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.     

Contents Volume 16 (2003)

Volume Contents

Contents Volume 16 (2003)     

Re-authoring research conversations: beyond epistemological differences and toward transformative experience for researchers and educators

Common sense and published literature both assert that education research is often dismissed by practitioners on the grounds that it is irrelevant to their work. Some have argued that this is due primarily to a mismatch of professional epistemologies. While agreeing in principle, this work draws on work in sociology (Erving Goffman) and literary theory (Mikhail Bakhtin) to argue that practitioner mistrust of research may be primarily related to differences in the presentation of self in the teaching (and research) profession and a history of research used as a tool of transgression in the authorship of the practitioner professional self. Goffman’s account of frontstage and backstage settings in the everyday presentation of self is combined with Bakhtin’s account of the ways research erases the voice of practitioners by reducing their fundamentally dialogic experiences to monologic narratives dominated by the voice of the researcher. As an alternative, I draw on the work of the research psychologist Jerome Bruner and the practicing clinical psychologist Michael White to explore ways in which practitioners might be more meaningfully engaged in the research enterprise through a process of re-narrativizing their own experiences captured as part of research. Narrative techniques that help share responsibility for authoring accounts of practice among researchers and practitioners as research participants are described leading to conclusions about the potential transformative nature of such work for both researchers and practitioners.     

Different,yet similar: factors motivating international degree collaboration in higher education. The case of Finnish-Russian double degree programmes

ABSTRACT

The study investigates factors motivating universities to engage in international degree collaboration. The Finnish-Russian university framework is used as the locus for studying international collaboration. The paper employs resource dependency and institutional, stakeholder and market push and pull perspectives in a conceptual model explaining the drivers of international degree collaboration. The research focuses on the interaction of the various factors that motivate partners to seek international degree cooperation, possible sources of conflict, and issues of compatibility and complementarity. In particular, the study compares the roles of different stakeholders and the institutional contexts of Finland and Russia. The motives of the Finnish and Russian universities included in the study were found to be generally compatible, yet different enough to complement each other.     

Formative Automated Computer Testing (FACT)

This study describes the context for the development of a tool to formatively assess information technology skills of students. The tool provides a reliable and valid assessment of word processing competency, utilizing automation to apply the test instrument via the Microsoft Office package. Tests can be designed directly by tutors, and delivered via a network. Evaluation of the tests suggests that immediate automated testing is preferred by students compared to a traditional written test. There is evidence that the tool improves the IT skills of its users, whereas a traditional written test has no such beneficial effect.     

‘Fathers and sons’ in Xenophon’s teaching of the man taking care of himself

This article considers the oeuvre of Xenophon (c.430–354 bc) as providing an insight into the concept of ‘care of the self’ in Greek education. In many of his works the leading characters are men who take care of themselves through education. Addressing the theme of ‘fathers and sons’, Xenophon aimed to show that ‘care of the self’ is a particular way of upbringing in the family and in the polis, where the older instruct the younger in fulfilling their duties according to their age, following model examples of thought and conduct during work and leisure. Thus, with the help of specific situations involving parents and children, mentors and their pupils, Xenophon established a general framework for understanding the ancient citizens and family men, to whom education and self-education were a special means of finding their own identity in their culture.     

Should I use co-assessment in higher education? Pros and cons from teachers and students’ perspectives

Co-assessment is a type of participatory assessment in which the teacher and student jointly discuss, negotiate and assess the student’s task or performance. Although the literature on co-assessment is scarce, some authors highlight the benefits for students of participating in co-assessment in higher education, including learning, improved communication, and greater assessment literacy. This study has a double objective: on the one hand, to analyse the strengths and limitations perceived by students participating in co-assessment practices; on the other hand, to explore the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats perceived by professors participating in the experience. The study was developed in 8 class groups with the participation of 470 students and 4 teachers. The qualitative analysis of the data obtained from the questionnaires and focus groups indicates that the students acknowledged several strengths, among which learning from mistakes was prominent. Students also noted some limitations, particularly the lack of adjusted scoring. Professors offered another perspective that complemented the vision of their students, noting that co-assessment presents opportunities as well as risks that may jeopardise its implementation.     

Four Student Teachers' Pedagogical Reasoning on Functions

This study attempts to identify theinfluence of student teachers' subject matterknowledge for teaching on the process ofpedagogical reasoning. This influence isstudied through the way in which the concept offunction is presented to pupils in teachingthrough the textbook problems. Our findingsshow that the four student teachers in ourstudy differed in their subject-matterknowledge for teaching both in the differentaspects of concepts they emphasised and in theuse of a representation repertoire to structurelearning activities. All of this conditionedthe use of graphical and algebraic modes intheir planning of subject matter to bepresented to pupils. We explored also theinfluence of images of mathematics,teaching and learning on student teachers'organisation of the subject matter forteaching, but found this only slight. Finally,regarding the relationship between subjectmatter knowledge and pedagogical contentknowledge in student-teachers' ways of knowingthe subject matter, we offer some implicationsof these findings for mathematics teachereducation programmes.