Creating a learning culture with first-year undergraduatesFlorence Dujardin17 June 2014

What is a ‘learning culture’?

A culture of learning is an environment that supports and encourages the collective discovery, sharing, and application of knowledge... and helps the organization continually improve, achieve goals, and attain new possibilities. (Gill 2010)

Components of a learning culture

• Stakeholders• Formal practices, policies,

and systems

• Informal practices and symbolic actions

• Beliefs, values, attitudes and assumptions

Metaphors for learning

Acquisition

• Monological• Within mind

Participation

• Dialogical • Interaction

Knowledge-creation

• Trialogical• Shared objects

Sfard 1998Paavola & Hakkarainen 2005

Paavola et al. 2011

Overview

1. Design2. Facilitate3. Critique4. Educator as ‘broker’

Design dimensions

Cognitive

Social

Tekla design - http://www.tekla.com/uk/bim-awards-2012/shs-jarrold-footbridge.html

TimeKnowledge

Facilitating

Challenge

Support

EWP Ltd - http://www.e-w-p.co.uk/projects/norwich-petersbridge/index.html

Brokering

Wenger 2000

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/new_1_5m_norwich_bridge_takes_unusual_shape_1_960949

Schools University

Boundary practices

engageimagine

align

Academic Literacies perspective

• Skills• Socialisation• Power and identity

Mirra66 - http://flickeflu.com/set/72157628684135571

Lea & Street 1998 Goodfellow & Lea 2007

Educator as ‘broker’

• Mediate the discipline (Dysthe 2002)• Attend to social dimensions of learning• Help learners to learn• Contribute to the course culture• Implement institutional frameworks • Understand wider benchmarks

(e.g. HEA, QAA)

http://www.daringbookforgirls.com/about-the-book/about-the-double-daring-book-for-girls/how-to-juggle/

THANK YOU.

References

• Beetham, H. & Sharpe, R. (2007) Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age: Designing and Delivering E-learning London: Routledge.

• Dysthe, O. (2002) Professors as mediators of academic text cultures: an interview study with advisors and Master’s degree students in three disciplines in a Norwegian university. Written Communication, 19 (4), 493-544

• Gill, S. J. (2010) Developing a Learning Culture in Nonprofit Organizations. London: Sage• Goodfellow, R. & Lea, M. R. (2007) Challenging E-Learning in the University: A Literacies Perspective.

Buckingham: Open University Press.• Hakkarainen, K. & Paavola, S. (2007 ) From monological and dialogical to trialogical approaches to learning.

IN Schwarz, B. & Tiberghien, A. (Eds.) Guided Construction of Knowledge in Classrooms: An International Workshop, Jerusalem, IL.

• Lea, M. R. & Street, B. V. (1998) Student writing in Higher Education: an Academic Literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education, 23 (2), 157-172.

• Paavola, S. & Hakkarainen, K. (2005) The knowledge creation metaphor – an emergent epistemological approach to learning. Science & Education, 14 (6), 535-557.

• Sfard, A. (1998). On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one. Education Researcher, 27(2), 4-13

• Sharpe, R., Benfield, G. & Francis, R. (2006) Implementing a university e-learning strategy: levers for change within academic schools. Research in Learning Technology, 14 (2), 135-151.

• Wenger, E. (2000) Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization, 7 (2), 225-246.