Thoughts on curriculum reformthe contribution of pedagogical research

Dr. Laura Colucci-Gray

School of Education

17 April 2008

(picture by Neil and Liz Curtis – presentation to the steering group, January 2008))

What do we see?

The nature of knowledge

We need to reflect on

• the role that graduates play in the current global society

• how we know within the University

• the role and purposes of education within the academic

institution.

Current issues

• A tension exists between humanitarian concerns versus utilitarian,

pragmatic concerns: enhancing the individual or providing skills for

performing specific activities (i.e. jobs)?

• A challenge exists for building new bridges between University and

Society which can create new avenues for human life.

• A need for a reflection of how we produce knowledge…

… considering the values underpinning and shaping the

what and the how of our university…

Students’ beliefs of science and knowledge

• Evidence from many studies suggests that students hold

naïve views of science (objective, neutral, certain, fixed)

• and expert-dominated views of knowledge

School students, graduates (from all disciplines!) but

also teachers in school.

How are beliefs formed?

• Implicit curriculum: selection of content, assessment, teaching strategies,

epistemological posture of the teacher, learning environment, relationships

• the shortage of time and the amount of new data is such that scientific

knowledge is increasingly presented as the knowledge of ‘something’, rather

than a kind of knowledge which is socially constructed and negotiated.

Implications:

• increasingly specialised university education, with universities turning into

schools of transmission of consolidated knowledge.

• implicit divisions between who knows and who does not know, expert/non-

expert, perpetuated at all levels, from schools to society.

The role of the University within a knowledge enterprise in transformation

• Complex problems, fast changes, facts are disputed, values are in conflict,

decisions are urgent, responsibilities for all.

• Necessity to recover mutliple rationalities

• Involvement of the extended peer-community

New criteria for knowledge production:

• Recovering dialogue;

• Reconsidering how knowledge is validated and legitimated (this includes

looking at criteria for inclusion and participation).

From transmission to dialogue and breaking of the vicious cycle

• To revise the ways in which we teach (product

and process; interdisciplinarity, epistemic

awareness, awareness of time and space scales

etc…) but also

• To look at the nature and quality of the

relationships between teachers and students

AT4512 Material Culture and MuseumsEL40BL Frankenstein to Einstein: literature and science in the 19th century

To contextualize, both historically and epistemologically

Some ideas from interdisciplinary research

1. Give a title and explain the meaning of the vignette.

2. Make a list of Life Sciences subjects and issues you connect to the scene

Interpretation of a vignette

Some ideas from trans-disciplinary research pedagogy, language, biology, art, anthropology

IRIS at Aberdeen 2008

Description Interpretation / reflection

Opinion / Judgement

Two real life situations are illustrated: a fisherman while fishing, and a man buying some food at the supermarket

The vignette aims to explain the relationship between the activity of fishing and the production chain that leads to offer the same product on a supermarket shelf

The fisherman in a poor country while caching the fish that we then find in the supermarket. Economic power and multinationals control the process and become rich.

From fresh to freeze

North South inter-dependence

Your shopping bag can unbalance ecological

equilibriumTechnology influences human

activities at various scales

Some RESULTS:

a) a variety of views

Aberdeen 2008

Some RESULTS:

b) a variety of Life Science subjects

Food chain, food

conservation, micro-

organisms

Ecosystems, aquatic

environment

Energy flows and matter

cycling

Natural resources’

management and

consumption

++++++ ++++ ++ +

In the plenary session, the role of technology in opening

ecological boundaries was discussed

Aberdeen 2008

Some examples and possibilities for action

• Interdisciplinary dialogues between specialists (i.e. IRIS at Turin

University)

• Revisioning academic training (post-doctoral students, at Turin

University; Teacher training, at Turin University and Aberdeen

University)

• Valuing and legitimising pedagogical research

• Adopting some of the techniques derived from pedagogicla research

to undertake a form of self-training and reflection on one’s discipline

and one’s way of knowing.

“When we use a kaleidoscope, we can’t only focus on the beautiful configuration of colours and patterns, but we also need to consider the eye that is looking and the hand which is acting” (Ravetz, 1998).