2010-09-30
Outline
Quality of Higher Education
StudentStudent-Centred Learning
and Academic Culture
The Swedish Higher Education Act
Academic Culture
Approaches to Learning
Juha Takkinen, juha.takkinen@liu.se
Student-Centred Learning
Department of Computer and Information Science
Knowledge Development
Linköping University
(with thanks to Anna Bjuremark)
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Quality of Higher Education
– Ramsden, Paul (2003), Learning to Teach in
Higher Education. Second Ed. Routledge.
ISBN 0415303451
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Clark’s triangle of coordination:
model of higher education coordination
“We can only improve the quality
of university education if we
study the effects on students and
look at the experience through
their eyes.”
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Today:
Globalization
Marketizing
knowledge
Move towards
New Public
Management,
which replaces
the tradition of
collegiality.
Clark, Burton R. (1983), The Higher Education System: Academic Organization in
Cross-National Perspective. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-04841-5.
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The Swedish Higher Education Act,
Ch. 1, Section 8
The Swedish Higher Education Act,
Ch. 1, Section 8 (cont’d)
Education at undergraduate level shall develop the
students’
In addition to knowledge and skills in their field of
study, students shall develop the ability to:
Ability to make independent and critical
assessments
Gather and interpret information at a scholarly level
Ability to independently identify, formulate and
solve problems
Communicate their knowledge to others, including those
who lack specialist knowledge in the field.
Stay abreast of the development of knowledge
Readiness to deal with changes in working life.
On the web: http://www.hsv.se/
and select English, Laws and Regulations
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The Swedish Higher Education Act, cont’d
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The Swedish Higher Education Act, cont’d
Transparency
Education at the advanced level (master)
Shall contribute to a deepening of knowledge, skills an
qualifications in relation to first-level education
Students are expected to
Further develop their ability to independently integrate
and apply their knowledge
Develop their ability to manage complex situations,
phenomena and issues
Clarity about aims, rules and roles between students,
lecturers and management
Commitment
Relevance, challenges, activity and collaboration
Interaction
Learning is enhanced in interaction with people with
different backgrounds, attitudes and competences
Feedback
Learning to monitor and develop personal and peer
competencies
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Nature of disciplinary culture
”the way in which particular groups of
academics organize their professional lives are
intimately related to the intellectual tasks on
which they are engaged.” -- Becher, Tony & Trowler, Paul
R. (1989), Academic Tribes and Territories Intellectual enquiry and the
culture of disciplines. Second Ed. The Society for Research into Higher
Education & Open University Press. ISBN 0-335 20627-1.
Competitive; politically wellorganized; high publication rate;
task-oriented.
e.g. physcis
Individualistic, pluralistic; loosely
structured; low publication rate;
person-oriented.
e.g. history
Reflected in teaching styles, assessment
exercises, styles of writing, types of questions
asked
e.g. mech. eng.
Tacit assumptions surrounding the study
of specific subjects
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Entrepreneurial; dominated by
professional values; patents
substitutable for publication; roleoriented.
Becher, Tony (1994). “The Significance of Disciplinary
Differences. Studies”, in Higher Education, Volume 19,
Issue 2, 1994 , pp. 151-161. Routledge.
Nature of Knowledge and Disciplinary Culture (Becher, 1994)
Academic Culture
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A discipline can not be described through
its knowledge base
Outward-looking; uncertain in
status; dominated by intellectual
fashions; publication rates
reduced.
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e.g. education
The learning process: developing knowledge
Example, nature of professional expertise:
“Research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cognitive
psychology produced discussion of the relationship
between knowledge and skill. Attempts to model human
decision-making with computers that exhaustively
searched knowledge bases were not being successful, for
human experts take short cuts and deal with chunks of
knowledge.” (Blackmore, 2000)
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Knowledge is instead developed by and within
communities (ibid.)
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Blackmore, Paul (1999), “A categorisation of approaches to occupational analysis”,
in Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 5:1, pp. 61-78. Routledge.
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1. The “Academic Community”
Discussion
Student-centred learning and knowledge
Silver, Harold (2003), “Does a University Have a Culture?”,
in Studies in Higher Education, 28, 157-169. Routledge.
Often focus on teachers and omits students ...
From attempts to analyze relationship between
organizational structure and behaviours of individual
enterprises and their effectiveness in marketplace
competition
Universities do not have an organizational culture
(Silver, 2003)
Conglomerate of (heterogeneous) knowledge
interests and activities
TGTU39: Academic Culture and
Student-Centred Learning
E.g. when teaching:
branch of philosophy
Types of knowledge
valued?
about the nature and scope
(limitations) of knowledge
Reflection on course
design
It addresses the questions
What is knowledge?
How is knowledge acquired?
Educational purpose
Styles of formal inquiry
Assessment?
What do people know?
How do we know what we
know?
Instead: “Culture of tolerance of diversity”
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Epistemology: theory of
knowledge
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2. Approaches to knowledge
What is knowledge?
Indisputable knowledge: learning a mastery of content
What counts determined in advance
Student expected to know propositional/declarative knowledge
and solve problems
Relativistic knowledge: confronting different
perspectives
Content negotiable, students responsible and participate in
constitution of knowledge
Confront different perspectives part of learning project
Pragmatic knowledge: contextualization
Course objectives become schedule for administration of
different activities
Learning is functional, referring to life in general, to
forthcoming professional work
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Lindblom-Ylänne, S., Pihlajamäki, H. & Kotkas, T. (2006), “Self-, peer- and teacherassessment of student essays”, in Active Learning in Higher Education, Vol. 7,
Nr 1, 51-62. Sage.
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Approaches: Surface learning
Approaches to knowledge, cont’d
Surface learning
Intention only to
complete task
requirements
Student distorts
structure of task
Deep learning
Intention to
understand
Focus on
E.g. “the signs”: memorize word, sentence, formula
(without thinking)
Associate facts and concepts unreflectively
Student maintains
structure of task
Fail to distinguish principles from examples
Task is an external imposition
External emphasis, demands
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Approaches: Deep learning
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3. Theories of university teaching
Focus on
“what is significant”: E.g., author’s argument, concepts
applicable to solve problem
Relates
Previous knowledge to new knowledge
Theoretical ideas to everyday experience
Distinguish evidence and argument
Organize/structure content into coherent whole
Task is an internal drive
Internal emphasis, “a window through which aspects
of reality become visible, and more intelligible”
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4. Student-Centred Learning
Knowledge development
An approach to learning and teaching (not one
method)
Management/Director of studies: allocates resources
Lecturer/Examiner: designs course in a specific study
environment
Student: responsible for actively engaging in the
environment, from his/her individual goals, motives and
motivation
“... it represents a way of thinking about teaching
and learning which ensures that the learning of
students is given equal prominence to the
demands of the academic discipline.” – Kaivola, Taina
(2004), ”Sustainable development in academic teaching and learning”, in Teacher
seminar, Baltic university programme, March 18-21, 2004. University of Helsinki.
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Student
Teacher
(Kaivola, 2004)
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