Category Archives: Competence Development

Skilled performace as a basis for professional practice?

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Chris Sessums asks: “What would a knowledge base for the teaching profession look like? How can we get one?”

He goes on to say: “Imagine teachers collaborating around the globe to improve education. Sound like a fantasy? Is there a path that could lead from classrooms to a shared, reliable professional knowledge base for teaching? Is it because practitioner knowledge is highly personal, highly contextual, and lacks the vetting process associated with scientific research that such a path has never been developed? Given the millions of teachers producing knowledge of classroom practice everyday, is it worth examining what would be needed to transform teacher knowledge into a professional knowledge base for teaching? What would such a path look like?”

These are good questions. However, they pose problems over the nature of practice. Chris bases his idea of practioner knowledge around the idea of “elaborating a problem” and alaborating and testing answers to such a problem. But surely this is only part of the practice of a teacher. Can teaching be reduced to a knowledge base? In struggling to envisage what form such a knowledge base might take Chris suggests it could be developed around lesson plans. Although a readily accessible and open bank of lesson plans might be a valuable resource, it still ignores many elements of the practice of teaching. It is perfectly possible that no two teachers would use the plans in the same way. Of course that is not important. But such a knowledge base might then fail to capture the essence of professional practice (I am unconvinced of Chris’s distinction between practioner knowledge and professional knowledge).

Reckwitz (2003) distinguishes 3 different meanings or understandings of practice:

  • Practice as embodied knowledge;
  • Practice as a skilful performance with artefacts;
  • Practice as implicit knowledge, as the implicit logic of doing things

It may be possible to develop a database of the background knowledge and of the artefacts. Far mor problematic is the skilful performance. Yet it is this element of practice which would seem to be most useful for teachers and trainers.

Is one of the problems the divisions we have made between so called scientific (or professional) knowledge and practice? I wonder if it might be possible to develop taxonomies for practice embodied as skilful performance and then develop social software which would allow the sharing of such practice. If, so how and what might it look like? Does anyone have any ideas?

Reference

Reckwitz, A. (2003). Grundelemente einer Theorie sozialer Praktiken. In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Jg. 32, H. 4, 282-301.

The potential of technology to change the way we work

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I have spent most of the day working on the Mature project. The project, funded by the European Commission, is developing services for knowledge maturing in organisations, including the introduction of Personal Learning and Management Systems and Organisational Learning and Management Systems. Of course, before we can develop or implement such systems we have to work out what they are. For me that is half of the attraction of the project.
This morning we had an on-line meeting for one of the work groups, this afternoon I had a long talk with Tobias Nelker from Paderborn University and in-between I started writing up overdue reports.
here are just a few thoughts following our discussions.
One of the attractions of the project, which is relatively well funded, it it brings together an interdisciplinary research team including researchers from sociology, computer sciences, education and work sciences. We are struggling still to find a common language. sometimes I do not understand what the computer scientists are talking about – and I am quite sure they have similar problems with me. More problematic is the development of a shared research approach and methodology for the project – different disciplines have different approaches to similar issues. We need to find ways of using this as a strength for the project.
With reference to knowledge sharing, I think we have some tensions between those who view knowledge through artefacts and others of us who see knowledge development and maturing as a process. I am by no means convinced we can measure or even understand knowledge maturing in the progressive iteration of a document or artefact – to me it is the social use of such artefacts which matures.
The project is through the technology programme of the European Commission and oart of the work involves the development and testing of tools. There seem to be two tensions. How can we marry together research into how people learn and how knowledge is developed with actual practice within organisations?
And how can we design tools which help people in their everyday work and lives based on their practice – rather than saying – here is a cool wizzy tool which we would like you to try out.
I am increasingly aware of the importance of context in learning and in knowledge development – especially in work based learning and in informal learning. there are multiple contextual variables of which I feel the most important is work organisation. It is not only an issue of opportunities for learning but an issue of the autonomy to use such learning in practice. This cannot be reduced to merely adopting to the work environment but the ability to shape that work environment based on individual and collective or organsiation knowledge.
This in turn requires change processes. But any project such as Mature is acting as a change agent in the very processes it studies.
All in all this is complex. But I am convinced that we can use technology based tools to open opportunities and support learning in the workplace – not just to courses – but for individual and peerr group learning from everyday working experience. This can not only lead to individual learning but can enrich work environments and lead to enhanced quality of goods and services. And in many ways I think this may be the real impact and potential of what we have called e-learning – rather than trying to use technology to implement traditional classroom based learning at a distance.
NB I am increasingly convinced of the potential of microblogging systems for knowledge exchange and development. This was what I taled to Tobias about this afternoon. Will write something more on this over the weekend.

If PLEs are incompatible with the system then how do we change the system?

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Goerge Siemens has written an important post called ‘Systematization of education: Room for PLEs?’ Why do I think it is important? Because George tries to look at the relationship between the development and uses of technology and the societal organisation of education.

The crux of his arguement is: “PLEs are great. They’re just completely incompatible with the existing education system.”

George quotes Evetts, Mieg, and Felt who “suggest that expertise has as a significant sociological component. Power, authority, and validity all play a role. Focus on accountability, audits, and performance targets are now heavily intertwined with professionalism. Structures of control – such as education – are not solely about knowledge and the interaction of learners with academics. Education is a system based in a sociological context. Or, more bluntly, there is “no fundamental difference between the pursuit of knowledge and that of power.”

