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SEDA  July 2007

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Subject:

Re: award winning film

From:

"Wareham, Terry" <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Wareham, Terry

Date:

Fri, 6 Jul 2007 06:44:09 +0100

Content-Type:

text/plain

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text/plain (84 lines)

I've been observing this discussion without viewing the film, but a convenient attack of insomnia has offered a bit of space to have a look at it.  Rather than viewing it in its own terms and in isolation I've been musing on how the groups and individuals I work with would be likely to respond to it - these would be new and experienced academic staff, learning support staff and post-graduate teaching assistants. I don't think for one minute that they would simply accept what they see (and if they did I would invite them to think a little further about that).  Here's a list of the kinds of comments I can imagine them making:

 - Susan seems socially isolated and highly dependent on the teacher
 - Where she apparently illustrates the highest level of the SOLO taxonomy she could easily be spouting something she's read
 - Factual error in the SOLO example section - dairy cows don't get slaughtered for meat
 - Robert has a life and integrates his approach to study into that in a pragmatic way
 - The narrator asserts that Robert simply responds to the system - actually he appears to do nothing of the kind; he works the system in ways which make sense for him.  That's another kind of intelligence, isn't it?
 - Susan is the one that seems to be trying to be a clone of her teachers (which is why they think she is great)
 - The film is full of caricature (is that deliberate in order to provoke discussion?)
 - Robert is refered to as and example of 'homo sapiens'whereas references to Susan don't seem to need to resort to Latin
 - Teaching at this institution seems to consist of delivering lectures while students stare into space with beatific expressions on their faces - what are they on???
 - No mention of the use of e-learning tools which seem to be pretty embedded in most institutions I'm familiar with or any approaches to teaching that don't consist of the lecture/beatific expression stuff 
 - Which golden age is being refered to where most students deployed deep learning approaches?  I think I must have missed that (the golden age and the specific reference - but then I did my first degree at a polytechnic in the 70s and it was crawling with WPs like me, smoking, drinking, listening to dodgy music and trying to work out how to pass the exams successfully in order to fulfil the expectations of parents who've never seen the inside of a university and own aspirations about having more choices in life by achieving a degree
 - The subject discipline here is computer science - is good learning the same here as it would be, say, in social work, fine art, engineering?  I can imagine everyone raising this issue - particularly in the light of Susan's apparent sociopathology.

That's just a sample of things I can imagine people coming up with (plus a few immediate reactions of my own), all of which are capable of leading into some really important thinking and discussion.

I think there is masses in this film to unpick and use as the basis for enlightened discussion - the very idea of trying to encapsulate any notions of good teaching/effective learning in a 20-minute film would be a good starting point. And offering Biggs and constructive alignment as the answer to all the questions about good learning is something no-one would do anyway, would they? I doubt the makers intended it to be used in this way but they've made it available, which is good.

Thanks, David, for bringing this film to our attention.

Terry

Terry Wareham

Fourstones: evaluation and consultancy for HE
Tel:  07870 204958
www.fourstones.org.uk



-----Original Message-----
From: Online forum for SEDA, the Staff & Educational Development Association on behalf of David Gosling
Sent: Wed 04/07/2007 12:26
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: award winning film
 
I have had several interesting responses to my e-mail. Can I urge anyone
wishing to respond to my comments to do so via the SEDA list.

I do concede that there is one point the film makes quite well, and that
is that even if Robert is a disinterested student he can be engaged if
he is taught in a more interesting way. However, I don't think
'alignment' is enough to make teaching interesting and I don't think
aligned teaching makes it inevitable that he will learn anything.

The second point I want to make is that there is an assumption in the
film that widening access to HE  brings in more Roberts. We are in
danger of overgeneralising about widening access students when we think
they are necessarily like the Robert in the film. There have always been
surface learners even in more selective times, and plenty of WP students
can be engaged if taught in an interesting way. 

Part of the problem in the film and much of the literature about deep
and surface learning is that there is a conflation of a deep approach to
learning and so-called 'deep learners'. No-one is always either 'deep'
or 'surface' in their approach to learning - it is not like a
personality type. When 'deep learners' are then further conflated with
'good students' we end up with a meaningless category. 'Deep learner' is
simply a 'hooray' term with very little content. 

Equally poor Robert in the film is not only taking a 'surface approach'
(which may not be surprising, and not necessaily a bad thing) but he is
also late to his lectures, he smokes, he's patently bored and listens to
his i-pod in stead of working. They could have gone the whole way and
shown him shop-lifting at the local supermarket when he should have been
doing his homework. All of this is irrelevant. A student can be very
punctual and conscientious (and a non-smoker!) and still adopt a surface
approach - not least because their assessment requires them to reproduce
what the lecturer has given them and because it is strategically the
best way to survive. By associating Robert's surface aaproach with other
personal features of his life, the film reprodices the conflation of
deep=good student and surface=bad student.

Can someone offer to make a film about approaches to learning which does
not resort to stereotypes?

David Gosling
Higher Education Consultant
Visiting Research Fellow
University of Plymouth 
tel/fax: 0161 456 6148
mobile: 0784 1647275

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