Caroline KuhnSecond year PhD student at the Institute for Education, Bath Spa University. Bath, UK.

Mathematics teacherResearching in the idea of flexible and open learning spaces, student’s agency and their voiceIs ‘open’ really open for all?

GO-GN Workshop Cape Town 2017

(Open)-Dynamic.Space

A consideration of tensions concerning personal design and institutional artifacts. The case of Open Personal

Learning SpacesAn overview of the first stage

of my PhD research study

Socio-political c o n t e

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Image: CC-BY Flickr, Caroline Kuhn

Socio-political context

CC BY. Overview of the lifelong learning strategies (JRC & IPTS Report: The future of learning: preparing for change)

This was discussed in 2003 while doing the report

The scenario of a 21st Century Learning-intensive Society depicted in this report is an imaginary snapshot of how society might function with open learning at the core of what everyone does all the time, everywhere

Students’ concerns Students want to be co-creators of their digital

environment Want a flexible environment to

experiment, tinker with new tools, learn from each other and create their own blend

Want to be informed about the need for digital literacies and taught consequently

Want to create a space for people to work it out for themselves

But they say they don’t know how to use personal devices, services, networks, and practices in academic context!

Taken from The Digital Student project (Jisc project, Beetham, 2014) and the Students’ voice conference at Bath Spa (2015)

?

CC BY Available here

Initial exploration of the digital profile of students

(66 students in education studies Y-3)

Don't use social networking web-sites(Twitter, Faceb,whatsapp, Google+)

Don't maintain my own blog or website

Don't participate in online dis-cussion groups

Not using spreadsheets or data analysis software

Aim: To explore current students’ digital practice1. What are students' motivations to

engage with tools and platforms and for what reasons?

2. How open/closed is students' digital practice?

3. Map and understand students’ perceived needs and expectations concerning their experience and use of digital technology in the university

This study explores the state-of-the-actual (Selwyn, 2011) not the potential use of ed tech

Aim of the study (stage 2)

How can we support students in (re)designing their personal learning space so that they can participate actively in an open approach to education. In so doing they can open the 'open' in 'open practice’

What is the level of digital competence and provision at the institutional level? The role of the Institution.

Theoretical context

Practice as the sayings, doings and relatings that hang together in a particular way that gives a sense of purpose to practices as projects of a particular kind [OPEN ED?] and that shapes participant's commitments (affective domain) to achieving this particular purpose. Structural features: know-how, rules, teleo-affective (purpose, goals, emotions), general understandings (performance in a particular practice (Kemmis, et al., 2010; Schatzki, 2006)

Open as the architecture of practice Personal learning (environments) spaces as

an open educational resource created by students and also as an approach to open practice is not yet explore in depth

PLEs are not explored yet from a socio-topological perspective, as arrangements, constellations; as bricolage were students are the craftman/women.

Connections between students' agency and (open) digital practice is key if we aim to educate for freedom and emancipation. Hence, critically.

Flourishing as the aim of education (Wright, 2010) The study is framed in a socio-cultural perspective Posthumanism (Barad, Fenwick) Nothing is pre-

given it is made in the performance, in the 'doings'. Agency is not a pre-given feature in the individual it is 'made' in intra (from within)-actions. It emerges from the action (this maybe helps in the exploration of agency in open educational practices and see how it can be fostered? )

Methodology

Constructive grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014): Inductive, multiple social realities, interpretative understandings, co-construction of dataWith whom? 32 (20+12)undergraduates (y-1, y-2, y-3) in educational studies at Bath Spa University

R.Q.1 stage 1What tools and platforms do students engage with and for what reasons? Methods:- Focus group: I used the V&R approach

(White & LeCornu, 2011) using mapping as a means to enquire

- Sample: 20 undergraduates (y-1, y-2, y-3) in educational studies that volunteered at Bath Spa University

- Data analysis: Nvivo to code in 3 stages

Outcomes A topography of students informal learning

spaces. Are they prepared to enter the ‘open’?Can they engage in open research?

