit the value of learning and lead to a surface approach. (Marton and Säljö, in Marton et al., 1984, Ch. 3) Such scheme falls short of including the stage of personal transformation that undeniably affects each learner as a result of perturbation and dissonance that – as mentioned above – are the supporting building blocks of personal learning experience. I reason that although both Constructivism and Phenomenography value the learner’s experience, in Phenomenography experience appears to be more strictly interpreted, possibly due to the influence of institutional concerns on phenomenographic analysis. In the Socio-cultural perspective communities of practice are the context in which learning occurs. Due to the stratification of experience over time, the environment becomes highly socialized and contextualized. While the three approaches do not properly address the influence of cultural issues on the learning experience, the Socio-cultural perspective presents a fairly detailed description of how a community of practice is constantly constructing and revising its own cultural patterns. In this sense, Wenger’s approach implicitly recognizes the formative relevance of high-context within the process of community building, (Hall, 1976)[1]. “Practice is about meaning as an experience in everyday life.” (Wenger, 1999, p.52) In other words, this perspective views meaning as a direct derivation of daily experiential practice. Meaning entails both interpretation and action, and stems from both active personal participation in a social enterprise and the relevant production of relics called reification. The actual source of meaning is the continuing interaction between these two dynamics within the context of a community of practice. The two aspects complement and support one another. Compared with the other two perspectives, this one appears to recognize that meaning is contextualized within each community experience and that the level of variation found in human initiatives will ensure an ever-changing, stimulating evolution in human cultures, personal experience and stages of learning, and eventually in the acquisition and elaboration of knowledge. Experience lies at the core of this perspective and informs each individual’s process of learning within the context of a community initiative. In the Socio-cultural perspective experience surpasses the role assigned to it in Constructivism and Phenomenography, where it is considered a means towards knowledge acquisition. Experience becomes the conditio sine qua non without which learning would not be possible. It is more than a means; it is part of learning itself. In my opinion, Wenger’s approach appears quintessentially experiential and collaborative, as if no learning were possible outside the framework of a community of practice. Such perspective, conversely, minimizes and misconstrues the latency for individual emancipation, growth, learning and ultimately affirmation outside the community settings envisioned by Wenger. I believe that a learner, lacking the option to meaningfully participate in a community of practice, is still capable of engaging in forms of learning that would eventually increase his/her understanding of the world. References Åkerlind, G.S. (2002). Åkerlind, G. (2005). Anderson, M. (nd). Cobern, W. W. (1993). Doolittle, P. (2000) Ekeblad, E. (1997). Glasersfeld, E. von (1989) Gullestrup, H. (2007). Hales, R. & Mike Watkins, M. (2004) Hall, E. T. (1976). Jaeger, M; Lauritzen, C. (1992) Kelly, G.A. (1991). Marton, F., Hounsell, D., &Entwistle, N. J. (1984). Marton, F., &Trigwell, K. (2000). Piaget, J. (1977). Smith, M. K. (2003) Ting-Toomey, S. (1985), Traynor, D. (nd). TwomeyFosnot, C. (1989). Zemelman, S., Daniels, H., & Hyde, A. (1993). ”The biggest challenge facing the South African economy is the shortage of skills. Many people are poor and jobless because they do not have skills.” - Deputy President,KgalemaMotlanthe, South Africa.
