Developing and Supporting Faculty Training for Online Social Work Education: The Columbia University School of Social Work Online Pedagogy Institute

ABSTRACT

With the growth of online and distance education in social work, faculty training and support need to be provided to ensure high-quality online social work education. A model for training social work educators in online teaching is outlined that focuses on pedagogy, technology, and social work values. Columbia University School of Social Work’s Online Campus provides a five-week Institute on Pedagogy and Technology for Online Courses for prospective social work instructors. The Institute provides a faculty training model that can be adopted in other social work programs, and seeks to model best practices in online education.     

Reciprocal Learning,Pedagogy and High-Performing Education Systems: Learnings from and for Singapore

ABSTRACT

Employing Connelly and Xu’s (this issue) conceptualisation of reciprocal learning, the article explores the potential for reciprocal learning about pedagogy provided by a body of PISA-inspired literature on high-performing education systems. I argue that the opportunities for reciprocal learning provided by that body of literature is rather limited and problematic because of its uncritical acceptance of the OECD’s basic premises about PISA and because of its employment of the ‘best practices’ approach to policy borrowing. Using Singapore as a case, I contend that reciprocal learning needs to be informed by the cultural historical narratives behind the development of an education system and a theory of pedagogy that locates the practice of teaching within a broad social, institutional, and instructional context of schooling. I discuss lessons from and for Singapore concerning the purposes of schooling, institutional norms and arrangements, and pedagogical practice.     

Utopianism,transindividuation, and foreign language education in the Japanese university

Abstract

This article examines the current state of foreign language education in Japanese universities as illustrative of the troubling conditions facing the liberal arts (i.e. the transformative arts) in a globalized neoliberal milieu. The utopian ideal in education has always insinuated, at the least, a pedagogy that inspires personal agency, creative investment, challenge to power and social change. This imagining of incalculable futures, however, has been undermined by the seemingly inevitable and confluent forces of a networked world, represented most forcefully by the socioeconomic reductionism of neoliberal globalism. In the context of contemporary Japanese higher education, these forces are joined by Japan’s uniquely ambivalent relationship with the ‘outside’ world, and manifested in the rigid conceptualizations that motivate deeply problematic government and institutional initiatives for the ‘globalization’ of higher education. Within the frame of Bernard Stiegler’s work on transindividuation (psychosocial transformation), this article critiques these influential practices as fundamentally antithetical to the challenge of engaging Japanese learners of foreign languages in sustainable ‘economies of contribution’—economies which foster critical engagement and which open paths to transindividuation. The article concludes by arguing for a radical reimagining of the landscape of foreign language pedagogy in Japan and for a repositioning of learners from ‘short-circuited’ semiotic consumers to ‘long-circuited’ semiosic participants.     

‘Teaching excellence’ in higher education: a comparative study of English and Australian academics’ perspectives

ABSTRACT

In the current higher education (HE) environment, indicators of ‘teaching excellence’ (TE) are increasingly under the spotlight. The literature offers a wide range of models and perspectives, but also highlights the need for greater (comparative) scrutiny of the perceptions of those at the centre – staff teaching across the disciplines in different countries. This article aims to contribute to ongoing debates by investigating and comparing the views of 120 academic staff teaching in one of two countries – England and Australia – in an attempt to deepen our appreciation of their definitions and understandings. The findings from this two-stage enquiry using online questionnaires and interviews indicate broad commonalities in the ways in which academics define TE, centred on facilitative, interactive pedagogy related to individual professional aspirations; they also reveal widely shared reservations about the term’s legitimacy and institutional/marketised (ab)use. As such, the findings offer policy-makers and institutions useful insights at a time when TE definitions and metrics are growing global pre-occupations.

