Putting Knowledge to Work

Research in Teaching and Learning, CPUT

10 December 2013

Overview • Curriculum reform: context & imperatives

• Conceptualizing knowledge practices in regions: knowledge & knowers

• Take-away lesson for curriculum reform

Drive for innovation

Rising middle class expectation

Global movement/Internationalization Shifts in power from

Developed/emerging Economies

Rise of Africa

Technology

Decrease in public/Increase in private money

Problem-driven science Growth & specialization of K

Increased competitionOpen content

Shrinking state resources

MassificationThreats to autonomy Growing inequality

ELITES

MAINSTREAM

KNOWLEDGE GROWTH

EQUITY

SA

Curriculum reform: context

• Regionalization is the mode of the late 20th century (Bernstein)

• HE’s responsibility to produce the next generation of knowledge producers

• The role of U of T’s in producing knowledge producers of a particular kind

False ChoicesEmployability vs. Educating the

mindVocational vs. Academic

Knowing/Acting/BeingProblem-based vs. Disciplined-

basedDepth vs. BreadthMode 1 vs. Mode 2

‘Knowing that’ vs. ‘knowing how’

Key questions • What is special about vocational/professional knowledge?

• Where does its strength lie?• What is ‘powerful knowledge’ in the regions?

• What kinds of knowledge producers?

Conceptualizing (curriculum) knowledge practices in the

regions:

• The double recontextualization: recon of singular AND recon of world of practice

• The strength lies in the relationship between conceptual strength and contextual specificity

• Professional identity emerges out of immersion in practice

Semantic plane

Conceptual (+/-)Semantic density (+/-)

Contextual (+/-)Semantic Gravity (+/-) SG: the degree

to which meaning relates to its

context, whether that is social or symbolic

SD; the degree of

condensation of meaning

within symbols

Field of Knowledge Production

Field of Recontextualizati

on

SG-

SD- SD+

SG+

Practical

knowledge

Professional

knowledge/practi

ce

Theoretical

knowledge

Practical curricula

Generic curricula

Theoretical

curricula

Professional/

vocational

curricula

Shay 2013

SD+

SG+

increasing complexity of conceptual knowledge.

engagement with problems of increasing contextual specificity, from context-independence to context-dependency

‘Gaze’

Product Design:The Subject

World of WorkSD-

SG- SG+

SD+

Mono-contextual Poly-contextual Steyn 2013

Principles for curriculum design

• curriculum progression entails increasing complexity of conceptual knowledge.

• curriculum progression entails engagement with problems of increasing contextual specificity, from context-independence to context-dependency

• in contextually coherent curricula it is the engagement with the specificities of the problem that enables, indeed advances, the capacity for conceptual development.

• curriculum progression entails the formation of a particular professional identity.

More Research …. • Conceptualizing the knowers within those regionalized knowledge practices

• Hints from Bernstein• LCT’s different ‘gazes’ and ‘lenses’

Take away for curriculum reform

• Limitations of – Outcomes driven reform – Attribute driven reform

• Knowledge-driven reform – Knowledge specializes knowers

Vocational/professional identities emerge out of immersion in

specialized knoweldge