Digital bites: Short sessions with relevant information about open tools for doing open research derived from students’ perspective of what are the main barriers and enhancers of students’ open digital practice

Theoretical elements related with students’ agency and readiness for navigating effectively the ‘open’ landscape of education

Topography of student’s informal learning space

Map of one of the participants of the study

Cronin (2016): Open practice Farrow (2015): Open critical education Bayne, Knox & Ross (2015): The need for a critical approach to open Hall (2009): Fusion of formal and informal spaces Jenkins (2006): Participatory culture Beetham (2016): Digital capabilities, digital student, digital

wellbeing Nussbaum + Sen: Human capability approach. Development as

freedom. Capabilities as functionings (being and doing)--> Digital capabilities

Gourlay, Hamilton & Lea (2013): Textual practice in the new media digital landscape: messing with dig literacies. New literacy studies to approach dig lit

Harguitai (2004): Digital divide stemming from people with access Schatzki (2010); Kemmis et al.: Theory of Practice Whright (2010): The real Utopias Project --> The idea of flourishing Castañeda & Prendes (2016); Attwell, Conole: Literature related to

PLEs Engeström, Saninno, Gutierrez, Cole, Daniels: Socio-cultural activity

theory Postumanism, agentic realism: Barad, K., Feenwick, Edwards

Literature

R.Q.2 stage 1

What are students’ needs, expectations, and experience about their academic digital experience (the engagement with digital literacies and the use of the digital environment provided by the Institution)?Method:- Focus group using a set of cards designed by Jisc for the digital student project - Sample: 9 students in ed studies

Outcomes

Students’ perspective about their digital experience at the institution with their suggestions of how to enhance their academic digital experience

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Work in progress

Topology of open learning spaces

CC BY. Flickr: Caroline Kuhn

Conceptual framework as bricolage (Maxwell, 2005) SCAT Engestorm, Sannino, Daniels Human agency and ed research

(Yamazumi, 2007) Performativity (post-humanism) Intra-

actions, agency as emerging from intra-action. Barad, Fenwick & Edwards, Bayne

Human capability approach Sen, Nussbaum (can I integrated it with performativity? With SCAT, CHAT?

The emotional element that is so present in my data is difficult to back up with theory. Thinking about the need to encourage an explorative mind-set to navigate the openness and find new tools to mediate academic practice

Can I link the affective domain with agency/lack of?

I am not sure if SCAT allows for exploration of agency in greater depth. In SCAT agency is not the starting point, it is the activity. Agency comes down to the question of how students become authors of the activity and shape and give direction to the activity. To study agency SCAT goes onto explore how agency emerges, i.e the root of agency. But it is how they see emergence that puzzles me. There is a sense of disassociation between the self and the agency it enacts: it seems like individuals come already loaded with an amount of agency that they enact when needed.

Whereas in performativity agency emerges as part of the process of meaning making, it is part of the phenomenon. “bodies are not objects with inherent boundaries and properties, they are material-discursive phenomena (performance) ” Barad,2013

Problematising agency

Students’ agency is trapped in the discourse of the digital natives and in the institutional structures

How is agency fostered? Is it possible? What can be done so students enact that ability to act in the open wild web?

Why does not the university promote and support the creation of independent open learning spaces designed by students (my own domain, PLEs, etc.)

References Wright, E. 2010. Real Utopias

Sen, A. Capability approach

Bildung The idea of Bildung of the Faculty of Educational Sciences of

the University of Oslo Bruford, W.H. The German Tradition of Self Cultivation.

From Humboldt to Thomas Mann Fossland, T., Mathiasen, H., and Solberg, M. 2015. Academic

Bildung in Net-based Higher Education. Moving beyond learning.

Giacomoni, P. (1998). Paideia as Bildung in Germany in the Age of the Enlightenment. Paper given at the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, in Boston, Massachusetts August 1998. Available here

LLanera, T.A. 2011. Shattering Tradition: Rorty on Edification and Hermeneutics. Kritike, Vol.5 (1). pp. 108-116.

Reindal, S. (2013). Bildung, the Bologna Process, and Kierkegaard's Concept of Subjective Thinking. Stud Philos Educ (2013) 32:533–549. Available from here

… Connected minds: technology and todays

learners (OECD+Centre for Educational Research and InnovationI). Chapter 2: How connectedness is relevant for young people (link for the whole book)

How can the learning sciences inform the design of 21st century learning environments? (link)