Abbreviations: teaching excellence (TE); higher education (HE)     

At the intersection of technology and pedagogy: considering styles of learning and teaching

Abstract

In considering those forms of teaching and learning that most favor the use of information and communication technologies, this article explores assumptions related to technology use and education; describes technology use in learning contexts that favor teacher-centered and studentcentered approaches; refers to the literature on learning styles; and presents some of the evidence supporting a move towards technology-based, studentcentered learning environments. In analyzing this information, the article concludes with a statement supporting a ‘pedagogy of learning’ as the most favorable context/style for the use of appropriate educational technologies     

A contextual critique of critical literacy: Freirean ‘generative themes’ and their impact on pedagogic practice

Public education in post-industrial societies has been restructured based on a human capital model that prioritizes the economic value of citizens for the benefit of globally competitive national economies. In a policy-as-numbers climate [Lingard, B. (2011). Policy as numbers: Ac/counting for educational research. The Australian Educational Researcher, 38(4), 355–382], school administrators and teachers struggle to ‘produce results’ and ‘close gaps’ within accountability systems built on standardized measures of learning. What possibilities exist for critical literacy as viable classroom pedagogy in such an environment? This article offers a contextual–empirical analysis of efforts to implement critical literacy in mainstream secondary classes in Singapore. Drawing on Freire’s notion of generative themes, it identifies key political-policy constraints, showing how they impacted the pedagogical enactment of critical literacy tenets and pinpointing a focal direction for critical literacy in Singapore’s English education. More generally, the article argues that critical literacy, more than ever, must be a localized practice responding to exigencies emerging at the global–local nexus.     

Why Cultural Studies is the End of Thinking

Abstract

This article begins from a consideration of this issue’s contention that ‘central to politicized academic projects … is a critique of the cultural power of institutions’ and in particular pedagogical institutions. It argues that is clear enough what the Editor is thinking of here: he names ‘cultural studies’ as his prime suspect and from here it is not too far a leap to imagine that the pedagogical institution at which his ‘politicized academic projects’ take aim is the university. The article concedes that this might all appear to be superficially true, and that much of what is argued in it will up hold this hypothesis. However, the article does not wish to rush too quickly towards an unproblematic equation of cultural studies, or the ‘politicized academic project’ of a critical study of culture with something like a pedagogy of the popular. Equally, it proposes, we must distinguish rigorously between ‘a pedagogy of the popular’, pedagogy able to treat the popular, popular pedagogy, and popular culture as such. In this respect it argues that we would not wish to foreclose the impertinent question of ‘what is cultural studies?’ too early in an understanding of what it might mean to offer an institutional critique that takes the form of pedagogy. Much will depend upon what we mean by these vaguest of terms ‘culture’, ‘education’, ‘power’ and ‘pedagogy’ itself, none of which is at all straightforward even though a certain normative discourse renders such terms the cornerstone of national policy debates through which billions of human and financial capital are routed. The stakes in fact could not be higher in a ‘critique of the cultural power of [pedagogical] institutions’. Therefore, it is crucial that we make the effort to understand, or at least begin to unpack, a conjunction such as the one Bowman offers here that amalgamates ‘politicized academic projects such as cultural studies and politicized work in cultural theory and philosophy’. It argues that we will not be able to progress to a wider schema until we have some leverage on this relation. And this is what this article seeks to provide.     

Corporal punishment and the pain provoked by the community of enquiry pedagogy in the university classroom

Abstract

Education for transformation and social justice calls for critical, reflective, imaginative and independent thinkers with enquiring minds and a strong sense of curiosity – the ends and means of what Jonathan Jansen calls a ‘pedagogy to disrupt’ and Gert Biesta a ‘pedagogy of interruption’. For this reason, I introduced an innovative pedagogy in some of my courses at the School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg – the internationally established ‘community of enquiry’ pedagogy. I report on how in an Ethics course the pedagogy opened up a space for undergraduate students to disclose their own experiences of corporal punishment in the schools where they were placed for teaching practice. The pedagogy made room for a critical incident to emerge that was painful for both tutors and students, but, as I argue, crucial for participation, inclusion and the demands of open-mindedness, critical thinking and also solidarity required in a deliberative democracy.     