Ashton’s overview of the South African situation from the 1970’s has reflections on how the economy was different in many respects marginalised from the process of globalisation. It used its policy of apartheid to maintain the political and economical dominance of the white community thus reserving high skilled jobs for the white population. Ashton raises the point of the ‘Asian Tigers’ and their recovery from a slumping economic market but the quandary facing South Africa is very different to that found in the older industrial countries. So the concepts used by the Asian markets and other emerging economies cannot be used in its entirety in South Africa. In identifying this recovery one has to take into account the different dynamics of the political, labour and educational landscape of South Africa. The post apartheid government began to move from an inward looking, import substitution policy of the previous government to a more outward looking, export oriented policy of full participation in the global markets. (Ashton,2005) In order to tackle this and other pressing issues that face the country, high on the agenda was the issues of creating jobs for the masses. The government embarked on creating a vehicle to drive the process to address the skills and jobs shortage by revisiting the need to generate high skilled jobs. I will deal in brief the socio-political, economic labour situation that we find ourselves in currently; The apartheid heritage left a stronghold between race and socioeconomic class that will take decades to erase. From 1948 to 1994, a person’s race motivated occupation, residence and education. Throughout most of the 20th century, race was the central issue in South African politics, but since the end of apartheid attention has focused on other problems in South African society; the most prominent of ‘unemployment’. Although the economic growth performance in South Africa has improved since the end of apartheid, unemployment remains high and poses a major social and economic policy challenge. In 1994 and 2004, the official rate of unemployment in the labour force was 26 percent. Unemployment is particularly concentrated among historically disadvantaged groups and is higher among the rural, female, uneducated, and young segments of the population. There has been growth in employment in keeping with economic growth since 1994, but there has been no increase in the labour force. The graph below shows population and income percentage contributions of the different races in 1993. Skills development has been the bedrock of South Africa’s strategies for job creation and poverty relief, it improve workers’ productivity, increases salaries, incomes and living standards for the skilled and unskilled; however South Africa is pigeonholed by an inescapable ‘skills shortage’. The skills shortage is more challenging than it first appears to be because we are identifying the lowest level of skills in black youth under 35 (74% of the total). Noticeable lack of skill here is the nonexistence of on-the-job practical work experience, is this then skills shortage or employment shortage! Driven by increasing public sector unionisations the primary and secondary education is in crisis and a high school diploma (matriculation) is inadequate preparation for the practical realities of the world of work. The government has introduced vast arrays of skills development programs to address unemployment and poverty. The Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) were established to ensure that skills needed for all sectors of the economy were identified and the appropriate training made available. SETA, perceived as the government’s redeemer and funded by a 1% payroll tax, created only 25 000 skills per annum due to the necessary and inevitable failure of government interference in firms’ micro-level hiring and training decisions and maladministration of some SETAs. From the point of view of skills development the two most cataclysmic sets of laws and regulations relate to wage levels and importation of skills. In South Africa, wage levels are regulated through minimum wage laws and through statutory collective bargaining agreements with trade unions and bargaining councils to raise wages above the market-related level. Unnecessary wage growth increases prevents entry-level workers (typically youth) who don’t have skills and experience to offer employers from offering their labour at a discount in competition with established, experienced and better skilled workers (termed ‘job prohibition’). Immigration laws and procedures regulate the import of foreign skills and the net effect of these laws and policies is to impose a tax-like deterrent on foreign job seekers. In the 1950s and 1960s foreign engineers, artisans and entrepreneurs were welcomed following the discovery of gold in the Free State, in the 1990s and 2000s high-skilled foreigners are openly discouraged from seeking work in South Africa. This directly affects the skills spectrum of unskilled, unemployed youth and high-skilled foreigners but benefits everyone in between as local professionals earn high salaries, have numerous opportunities because they don’t have to compete for jobs and low wage rates. Governments the world over, realize that the strength of their economy lies in high-value, high-skill economies and that the first step towards this is to have a well-educated workforce! A once held belief of the working world was that if you were highly skilled – you were highly paid. Apart from the tragic waste of human potential, my understanding through my own personal experiences as an elected politician and from the many readings offered in this Block, I believe that, education alone is not the lone cure to streamlining a skewed economy; a lot of the work involves correcting past policy misstep. In April 2011, a draft Skills Development Amendment Bill was introduced and is set to be passed sometime in 2012, highlights the aims to develop the skills of the South African workforce and to improve the quality of life of workers and their prospects of work; to improve productivity in the workplace and the competitiveness of employers and to promote self-employment. It is aimed at producing the artisans, technicians and professionals the economy needs. So we are back at square one, where jobs remain the nation’s number one priority, and in the meantime, the narrow unemployment rate has doubled from 13% in 1994 to 25% in 2010. Skills development has never been properly debated in South Africa. After nearly two decades of experimentation, the system has failed to deliver either the hoped-for increase in employment or the requisite quantum of skills. In fact, despite massive government intervention and expenditure in this area, all key indicators of employment and skills development have gone backwards. The most valuable lesson emerging from the skills development experiment is that marketable skills are acquired on-the-job, in a practical workplace setting, not in classrooms and lecture theatres. South Africa for a long time to come will have to maintain the status quo of balancing the ‘new economy’ with the present system, the country cannot afford to be a total ‘serviced based’ economy. The amount of investment in the youth and education will be circumvented if we allow this industry to continue unabated and be flooded with cheap sweat shop Chinese production. Mark P Naidoo Bibliography Department of Labour – Republic of South Africa Skills Universe – Exploring the New World of Work Job Creation via Education – IOL Business Report JIPSA – South African Government Online Encyclopedia of the Nations – South Africa Overview of Economy How did Labor Market Racial Discrimination Evolve after the End of Apartheid? - Sandrine Rospabé1 “Study the past if you would define the future”