A PLE, in contrast, is a tool/process/concept that addresses the needs of learners. It is not, to date, integrated with the power structures of society. It is only – and perhaps even honorably – about knowledge. It’s entirely possible that an integrated power structure can be built at a grassroots level, thereby developing the capacity of PLEs to replace existing LMS tools (which again, find their strength in existing power structures of control and data organization under the umbrella of the institution). This transition will not, however, occur without a corresponding power shift that emphasizes networks as an alternative to hierarchical curricular control structures that begin with industry and government setting research agendas and often influencing standards and curricular needs.”

As George says: “The modernization of education: during the industrial revolution, education transitioned from a personal relationship between faculty member and learner to a systematized model of large instructional classes and numerous teachers.”

He concludes: “Education has ceased to be about the individual learner (the early university model) to being about the existing power allocation of society (today’s model as a by product of industrial techniques applied to education).

As a result, it makes perfect sense that LMS are popular. LMS’ speak the language of the current power structure in education: control, accountability, manageability.”

I agree with almost everything George says. But I am far less pessimist than him. I think George misses two things: the inherent contradictions in capitalist societies and the power of individual and collective agency.

Just as there are contradictions in the capitalist economic system, so are there in the different superstructures which support that system. Yes, education has become systematised to deliver the education and training required by modern industrial societies. But at the same time, the system is unable to keep up with what is required. It is not just a question that curricula cannot keep pace with the speed of technological and social innovation. It is an issue that the skills and knowledge required by today’s technology cannot be delivered through a rigidly sytematised, market led educational system. Furthermore, globalisation, the rapid turnover in employment and occupations and the implementation of new technologies have led to pressures for continuing learning – what is being called lifelong learning. Present education systems cannot deliver this. Hence the never ending reforms of our schooling systems and the ongoing financial problems of universities. Putting it simply, it will cost too much to extend the present model of institutional education to deliver the learning required by the present phase of capitalism. PLEs and MOOCs offer alternative models – for better or worse. Although institutions may resist such models, they will have little alternative than to embrace change.

OK – that is the first argument. The second is based on individual and community agency. The education systems are powerful. But they are not hegemonic. There have always been spaces for individuals and groups to organise their own learning in their own way. In the UK in the 19th and 20th centuries workers organised their own education through the Mechanics Institutes, just as today we find an increasing wave of self organised and open learning available through the web. There are many innovative teachers experimenting with new technologies. Often this work is going on on the fringes of the system, where the control may be less strong. Language teaching is one such example. Most language schools are only interested in results and if the teacher chooses to use PLEs or Web 2.0 tools then they do no object as long as the results are good. Today I was talking with Maria Perifanou, an Italian language teacher in Tessaloniki in Greece. She told me how her students are using Edmodo, set up as part of their langauge course,  to communicate about what is happening in the riots. “They send messages, songs, links, express opinions… they used it these days to tell about  their situation…in Italian…so this brought them their need to share opinions…to become a community.”

It is not merely a question that the system has to change before we can adopt Personal Learning Environments. PLEs support informal and social learning. It is that informal and social learning which can change the system. It is notable that the uprising in Greece is being led by students – many of whom are still at school.

We all can have agency in changing the system and the use of social software and the development of peer networks is part of that process.

Peronal Learning Environments, Mash-ups and Personalised Learning Systems

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Or PLEs, Mupples and PLSs. Its a bit of a mouthful. A couple of weeks ago the iCamp project came up with the idea of Mupples – Mashup Personal Learning Environments. “Mash-ups, the ‘frankensteining’ of software artefacts and data”, they say “have enabled a new generation of learning tools. Web-applications, services, and data can now be endlessly recombined, no matter where they reside.” I think this is a helpful idea. And they are organising a conference on it in September.

Now this morning comes the idea of Personalised Learning Systems. The term is used in a blog post by Ken Carroll from Praxis Language based in Shanghai. I met Hank Horkoff, the CEO, last week and was mightily impressed with the work they are doing (watch this spot for a Sounds of the Bazaar interview with Hank).

Anyway, Ken says:

“The PLS has one obsessive objective: to allow the user in every way possible to fit the learning around her own needs (rather than forcing her to conform to some outside requirements). In this sense, the PLS is consistent with Personal Learning Environments, and of course, with our own philosophy of learning on your terms. The lifelong learner simply has to have ownership/control of the learning. Perhaps the PLS would fit as a language learning toolkit within a PLE to enable that control.”

I am not so sure I like the term Personalised Learning System. But the idea makes a lot of sense in terms of using standards compliant and web 2 savvy learning provision which learners can access though the (mashup) Personal Learning Environment.

Layered Learning

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I am working with Jenny Hughes on some research for the Mature project. And in the course of developing a few research proposals Jenny asked me what Layered learning is. I had to admit I didn’t know. So it was off to Google. And up came an abstract of a paper by Kumar, Torr and Zisserman which contained the wonderful phrase “efficent, loopy belief propagation.” Wow!. I wish I had written that.

Layered learning seem to have been developed by researchers working to program robots to play football. And basically it refers to breaking down skills and knowledge into a series of hierarchically defined layers. So you might teach a robot to kick the ball and to run. And you might teach them to watch what the other team is doing and to be aware of where their own team robots are and so on. And at the end of the the day you synthesis the different layers of learning to develop a football playing robot. Jenny questions whether people learn in this way. Of course sometimes we do synthesize chunks of learning to carry out a task. But just as often we may analyse a whole chunk of learning to derive the different skills and knowledge from it. In that way we can distinguish analytic learning from synthetic learning. And layered learning appears to focus solely on the synthetic learning process.

Be glad to hear from anyone who knows more than me about this.