Jacques Rancière’s Lesson on the Lesson

Abstract

This article examines the significance of Jacques Rancière’s work on pedagogy, and argues that to make sense of Rancière’s ‘lesson on the lesson’ one must do more but also less than merely explicate Rancière’s texts. It steadfastly refuses to draw out the lessons of Rancière’s writings in the manner of a series of morals, precepts or rules. Rather, it is committed to thinking through the ‘lessons’ of Rancière in another sense. Above all, Rancière wants to ‘teach’ his readers something absolutely crucial about teaching. In making this claim the article emphasizes the extent to which Rancière advocates an utterly radical pedagogy, one that completely reconceives all the central elements of ‘schooling’, including teacher, student, intelligence and knowledge. Rancière thinks it possible to teach without knowing; he believes that the best schoolmasters can operate not on the assumption of their expertise, but on the equality of intelligence; and this means ultimately that Rancière contends that we can ‘teach what we do not know’. The best schoolmasters are ignorant schoolmasters. Rancière’s radical pedagogy depends upon, just as it consistently advances, a thoroughgoing resistance to a certain form of epistemological and ontological mastery. The rejection of mastery—of schoolmasters who would know it all, and convey this knowing to their students—forms the very backbone of all of Rancière’s writings and critical investigations. This is the chief reason why Rancière is, in a way, always talking about pedagogy, even when his subject matter appears to be something else entirely.     

Hubris,revelations and creative pedagogy: transformation,dialogue and modelling ‘professional love’ with LEGO®

ABSTRACT

The article demonstrates a successful approach to providing Youth and Community Work students in higher education (HE) with a learning experience that embraces the transformative agenda of their chosen profession. It adds to our understanding of the opportunities and limitations in crafting a learning environment and embedding a discursive pedagogy that draws on the creativity of both the lecturer and students. Exploring different iterations of reflective sessions, it highlights how creative approaches can help students overcome barriers to their engagement with a particularly complex concept, namely, the transformational capacity of ‘professional love’ within Youth and Community Work practice. The evaluation of these sessions generates broadly positive results, suggesting that creative methods are appropriate for addressing complex issues in the HE classroom. However, it also details how this approach proved profoundly upsetting for some participants, suggesting it should not be seen as a one-size-fits-all solution to overcoming barriers in teaching and learning.     

Accounting for genocide: transitional justice,mass (re)education and the pedagogy of truth in present-day Rwanda

ABSTRACT

Vigorous debate has recently arisen on the particular contribution of education to transitional justice (TJ). This article, focusing on the case of post-genocide Rwanda, raises the question of the possibilities, limitations and desirability of approaches which seek to impose, through education, top-down forms of reconciliation. The article employs the concepts of ‘mass (re)education’ and ‘pedagogy of truth’ to characterise the approach used by Rwanda’s post-genocide government to reshape and reconcile society, and reflects on the extent to which the past thus taught can be employed in furthering TJ goals. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the study evaluates Rwanda-style practices by examining history and civic education programmes alongside young people’s utterances on the ‘truth’ of historical wrongs. Concluding, it casts doubt on the transformative and conciliatory value of ‘pedagogies of truth’ that seek to recast identities and inter-group relations, especially in light of state-imposed selective understandings of legitimate truth, justice, memory and identity.     

Questioning ‘integrated’ disaster risk reduction and ‘all of society’ engagement: can ‘preparedness pedagogy’ help?

Abstract

AbstractThis paper contributes to the conceptual and empirical development of ‘preparedness pedagogy’. Preparedness involves learning, thus disaster risk reduction (DRR) should be discussed more in the field of education, particularly its sub-discipline of public pedagogy. Disaster risk reduction education should have an element of a pedagogy in the interest of publicness, which is an experimental pedagogy in which citizens act in togetherness to develop their own preparedness. The paper pays attention to the two phrases utilised in the recent DRR discourse – ‘integrated’ DRR and ‘participation by all’ – and examines the case of Japan, applying whole-system thinking. It is suggested that ‘the mesosystem’ of the DRR system yields relationships and learning, and thus enables collaboration, change and ‘participation by all’. Preparedness pedagogy has a role to play in this. The mesosystem functions as the confluence between state-led and community-based DRR to truly integrate the system.     

The great neoliberal hijack of collaboration: a critical history of group-based learning in tertiary education

ABSTRACT

This article examines the teaching of collaboration within tertiary education, critiquing the hegemony of a neoliberal mandate. This review of academic literature first identifies the significance of social capital and an intrinsic motivation to collaborate, to theorize how an important and complex graduate attribute (termed here ‘collaborative dexterity’) might be approached by pedagogy. This leads into a historical analysis of research into higher education, revealing how the instrumentalization of collaboration to enhance the private advantage of learners continues to pervade academia’s understanding of collaboration. As higher education transitioned from learning ‘through’ collaboration to learning ‘to’ collaborate, extrinsic motivations for collaboration were promoted further through assessment procedures, maintaining a narrow economic-exchange approach to collaboration. These educational practices inhibit the development of collaborative dispositions, foster self-interest and ultimately limit graduates’ preparation for the needs of collaborative work environments. Moreover, while educational scholarship has extensively explored why collaboration is important and how it may be assessed, much less consideration has been given to how collaboration might actually be taught within diverse disciplinary areas in tertiary education. This suggests an urgent need for further research into how collaboration is taught within tertiary education, in ways that extend beyond a neoliberal conceptualization of collaboration.     