(Confucius, teacher, philosopher, and political theorist, 551-479 BC) Introduction The purpose of my report is to analyze and evaluate challenges in the Future of Work and Learning in 2015 and recommends actions to improve workplace learning by 2015. Education in any country or generation is determined by the past and the present. The country of Apartheid South Africa is very different from the democratic country in which South Africans now live, and the future is going to be greatly affected by this transition. In the first decade of democracy, the advances education and training provision made were driven by issues of access, redress and equity at all levels of the system. While educationists in South Africa acknowledge the need to look to the future, there is awareness that many of the consequences of the past have not yet been resolved. The schooling system has undergone a major transformation to reflect the political and societal changes in South Africa but is struggling to produce quality education. Analysis A key feature that suggests a positive approach to schooling in 2015 is a confidence in the Revised National Curriculum Statement (Pg.: 20-28), that has as its outcome a set of critical and developmental results designed to produce learners who are critical thinkers, can engage with each other in a team while organizing and managing themselves effectively, can collect and analyze information and see the world as a set of connected systems. To affect this scenario, we ask ourselves: What will schooling be like in 2015? Will the education system meet and sustain the demands of business and industry in affording young people the necessary skills and abilities demanded by the economy? Which of the current burdens of the education system will be realized? Will the education system have teachers who are lifelong learners keeping pace with an ever changing knowledge system? South Africa’s education must contribute to building a new nation that respects the dignity and rights of all. The education that the Class of 2015 receives must not only recognize human rights and values but must also be more business-like and focused on delivering quality education. Educational institutes must be more closely aligned to the organizational principles and management of the best of the corporate world. Fundamentally, education must focus on the profession of educating the child to take their place in a highly challenging and competitive economic sphere. In 2015, schools must achieve greater efficiency in respect of use of time, money and human resources that respects the rights and dignity of all and understands that we exist only because we engage with others. Schools receiving young children from an effective Early Childhood Development system must guide them through a self-led, interactive process of learning, leading to a seamless transition to higher education or the workplace. The intention of suggesting what learning will look like in 2015 is to determine whether current trends and interventions are likely to move the system in the right direction. "A key to students' success in school is (among others) direct correlation between what is taught, how it is taught and the tests designed to measure learning." Dr Galeet BenZion, (www.http://galeetbenzion.com). It’s important that work experience is understood, highlighted and researched - Eames and Cates (2011: 41). There is a scarcity of research in cooperative and work-integrated education, especially educational outcomes from, processes in, work placements and understanding learning in work placement. ‘Understanding how learning occurs’ during work integrated learning placements could help legitimize workplace experiences as a legitimate characteristic of cooperative educative program - (Pg.: 42). Too much emphasis is placed on employer ratings and student papers (work-integrated learning placements) for the purpose of awarding credits. By finding out what students really learn from work-learning experiences, credit can be awarded for the learning resulting from work experience, i.e.: understanding work experience is understood so that the appropriate curricula, methodology and assessment is designed and implemented – Eames and Cates (2011: 42). Ellstrom (1997; 2001), draws distinction between two qualitative different but complementary modes of learning, ‘adaptive and development learning’’. The National Qualifications Framework (NQF) in South Africa is based largely on the ‘adaptive’ style of learning. A quick browse of the unit standards in the various sectors is evident of this fact. In fact, scant regard is given to ‘developmental’ learning. Sector based grading and assessing is merely testing the learner’s outcomes against the unit standard, as opposed to ‘developmental’ learning where the learner is exploring existing established definitions. These two modes of learning can be used complementary to each other and the testing of learners needs to reflect this condition. We need to change work related learning from a ring fenced defacto matter of design to organized learning communities of practice. In addition, the use of Kinesthetic learning as a learning style should be more widely used as it involves the student in actually carrying out the activities rather than simply listening to a lecture or merely watching a demonstration, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinesthetic_learning). Line management must be involved in the support of organized learning to provide opportunities for workers under the government’s Workplace Skills development. Management must be proactive in the identification of the training process and the content development. Under the current Workplace Skills Development, workers are subjected to very little scrutiny to assist in the type of learning they expose to. This together with the different learning styles is a recipe for potential disaster. Tynjala, deals with three important components of education and or the learning of people. It is of the utmost importance to merge all three of the following in providing a foundation for learning, i.e.: · Mentorship and teacher training · Network and collaborations · Work related learning Educators as Learners and Learning. In any environment learning starts with a teacher, therefore it is important that the very people who are teaching also have access to newer learning strategies and methods. Educators need to be connected to the global world and to network with their peer communities to derive