Hacking the academy?

Iain MacLarenNational University of Ireland

Galway

Pi in the sky

Hackerspace surveys /studiesMoilanen, P2P Foundation (2010,2011,2012)• Low response (~250)• Typical is 29 year old male, college graduate• Interest is in making objects, programming• Motivation: having fun, sharing ideas with like-minded

G+ and local group• Similar pattern• 5-10 hrs per week• Views on formal education• Follow up and comparison with craft communities

“...making is a revelation of the human impulse to explore and express forms of knowledge and a range of emotions; an impulse towards knowing and feeling; which shapes human action and hence the world we create.

The reward of making is the opportunity to experience an individual sense of freedom and control in the world. Making is therefore not only a fulfillment of needs, but of desires - a process whereby mind, body and imagination are integrated in the practice of thought through action.”

Martina Margetts (2011)

“that epiphany when you see what you have made and it is different from what you have conceived”

Edmund De Waal

CREATIVITY IN HIGHER EDUCATIONHacking the Academy?

Social imaginaries?

Academic Practice

Collegiality & Competition

Disciplinary boundaries & institutional structures

Conditions for creativity

①Organisation-wide supports②Psychological safety③Recognition of value of intrinsic motivation④Sufficient time⑤Autonomy⑥Developmental feedback (freedom to fail/re-try)⑦Creativity goals

Amabile, Hennessey (1994-2010)

Reality at the “chalkface” and in the lab?

• Standardisation and curricular constraints• Declining resources, larger student numbers• Short-term contracts, decline of tenure, competition• Stress and workloads (Kinman & Court, 2010)• Restrictive ‘performance management’• Metrics, monitoring - surveillance• Risk-aversion

Collegiality?

• ‘deep acting’ and ‘feigned solidarity’ - Kunda (1992)– Superficial cooperation – individuals seek to impress manager– “when things go wrong team-spirit suddenly collapses; people seek

cover and deniability by shifting blame to other team-members”

• “invidious comparison based on competence has a particularly corrosive effect on trust” – Sennett (2012)– REF – outputs, impacts, individualised metrics and competition

….did it ever really exist, or a romantic myth?

education policy

An epidemic of education policy

Levin (1998):

“New agents of disease tend to spread rapidly as they find the hosts that are least resistant. So it is with policy change in education….”

Prevention, inoculation, resistance?

“ a sense of fear seems to have replaced the sense of possibility as a driver of change in education.”

Levin (1998)

“ a sense of fear seems to have replaced the sense of possibility as a driver of change in education.”

Levin (1998)

“education is still more often described as a cost than as an investment.”

Global Educational Reform Movement (GERM!)

Pasi Sahlberg• Schools– Competition within the system– Increased school choice (consumer model)– Standardised testing

Sorry…there was a funny cartoon here from the New Yorker but only got copyright permission /licence for the presentation,not for subsequent re-distribution! - now discuss copyright in the digitalage!!

The cartoon though had a powerful boss saying something like “That’s my decision now go and get me some statistics/evidence toback it up”

The point being that much of policy is not, despite what is said by someparticularly ‘evidence-based’ ;-)

Global Educational Reform Movement (GERM!)

Pasi Sahlberg• Schools– Competition within the system– Increased school choice (consumer model)– Standardised testing

• Inoculation?– Focus on Equality– Teacher professionalism

Hacking, mashups, re-purposing..

Swords into ploughshares?

University teaching & learning?• Designing for learning:

– Structuring– Providing feedback and encouragement– Sharing ‘pedagogic patterns’– Shaping and re-shaping– A continuously iterative process– Crafting and critiquing

• “Educationists must resist the idea that because of new technologies students can do it for themselves – instead they create an even more critical role for the teacher” Säljö

• MOOCs? – hacking the academy or just more delivery of content and reinforcing what we know doesn’t work?

Institutional form and structure?• Fragmented– “City of Ideas”, OR– gated communities

• Hierarchical• Not necessarily meritocratic!• Patriarchal

Thanks to Marco: http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj90/SupraMarco/Lego/clarendon_a.jpg

Meeting the needs , not just of the world we’re in, but the one we want.

Ethos?

A new “Democratic Intellect” ?– Engaged citizens – Responsibility and cooperation– Pursuit of excellence for its own sake– “critic and conscience of society”– Creative, participative and generative

Technology?– Symbiotic relationship with academic discourse, research and

enquiry? OR– Means of de-humanisation?

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie

http://www.nuigalway.ie/celt

Go raibh maith agaibh