Abstract
Educators have reacted differently to moving university teaching online; some have struggled with digital literacy and getting technology to work, while others have enjoyed the possibilities digital technologies offer for teaching (Piotrowski and King 2020). While the pandemic has been hard for most, the disruption of teaching-as-usual can serve as an occasion to re-think what education is all about. After the dust has settled, such a situation can make us (re)ask fundamental questions of education; what is it we are trying to do? What are we doing it for? Put differently: what are the aims and purposes of our teaching? Tanggaard et al. (2014) argues that such questions should precede questions of methods and means though this split is not clear-cut in praxis.
Asking fundamental questions on ends/means in education is pertinent in times of ’learnification’ (Biesta 2010) and an abundance of available teaching methods – both analogue and digital – where many of these promise to ’enhance student learning’, ’maximise interaction and engagement’ or ’provide efficient learning’ (see e.g. Avery et al. 2020). Drawing on Biesta, a dominant focus on methods and learning, risks omitting questions of purpose; what we are educating for. Also, Dewey’s inquiry-based philosophy (1916) can offer some help here, as he was arguing for aims and methods to be intelligent meaning they were based on observation and judgment in concrete teaching situations and developed in collaboration between teacher and students.
In this paper, I offer conceptual explorations – through Biesta and Dewey - on the aims and purposes of education that might help and provoke us as educators to reflect pedagogically on means/ends in education. The disruption of teaching is an occasion to stop and think, but the question is what it makes us think – about technology? About methods? Pedagogy? How has the unsettling of teaching-as-usual made you think?
Asking fundamental questions on ends/means in education is pertinent in times of ’learnification’ (Biesta 2010) and an abundance of available teaching methods – both analogue and digital – where many of these promise to ’enhance student learning’, ’maximise interaction and engagement’ or ’provide efficient learning’ (see e.g. Avery et al. 2020). Drawing on Biesta, a dominant focus on methods and learning, risks omitting questions of purpose; what we are educating for. Also, Dewey’s inquiry-based philosophy (1916) can offer some help here, as he was arguing for aims and methods to be intelligent meaning they were based on observation and judgment in concrete teaching situations and developed in collaboration between teacher and students.
In this paper, I offer conceptual explorations – through Biesta and Dewey - on the aims and purposes of education that might help and provoke us as educators to reflect pedagogically on means/ends in education. The disruption of teaching is an occasion to stop and think, but the question is what it makes us think – about technology? About methods? Pedagogy? How has the unsettling of teaching-as-usual made you think?
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication date | 7 Oct 2021 |
| Publication status | Published - 7 Oct 2021 |
| Event | Dansk Universitetspædagogisk Netværk Konference 2021: Presence and curiosity - Duration: 7 Oct 2021 → 8 Oct 2021 https://dun-net.dk/aktiviteter/2021/dun-konferencen-2021-naerhed-og-nysgerrighed/ |
Conference
| Conference | Dansk Universitetspædagogisk Netværk Konference 2021 |
|---|---|
| Period | 07/10/2021 → 08/10/2021 |
| Other | Presence and curiosity<br/>Digital and analogue teaching methods in higher education<br/><br/><br/>The pandemic crisis of 2020 has taught us a lot. Organisations have become agile to change, people’s digital skills have improved significantly, and for a period of time we went from being campus universities to online universities. While the world we knew stormed into unknown territory, a new appreciation for the “human values” that we normally take for granted began to emerge, and we realized that this new reality to some extent challenges elementary conditions for good teaching, such as presence and curiosity.<br/><br/>In the world of education where chalk on clothes and the smell of coffee normally is part of everyday life, routines were broken by the light from the computer and the experience of seeing yourself on video. This change in daily routines has by some been perceived as a fruitful break with traditional, inefficient teaching methods, while others simply wishes to bring back what has worked for so many years. Regardless of our position on this continuum, we all need to relate to what we find important, essential, and insignificant in a teaching situation. Furthermore, it is important to be aware of the consequences for students' presence and curiosity in relation to the academic material, their common study environment and their individual learning that a shift from analogue to digital teaching methods can prompt. The question in this regard is: how does the breach of routine shape our pedagogical framework of analogue and digital teaching both now and in the future?<br/><br/>Teaching is what teachers and students do together, but in the past year, togetherness has to a greater extent than before been mediated by digital platforms, which in various ways have challenged the presence between teachers and students. Presence in the form of physical presence in the same room has been replaced with a close-up on Zoom. Does the absence of physical presence mean that we lose the mental and social presence? Does social presence have an impact on teachers’ motivation, commitment and professional identity? And what does this mean for you?<br/><br/>DUNK 2021 will explore what happens to presence and curiosity when digital and analogue teaching methods change places. We look forward to hearing and learning from your experience. |
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