the best possible solution in collaboration. For educators work related learning is also a great possibility, teachers work with students to solve problems and find solutions to complex tasks. The teaching environment must acknowledge that besides students, educators must also have the opportunity to experience work related learning. The principle of combining learning with an outcomes based education is essential as integration guarantees that learners experience learning areas that supports and expands opportunities to acquire skills, knowledge, and cultivate attitudes and values across the broad curriculum spectrum. It is important that the curriculum gradually sets out complex, deeper and broader expectation of learners; i.e. Conceptual progress. By effecting an arrangement of efficiently organized activities in Learning Programs within The Revised National Curriculum Statement, (http;//www.info.gov.za/view/downloadFileAction?id=70257), learning outcomes and assessment standards will be achievable. Whereas the Revised National Curriculum Statement specifies the ideas, skills and standards on a grade-by-grade basis, Learning Programs contain work schedules that provide the pace and the sequencing of these activities per phase each year. Furthermore, it contains lesson plan prototypes that can be achieved at any given period. Learning Programs should be based on relationships amongst learning outcomes and assessment standards, without compromising the integrity of Learning Areas. There is strong resistance to preparing learners too early for a specific vocational path, but the need to supply skilled labour has driven the Further Education and Training Colleges to become very selective about the subjects and courses that they offer and the learners who may select particular courses. There will be greater control over the subjects that schools offer and such offerings will be closely linked to the needs of local industry and the probability of a program of learning, leading to employment. Even learners wishing to enter university will have to align their proposed university course with the economic or professional needs of the country. Vocational colleges (Further Education and Training colleges, previously known as technical colleges), have gone through major changes over the past two decades. Their names were changed through processes of amalgamation which impacted their qualification structure. These identity changes present a ‘branding’ challenge, as government seeks to promote the vocational colleges as ‘institutions of choice’. The NQF’s National Certificate (Vocational) at Levels 2, 3 and 4 was implemented to solve the problems of poor quality programs, the lack of relevance to the economy, as well as the low technical and cognitive skills of graduates. This program does not satisfy the needs of the vocational programs, nor does it enjoy universal support in the industry. In order for these programs to be effective in 2015, artisan training must be revitalized. The N-courses are fundamentally outdated and lag behind in applied disciplinary knowledge. In my opinion, while the National Certificate Vocational (NCV) has a superior knowledge base regarding N-courses, it lacks modality, is insufficiently flexible and inaccessible to part-time students. In addition it currently lacks systemic connections to both workshop and workplace learning. EDUCATION TECHNICAL TRAINING LABOR MARKET ENTRY LIFE LONG LEARNING WORKPLACE The flow chart above shows the overall goal of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in the skills development system to contribute to the development of ‘decent work’. Productivity is sustained by effectively linking education to technical training, to labor market entry, to the workplace, and to lifelong learning. Recommendations By 2015, our integrated skills development must be demonstrable in the following methods: · Focus must be on education and training to promote economic and employment growth and social development to fully prepare students for workplace demands. WIL (work in learning), program must integrate practice and theory into curriculums and have clear educational expectations. · Identify potential host employers for students entering and exiting learnership programs. Utilize the workplace as an active learning location and make WIL programs mutually beneficial to all stakeholders, and utilize various organizational sources to monitor, evaluate and improve effectiveness to diversify WIL programs. · Benchmark work and learning against best local and international practices and standards to promote economic and employment growth and social development. Focus on education and training to ensure that all programs meet the requirements of professional registered and accredited organizations with regional and national support for ongoing training and development (SETA). · Utilize training and education to develop skills in the South African workforce and increase employment opportunities, ensure that students with disabilities have equal access to WIL. Stakeholders who fail to grasp these fundamental points and continue to disregard these relationships underestimate the importance thereof, are likely to struggle, if not fail to make WIL work. The curriculum design and revision must never be an isolated event. An advisory structure consisting of relevant stakeholders must guide the offering of the program and in particular the various aspects that enhance work integrated learning such as;
Conclusion Learners must achieve theoretical foundations for their desired occupations and the tools to apply this knowledge in the workplace where productivity and service delivery requirements take hold. To achieve optimal alignment between the learning that takes place at these two sites, it will be necessary for new lines of communication to open. This will require a new language to develop where the language of ‘occupation’ on the side of the skills development community will have to map, knowledge domain logic of the institutionally based community. This is already in place at the level of the professions and needs to be extrapolated to other levels. There also needs to be a wide range of shorter courses which fall under the blanket of skills development that addresses immediate needs at work; e.g.: how to operate new technology or to manage new work organization systems. It is necessary to include the personal processes of experience and reconciliation experienced by learners and to consider how students engage in experiences and pedagogic practices. Furthermore, it’s not enough to merely provide practice-based experiences, but enrichment through preparing and engaging opportunities to share and reconcile what the experiences teaches. REFERENCES Billett, S. 2011. Dr Galeet BenZion, Eames, C. & Cates, C. 2011. International Labor Organization (ILO), Jennifer Rault-Smith, Orrell, J. 2011. Revised National Curriculum Statement Grades R-9 (Schools), Revised National Curriculum Statement – Department of Education/South Africa, .markpnaidoo2012/03/29 Word count -2077/2213 1. What do you now see as the identity issues that relate to your learning dimension?
