James Garraway

Knowledge boundaries and boundary-crossing in the design of work-responsive university curricula

Knowledge at work and knowledge in the university are recognised as being broadly, differently structured, differently acquired and used for different purposes. The idea of difference creates boundaries which delineate the two knowledge domains, in general, as distinct communities of practice. The question raised here is how the boundary can successfully be crossed such that the emergent curriculum knowledge looks both ways, satisfying both work and academic requirements. To answer this question the article analyses examples of work/academic curriculum interactions through a socio-cultural learning theory, and in particular activity theory, lens. Conditions for successful interactions, involving raising and brokering differences and mobilising other boundary-crossing devices, are then proposed.

Professional Development through Formative Evaluation.

Formative evaluation and its associated methodology of reflection on practice are used extensively in academic staff development. In reflecting on formative evaluation processes in both more traditional and newer programmes conducted at a university of technology, a number of variables reported in the literature were observed to have influenced academic staff members’ ability to reflect and change practice. Drawing on illustrative cases, this paper argues that explicit attention needs to be given to additional variables concerned with the nature of the knowledge being taught, academic identity, and the availability of a community of educational practitioners if academic developers are to foster critical reflection as an essential element of formative evaluation and productive change in practice.

‘I take engineering with me': epistemological transitions across an engineering curriculum

ABSTRACT In this paper we study epistemological transitions across an intended engineering curriculum and recommend strategies to assist students in attaining the increasingly complex concepts and insights that are necessary for transition to advanced levels of study. We draw on Legitimation Code Theory [Maton, Karl. 2014, Knowledge and Knowers: Towards a Realist Sociology of Education. Abingdon: Routledge], in particular the dimensions of sematic gravity and semantic density, to explain these transitions. Data for the study was obtained from a curriculum renewal project that reveals how engineers understand engineering knowledge. We find an interdependent relationship between semantic gravity and semantic density in the intended engineering curriculum. The complexity of the context and the problems that arise from it pose strong cognitive challenges. The semantic gravity wave rises and falls across the engineering curriculum s, enabling both abstraction and a focus on ‘real world’ problems in specialised knowledge fields. Control of the semantic gravity wave is key to the provision of ‘epistemological access’ [Morrow, Wally, ed. (2003) 2009. Bounds of Democracy: Epistemological Access in Higher Education. Reprint, Pretoria: HSRC Press] to engineering knowledge.

Future-Orientated Approaches to Curriculum Development: Fictive Scripting.

ABSTRACT Though the future cannot be accurately predicted, it is possible to envisage a number of probable developments which can promote thinking about the future and so promote a more informed stance about what should or should not be done. Studies in technology and society have claimed that the use of a type of forecasting using plausible but imaginary narratives, fictive scripts, promotes reflection on and so learning about possible futures among innovators. In this enquiry, the aim was to ascertain whether such forecasting methods could be shown to encourage engagement and learning among academics in a different context, that of future curriculum development in the university. Analysis of data drawn from curriculum workshops suggests that a fictive script approach does hold promise for promoting anticipatory learning among academics and thus could be considered as a curriculum development tool.

Influence of the Past on Professional Lives: A Collective Commentary

This collective commentary is based on the narratives of the author-protagonists, three South African higher education developers who were involved in political activism during their youth. The commentary investigates the continuities between the author-protagonists’ youth and their later professional engagements. Drawing from social realism, the concepts of agency and reflexivity provide a helpful analytic lens. Together, the narratives suggest that these concepts may be more complex when viewed against individual narratives and that some of the differences between social realist Margaret Archer and her critics are worth bridging. Undertaking an investigation of one’s own past is beneficial for professionals engaged in higher education development.

Between college and work in the Further Education and Training college sector

Students studying Civil Engineering (CE) at the Further Education and Training (FET) colleges spend periods of time in the classroom and workshop as well as in the workplace during experiential learning. The overall purpose of education and training in the college sector is generally understood as preparing students for employability, and difficulties in colleges performing this role are well known. In this article, these difficulties are examined in a novel way. The everyday perspectives of lecturers and supervisors about student learning in their college programmes and their work experience are translated into more theoretical language, using activity theory. A theoretical argument is made, which suggests that different sites of learning create different purposes, and that these different purposes derive from a distinction between knowledge and practice, which in turn has historical roots. The study concludes by suggesting that a new, common object of integrating theory and practice at all the sites would better link the college and workplace education and training systems, and tentatively suggests how this new object could be put into practice.

The role of difference in the creation of work‐responsive curriculum units

Academic curriculum and curricular units that are responsive to work necessarily involve the interaction of knowledge from two different communities. In this paper a number of cases of responsive curriculum are analysed in order to answer the following questions: Can general differences between work and academic knowledge be ascribed to the nature of the relevant knowledge fields? Were some fields of academic knowledge more amenable to interaction and hybridisation with work than others? We find that difference does indeed play a part in hybridisation. Where difference is too large or too small, hybridisation may be less successful than where difference is optimal. But other contingencies also come into play that involve the actions of actors in pushing difference in a particular direction.

Participatory Parity and Epistemological Access in the Extended Curriculum Programmes

The article examines students’ engagement in university classrooms in South Africa. Of interest is the extent to which students experience some measure of parity of participation in these engagements. Such “participatory parity” broadly refers to students being able to act on a more or less equal footing with their peers and lecturers. Though much has been written about student engagement and its educational value, such engagement is not typically examined through Fraser’s parity lens. Such parity matters because students are able to experience themselves as valued participants in the social world of the university. However, as what is being discussed is the university classroom, parity of participation in itself is not the only outcome, it is also gaining access to disciplinary knowledge through such participation, or what is referred to here as epistemological access. In order to examine the nexus between participatory parity and epistemological access a methodology for examining participation drawn from activity theory is mobilised. The paper then concludes with reflecting on the usefulness of using this theory and also the usefulness of promoting participatory parity in classroom engagement.

‘It takes a village’ : attaining teaching excellence in a challenging context

The focus of this article is a teaching and learning activity system which is studied for the purpose of understanding and resolving contradictions in the system. For purposes of this study, the activity system was examined from the perspectives of university teachers and senior university managers. Data was obtained from interviews with university teachers who had expressed an interest in teaching and learning and who had demonstrated considerable ability in university teaching. Interviews were also conducted with senior managers responsible for teaching and learning at the institution. We applied the tools provided by Activity Theory (Engestrom 1987; 2008) to analyse the data and propose recommendations for how university teaching might be better supported by university managers in contexts of considerable change and challenge. This required identifying and addressing areas of difficulty within and across the system for the purpose of enabling improved outcomes. In this article, areas of contradiction are analysed and constructive suggestions are made for using the identified areas of difficulty as sites for growth and development.