From Knowledge to Practice: Developing the independent thinker and learner

1. From Knowledge to Practice: Developing the independent thinker and learner Allie Clemans, Monash University, Australia

2. From Knowledge to Practice

3. Knowledge • Knowledge not ‘flat’ concept nor neutral • Child care worker • Secondary school teacher • Plumber • Nurse • Lawyer

4. Knowledge as ‘content delivery’

5. Practice as ‘doing activities’ or ‘the real thing’

6. Plato

7. Aristotle

8. Theory (abstract knowing) • theory (concrete / tacit knowing)

9. Episteme (theoretical wisdom) • Expert knowledge • Connected to scientific understanding • Assertions • General • Abstract • Timeless, ‘objective’, fixed • Knowledge as conceptual

10. Phronesis (practical wisdom) • Specific cases, experience • Concrete particulars • Knowledge as perceptual

11. Episteme or phronesis? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5onkl2EHV4&feature=related

12. Knowledge as phronesis “…must itself be flexible, ready for surprise, prepared to see, resourceful at improvisations” (Nussbaum cited in Korthagen et al.2001, p.27)

14. Knowing • Separate knowing (separate from others) • Connected knowing (in relationship with others, even with an idea) • Belenky et al. Women’s ways of knowing

15. The connected knower • When we understand… We hear [the idea] speak to us. The joy attendant upon intimacy with an idea is not so different from the joy we feel in close relationships with friends. (Belenky et al. 1986, p102

16. The passionate knower • The knower is an intimate part of the known • The knower is a passionateparticipant in the act of knowing (Polanyi, 1962) • Care and empathy leads to action

17. So what does this mean for ‘knowledge to practice’? • The gap between theory and practice is not a problem of ‘poor’ teaching • It is about our conception of knowledge just as episteme

18. Solution does not lie in JUST providing practice. It is about reframing practice. • There is less to transmit, a lot to explore and space to expand.

19. The independent thinker and learner

20. The independent thinker and learner • Adult education heritage in Australia steeped in the notion of independence • Andragogy – Malcolm Knowles

21. Do all adult learners want to be independent all of the time?

22. Significant adult learning “The group made a difference” “The educator made a difference” “I didn’t always know what I wanted to learn before I started” “I didn’t want to be self directed”

23. Knowles and andragogy • The need to know (why) • The learners’ self-concept – adults need and want to be self-directed. • The role of learners’ experience • The learners’ readiness to learn (when needed) • Orientation to learning (task centred) • Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation

24. Cert IV

25. TAADEL402B: Facilitate group-based learning • Required knowledge includes a sound knowledge of learning principles, including: • adults have a range of life experience which they can connect to learning • adults have a need to know why they are learning something and its benefits • learning needs to be learner-centred • adults have a need to be self-directing • the learning process needs to support increasing learner independence • emphasis is on experimental and participative learning • use of modelling • the learning process needs to reflect individual circumstances and needs • National Training Information Service (2007) http://www.ntis.gov.au/?/trainingpackage/TAA04/unit/TAADEL402B, NTIS [Accessed: 29 February 2008].

26. Most North American literature on adult education emphasises independence and autonomy as the self matures • Some European literature on adult education understands autonomy/ independence in the social and moral context in which it develops ie learning with/ through others

27. Interdependence underpins European notion of independent adult learner. • Education helps us become who we are. • It relies on attachment to the other in order to become ourselves. This is not dependence but reciprocity.

28. Tell me and I will forget Show me and I will remember Involve ME and I will understand Step back and I will act (Chinese proverb, cited in Korthagen et al. (2001), p.32)

29. Are we sinking? • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSdxqIBfEAw

30. Consciously we teach what we know; unconsciously we teach who we are. Hamachek (1999, p.209)

31. For adult educators 1) Our overaching purpose guides all. Why does adult education matter to us? What do we think it is there to achieve? Articulate/ name it What do we stand for?

32. Enacting practice Explore, tell, connect, affirm, critique, inspire, learn, nurture, direct(!)

33. VET and the future By instilling appropriate values in its students as well as providing them with technical skills, and leading by example, VET has a role to play in working towards a sustainable future. Fien et al., (2008) Work, learning and sustainability: Opportunities and challenges, UNESCO–UNEVOC report. In the concluding chapter to the UNESCO–UNEVOC report, NCVER Managing Director, Tom Karmel, cautions: A re-orientation from a focus on work skills for the labour market to one that emphasises citizenship and values education would be a challenge to VET as we know it, and one that sits uncomfortably with the dominant idea that VET is about skills for work.

34. There’s no such thing as just being a coordinator or facilitator, as if you don’t know anything. What the hell are you around for, if you don’t know anything. Just get out of the way and let somebody have the space that knows something, believes something” (Horton & Freire, 1990 as cited by Brookfield, 1993,p.232)

35. VET and the future • Educators are more than content experts, you understand the relationship between teaching and learning. Claim this. • Let’s rethink ‘knowledge’, ‘practice’ and ‘independence’ so that they do justice to the work you do and the legacy you want to leave!