Identity is a complex, changing narrative shaped by our past experiences, professional knowledge, the setting and the wider socio-cultural context (Watson,2006), as well as the various relationships we engage in (Chappell, et al ,2000). Learning is an ongoing process where the educator is both teacher and student. We teach to change the world, (Brooksfield,1995), the belief that our efforts to help students learn, in that doing this, will help them act towards each and to their environment, with compassion, understanding and fairness. My own identity is fraught with disparities, the way I consider my individual learning dimensions, therefore becomes a closed relationship to the way we view ourselves and how others view us in the working arena. This focus plays a major role in the way we interact and process different types of information and reverence depending on what is being taught to us as individuals. My identity is also shaped by my professional knowledge. The experiences I gained from my own life learning and institutionalised learning. However, Chappell et al. (2003) propose a relational view of identity – identity as a fluctuating, ongoing narrative formed by the various relationships in our lives. I tie my identity issues that relate to my learning dimensions with experiential learning and the student being the focus of the outcome, student-centred learning. In dealing with this topic I became aware of how I had to construct and reconstruct my identity in keeping with the discursive environment, as in any situation, education is centred in a context of rapid and profound change and in order to be in the element of continuous awareness it is paramount to shape our identities, ( Chappell et al). Workplace education and training play a critical part, reflecting the prominence that learning and knowledge has gained in work place over the past decade, (Chappell et al) however it must also be stated that peer education is also present in institutions of education as well. Teachers in a school or university are not ring-fenced in a vacuum; they also are part of a learning space. With globalisation and reforms there is massive transformation in education, with all this happening around us, there is still the opportunity for us to learn little things that have or can have great impact in our professional practices. This is inclusive of what I dealt with in my first assignment regarding my ‘hot issue’. Cameron (2001) stated, ‘we do not necessarily behave the way we do because of what we are, rather we may also become who we are because of what we do’. Being the confident person I am I was challenged by the short comings I experienced with a particular activity in my class. Did my challenges stem from cultural differences or professional weakness? I fell into the McCarthyism syndrome whereby I had the assumption that previous teachers of my students did not cover the basic rules of English. I see that my identity as a building block of events, ‘self’ and ‘other’. The integration of existing discourses in education and actualisation of events, as they unfold it begins to interact, thus shaping my identity for that particular situation. More often than not I have to adjust and re-align my own perspectives to accommodate the paradoxical workplace environment. As I have mentioned in my assignment, there is a prevalent lack of transferable cohesion from the student’s norm of learning to the complexities associated with university expectation. I was guilty along with my colleagues of assuming that students know the technicalities associated with English grammar. This shortfall on both the student’s part and my own expectations prompted me to investigate the source of the problem. My discussions with my colleagues and the introduction of the ‘hot issue’, invoked consideration and critical evaluation of what I was doing and what needed to be addressed. In order to highlight the issues facing my students, I was also mindful not to upset the proverbial apple cart. Tackling the challenge I noted that it was more a case of being a technical point rather than an academic issue. Raising awareness could highlight anxiety with students and teachers alike. I had to set the tone to balance the understanding against the knowing. Against the backdrop of identity in its relationship to learning, I begin to see myself as connector within a society that is complex and demanding. A society which has its own influences and trends, a society that is fighting to maintain a balance against its own cultural and social pressures. The educator’s role, according to Greeno (1997), is not to develop individuals, but to help them participate meaningfully in the practices they choose to enter,(Fenwick,2001pg 36{43}). I found myself improving by becoming more attuned to constrains and affordances of different situations. I used the opportunity to arrange authentic conditions and activities in which the learners interact. Their interacting enabled me to notice the challenges we both faced and the negotiated solutions that we found as both my students and I learned from our experiences. My reflection in identity and learning dimensions is not capped solely to my ‘hot issue’, I have taken the liberty to deal with this point holistically. The learning curve for me as an educator sits on two tiers. 