Studying cultural diversity using information and communication technologies in teacher education: pedagogy,power and literacy

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between new technologies, pedagogy and cultural diversity. It is clear from the project discussed in this article that studying diversity issues on-line provides scope for developing what has been called cultural literacy following Bourdieu's (1990) notion of ‘different ways of seeing’. However, there are a number of unintended effects of power that emerge in this new cultural field which need examination. These include the importance of understanding the embodied context as much as the virtual, the need to be explicit about literacy practices to challenge the dominant liberal discourse of ‘voice’ in on-line discussion, and the effects of power that emanate from teaching and learning in this field.     

Humanising Writing centre Practice: Peer tutor Reflections at a University of Technology

Abstract

Traditionally, universities of technology (UoTs) have focussed on education to prepare students for the workplace. The Durban University of Technology (DUT) is currently undergoing a pedagogical transformation with the inclusion of a general education curriculum that aims to prepare students for an increasingly complex globalised work environment. This critical paradigm shift in curriculum design foregrounds new ways of teaching, thinking and learning based broadly on humanistic principles. Writing centres in universities are positioned to sustain a teaching and learning environment in which students grow as critical citizens. This article reports on research that explored – through the thematic analysis of tutor reflections – how a humanising pedagogy underpins a responsive writing centre practice within the changing South African context. Thematic analysis of the tutors’ reflections revealed their self-awareness of the significance of communities of practice in their work. These communities of practice could be seen to cultivate a humanising pedagogy within writing centre work, which might contribute to the aesthetic, socio-political and cultural environments in which students live and work.     

Animate affects: censorship,reckless pedagogies,and beautiful feelings

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that affect bears a potent teaching capacity. To do so, it explores the intensities that built around a student-teacher's dismissal from a US school placement. In this incident, the topic of homophobia in a poetry lesson elicited a buzz among students that enacted a pedagogy that exceeded the speaking subject. It was these animating capacities of affect, the author argues, that were deemed particularly threatening by the school. Affect as pedagogy puts pressure on legacies that position the human, usually the teacher, as the sole locus of pedagogy in the classroom and that privilege telos-driven notions of curricular ‘progress’. The paper concludes by drawing connections between the animating capacities of affect and larger debates around trigger warnings on curricular materials. The author suggests that, rather than seeking to foreclose intensities in classrooms, educators might pay more attention to how affect offers richly generative, but often overlooked, sites of pedagogical force.     

Children’s lived experiences of ‘ability’ in the Key Stage One classroom: life on the ‘tricky table’

ABSTRACT

Within the wealth of research on ‘ability’ in education, there is a missing perspective: the perspective of the child. Whilst ‘ability’ informed practices such as ‘ability’ grouping are commonplace in the UK, how these are experienced by the young child has previously received only limited attention in research. Using case study evidence, this article demonstrates that children’s lived experiences of ‘ability’ are highly individual and shaped by a broader range of social, structural and pedagogic aspects of classroom life than previously thought. Implications are that a wide range of teaching choices can potentially affect a child’s experience of ‘ability’ and that the impact of these are particularly profound for some children, shaping their perceptions of themselves and others. Children’s perspectives therefore offer a challenge to the hegemonic discourse of ‘ability’ in education and the classroom practices upon which it is based.     

Book Reviews

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on primary teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning and in particular about their preferred ways of teaching; how they integrate National Curriculum requirements into their teaching programmes and their views about stereotyped ‘models’ of pedagogy. The authors conclude that learning and teaching are understood as highly complex and cannot be subsumed under one particular model. They suggest that most primary school teachers adopt an eclectic approach, but that frequently they are confused about the content of the mix or which approach might be most appropriately used in any particular context.