1st Tier – Local level; · using the student centred method, I encourage debate and active participation · post preparation of the learning context and continuous adaption · provision of a learning environment that is free and fair, respectful, honest and transparent 2nd Tier – Holistic/Global level; · sensitise students to current world issues · promote awareness and cultural sensitiveness · respect for cultural embeddedness and traditions. · Acknowledge the complexities of the modern Arab region in context to globalisation. · Eradicate assumptions and perceptions. Using the student centred method, I encourage the discourse to engage in problem solving activities to broaden students knowledge, making them aware of the level of responsibility vested in them both as students and active members of their communities of practice. Students are made aware of the level of responsibility required for their educational path. I strive to meet two important factors that Dewey advocated; for learning to happen, an experience must include two key dimensions. The first is continuity; the learner needs to be able to connect aspects of the new experience to what he or she already knows, in ways that modify knowledge. The second is interaction; the learner needs to be actively interacting with his or her environment, testing out lessons developed in that environment (module 4 assign 1), Dewey thus believed that the educator should help link the disparate experiences into a coherent whole, Fenwick,2001. I see my role as facilitator to stimulate change for reformation and liberating minds to think critically of addressing inequality and parochial thinking. My presence is merely a pensive warm figure drawing from the depth of the cognitive reflection and experience. Reflection is the appreceptive process by which we change our minds, literally and figuratively. My role is expanded as an advocate of transformative learning, in the social, cultural and academic dynamics of interdependence. Mezirow (1991), describes this process of transformative learning as the ‘bringing of one’s assumptions, premises, criteria and schema into consciousness and vigorously critiquing them’, (Fenwick,p29). One has to be mindful of the student mindset in the Middle East, a radical approach ( Saddington,T. 1998), could trigger challenging cultural discourses that cuts across the expect norm, assumptions and bigotry has the potential to fester its ugly head. For the most parts especially in Oman students have an open and pleasant disposition to learning of cultural humanistic psychology. 2. How do conceptual understanding of adult learning relate to your hot issue and it learning dimension? Learning in a particular cultural space is shaped by the discourses and their semiotics that are most visible and accorded most authority by different groups, (Fenwick, 2001). Understanding this principal is the gateway to approach cultural sensitivity and the ramifications of development in a globalised world. Adult education is an important tier of education that it has earned the growing support of governments worldwide. It allows people to create an alternative path to personal and professional development. A ‘learned’ individual has greater opportunities that would otherwise limit him/her in the context of the globalised world. Although adult education is not always focused on rigid academic discourse, it helps bridge the gap between older learners and tertiary trained graduates. In review of my hot issue, I see the focus on 4 main key points; Self directed Learning Critical reflection Experiential learning Learning to Learn In developing countries where illiteracy is a major problem, the meaning of the term 'adult education' is widely misconceived only as adult literacy i. e. something to do with imparting of only literacy to adults. Thus, it is not surprising that, in practice too; adult education is more often referred to as 'adult literacy' in developing countries. Literacy generally refers to reading, writing and arithmetic skills of a person with understanding, in the language (s)he normally speaks or uses. In fact, adult education is literacy plus many other things – holistic development. It includes the development of functionality and awareness in relation to various different aspects of life. Another misconception is whether adult education comes under formal education system (school, college, university, etc) or under non-formal education system (workplace) that is outside the formal education system or under both. In South Africa, concentrated efforts are made by government, business sector and non-governmental organisations to address this situation by expanding the network of adult education and ensuring the responsiveness of the programme for the diverse needs of adult learners (http://www.southafricaweb.co.za). Surely, the scope of adult education is very wide and includes both the systems and more. Its activities range from leisure time spent in reading to attending classes as remedial learning, from learning to achieving or acquiring a formal certificate, a diploma or a university degree; from learning on the job to free-lance learning, etc. So, different people in different Adult Learning environments in countries have called adult education by different names such as liberal education, basic education, remedial education, vocational education, literacy education, continuing education, lifelong education, and so on. But, the term "adult learning / education" has, in fact, become a generic or more common term to mean and include a wide range of things for adults. Nevertheless, adult education has currently came into wide use throughout the world; yet, the concept is among the most problematic ones in the field. Therefore, Sharan and Phyllis (1989) are right when they say "It is rare to come upon a single sentence that will do justice to the full range of this phenomenon of adult education, or that will satisfy the many different kinds of practitioners who call themselves adult educators." This is so because all these practitioners feel that this need not be considered a problem at all. Adult education is an absolutely necessary for survival of adults of all age groups in modem society. Illiteracy, poverty, ignorance, population growth, advancements in science and technology, ever growing knowledge, developmental pursuits of individuals, communities, societies and nations have been creating an increasing demand for adult education. It is very essential to address the diverse issues and problems in different spheres of life - social, economic, cultural, political, environmental, health, developmental, etc . Learn or perish has become the order of the day and adult and lifelong learning is the only solution to survival, growth, development and welfare of individuals, families, societies and nations at large. Adult education is very dynamic in its nature. Its role, purposes and functions and objectives will change with changing situations and conditions of adults. Accordingly its nature and character also undergo changes. David Kolb acknowledges that knowledge is continuously gained through both personal and environmental experiences. He states that in order to gain genuine knowledge from an experience. Certain abilities are required; I revisited the ‘hot issue’ discussion I had with my co workers (although newer ‘hot issues’ were raised), we debated the issue/s at length, I brought to the fore the learning dimensions, I was involved with, in this course. Debate was robust and brainstorming was fluid and at time very focused with other educators getting into the fray. I was amazed when stimulated, what responses, one could get. I documented the responses as I saw it in relation to my conceptual understanding of adult learning relative to learning dimensions. 1) Adult education is purposive: Adult education has a definite purpose specific to the given context. Without purpose it does not have any existence. 2) It is community-specific: Adult education is community-based and assumes great significance in particular context(s), and it need not be equally relevant to other communities in similar contexts. 3) It is culture-specific: The nature, objectives and types of adult education required for adults would vary from culture to culture. 4) It is need-based and problem-solving: Adult education takes into account the dominant needs and prevalent problems of the communities and aims at addressing them in effective ways. (Piaget 1966; Von Glaserfeld 1984; Vygotsky 1978; Wells 1995) 5) It is participatory: It involves adults at different levels and stages of planning, implementation and evaluation of adult education activities meant for their progress, development and welfare. (Boud and Walker 1991: Boud, Cohen and Walker 1993) 6) It is flexible and relevant: In many respects adult education incorporates the element of flexibility so that the adults would feel at home and comfortable to acquire education that has relevance to their living, working and development. (Boud and Schon, - Fenwick 2001) 7) It is action - oriented: Adult education is not simply education for the sake of education. Education for action is the motto, if adults have to act for transforming their own situations or conditions. 8) It is dynamic, change-oriented and transformative: Adult education is very dynamic and, change-oriented, primarily aimed at bringing in social, economic, political and cultural transformation of the adults, their society and nation. 9) It is an awareness building and cognitive process: It helps to enhance the level of adults’ awareness and cognisant and prompts them to action for change. It helps in emancipating or liberating adults from their current problems and situation. Fenwick p 2, 2001,( John Dewey, Experience and Education) 10) It is experiential: It basically conceived and offered taking into account the experiences of adults. Malcolm Knowles,1970. 11) It is welfare and development oriented: It promotes rational and informed decision with a view to promote the welfare and development - social, economic, political and cultural - of individuals, groups, society and nation. 12) It is goal-directed: It is directed by the goals set by adults for themselves, or by others for them or by the nation for them and helps in achieving them. 13) It is learner-centred, systematic and flexible: It is a systematically organised process, using diverse methods and techniques of teaching and learning with an in-built element or component of flexibility for promotion of more learner-centred educational activities. (Knowles M, The Adult Learner, 1984) 14) It is a network building activity: It is very effective in building the network of adults, their groups, activities and associations in the particular context and situation in which the adults live, earn and learn. 15) It is quality-of-life or standard-of-living oriented: It aims at enabling the adults to use all their networks - personal, social, professional, political, etc - for raising their quality of life and standard of living. 16) It is an education for empowerment: Adult education is an effective tool for empowerment of adults. David Kolb, The Theory of Experiential Learning Reinforcing Kolb theory of learning being continuously gained, I saw my ‘hot issue’ being a process where the learner; · Must be willing to actively be involved in the experience · Must be able to reflect on the experience · Must possess and use analytical skills to conceptualise the experience · Must process decision making and problem solving skills in order to use new ideals gained from experience. In summary, education needs the input from the learner, be it educator or student to develop society, through this process we need to encourage and aid learners to expand themselves through personal enrichment, self esteem along with progressive, humanist phenomenological traditions. 3. What are the implications of your proposed learning strategy to address your hot issue? We often have the assumption that all learners will learn in a similar manner. Different people have different consistent approaches to organising and processing information during thinking. Conventional training methodologies, while acknowledging the notion of learning styles, appear to lack the theoretical and empirical bases to accommodate the important role played by cognitive style in determining learning performance, (Training and Development Lead Body-UK). Learning is the interaction between what students know, the new information they encounter and the activities they engage in as they learn. Students encounter their own understanding through experience, interaction with content and others and critical reflection. But just why is critical reflection important? Critical reflection entails all kinds of risks and complexities. Stephen Brookfield, 1995, (“Becoming a critically reflective teacher”), enlightens us by listing six important reasons: It helps us to take informed actions It helps us to develop a rationale for practice It helps us avoid self laceration It grounds us emotionally It enlivens our classrooms It increases democratic trust In designing learning strategies we need to be mindful that we accommodate the different styles of learning and encourage strategy development in order to improve the effectiveness of training, there is no sure individual fit. Educators in their learning spaces need to find ways to adapt material and or methods of presentation to enable learners to deal with learning as effectively as possible. While learning styles seem to be a fixed trait of learners it is possible for learners to develop learning strategies to enable them to make the most efficient use of their strengths and limitations of their particular challenges. The process of learning involves cognitive theories of function in memory. The three types of memory namely, Long term memory, which is used to store information derived from personal experience and education, short term memory which is used to remember information that is relatively unimportant, and working memory is memory in which information is manipulated,( Sarah Maccarelli, www.voices.yahoo.com , the three types human memory). The working memory is where most thinking is believed to take place. Working memory is where new information temporarily stays while it is being processed. Working memory has limited capacity so it cannot hold much information at a time. Attention is a vital part of working memory; obviously, one cannot remember something that is not paid attention to. This detail has lead me to an important aspect of the human development and how I address the short comings in my ‘hot issue’. Strategies for learning require conscious mental activity. The importance of post preparation is of paramount importance. Keeping the learner’s mind focused on the activities involves that the information disseminated be relevant, current and contextual. Working with students of different cultures requires an educator to being sensitive to their cultural norms and beliefs. Understanding their assumptions and social backgrounds, especially students within the Middle East there is a very fine line between culture and religion. Every practitioner, in whatever domain they work, wants to be awake to possibilities, to be sensitive to the situation and to respond appropriately, (Mason, Researching your own Practice - The Discipline of Noticing). Learning styles are collective of personal characteristics, strengths and preferences, describing how individuals acquire, store and process information. Teachers often teach in the manner they were taught, with some breaking away from the orthodox, even if it does not support the learning style preferred by most learners, remembering Dan as narrated by Watson. Dan’s sense of himself as a teacher is defined by a simultaneous inclusion within the system and exclusion from the organisation he perceives of that system, ( Watson,2006). Being aware of my own teaching style I am able to make better choices of instructional strategies that do not impede on learning. Students must be able to interpret questions, comments and responses in the context of learning style variations as no two students have the same learning capacity. By means of learning partnerships students will be able to know their learning style, strengths and weaknesses and to develop a set of learning plans to use their strengths to compensate for weaknesses. The brighter students take on a peer role, modelling and nurturing the weaker students to realise their full potential. This peer modelling aids students to become more efficient and effective in their studying and more likely to attribute success or failure to their choice of learning patterns rather than to their innate competencies. By close ‘noticing’ and monitoring of my students, in a student centred method of teaching, I am able to influence the pace of their learning, my identity changes from educator to counsellor to facilitator to friend and confidant. Students that are bored or inattentive are easily discouraged by a teacher that is critical or robust. Again the student centred method is a fantastic method to use group activity to stimulate discussion and role play, making the student or students the main attraction. Students do not come into my class as a blank slate, they have preconceived ideas and notions and they use my message to interpret new information with what they already know. A danger I witnessed in my ‘hot issue’ was the fact that what they could not relate to what they already know, they tend to memorise, I wanted my students to develop real understanding of the subject matter not memorising. Teachers have many expectations and assumptions of their students. I developed a culture to engage with my student and to fully immerse in their learning; I wanted to know of their experiences, preconceptions and their assumptions to name a few. I probed their inner minds with questions and activities to reveal their thinking and investigate their challenges to find suitable solutions. Importantly I subscribe to Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning domains i.e. http://www.nwlink.com
I strive to assist my students to become more metacognitively aware by modelling a learning path as we solve problems, help to develop an argument and analyse reading, speaking and writing tasks in front of the class to dispel ambiguity and favouritism and to check for consistency. Get them to understand and accept responsibilities in regard to time keeping, meeting deadlines, student and class rules. For assessment we work on guided portfolio building and class participation. Research “clearly establishes that teacher expectations do play a significant role in determining how well and how much students learn” (Jerry Bamburg 1994). Depending on the role the teacher play in the learning environment, students rise or fall to the level of expectation of their teachers. When teachers believe in students, students believe in themselves. When those you respect think you can, you think you can, (James Raffini, 1993). Reference: Bamburg, Jerry. Brooksfield S. Chappell et al. Fenwick, Tara J. David Kolb. Mason J. Raffini James. Sharan and Phyllis. Watson C. http://www.nwlink.com http://www.southafricaweb.co.za http://www.voices.yahoo.com Word count : 3951/4029 |
AuthorMark P Naidoo - photographer, educationalist and social activist. Archives
September 2015
Abstract
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