Learn it and Forget it or Just-in-time Knowledge

Nathan Loynes

Shift Happens

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig27w_YIx0s&feature=related

Chris Anderson

• How have you ever learnt anything?

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rduzbpHQoA&list=UUj6LQCjRmqY4VZBBMtTN6BQ&index=42&feature=plcp

What do you need to know?

• Knowledge used to be like gold. The more you had – and hung on to – the more powerful and useful you were. These days think of it like milk. If you hang on to it , it goes off”.

• Ian Gilbert

Jim Carol – The Future of Knowledge

• Rapid knowledge obsolescence• Rapid knowledge emergence• Disappearance of existing careers because of

1• Rapid emergence of new careers because of 2• Need for knowledge replenishment because

of 1-4

Jim Carol – The Future of Knowledge

• Migration of knowledge away from academia because of the faster need for new knowledge deployment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc5KHyJjFRk

• Furthermore: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt_osynpEY4

• Massive increased challenge from overseas knowledge generation.

• Fast emergence of micro careers because of specialized knowledge.

• An economy that succeeds through knowledge deployment

• A fundamental transformation in knowledge delivery.

Knowledge growing exponentially

The foundation of knowledge is no longer academia (Peer Reviewed Journals)

Knowledge is being impacted by velocity

“Is our future narrow in terms of what we deliver? Is our future wide? Do we focus on narrow niches, wide areas of knowledge or both?”.

Jim Carroll – “Let go of the milk?”

• “By 2020 or sooner, it will be all about ‘just in time knowledge’. In a world of fast knowledge development, none of us will have the capability to know much of anything at all. The most important skill we will have will be the ability to go out and get the right knowledge for the right purpose at the right time”

“Let go of the milk?” – Not in the reading material

• There are critics of commentators such as Carroll.• Remember the postmodern ‘nihilism’ argument

that I introduced you to in semester one?• Some say that there are some essential things

that need to be known.• Remember Ken Robinson’s RSA speech?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uGgxN6Pa9s

• The prospect of this post modernist state of flux can prompt some to respond defensively...

Clay Shirky – ‘Here comes everybody’

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Tbdz8aTe8

This leads us on to the juxtapositional argument.

• There are some things worth knowing, and these things should be taught, and children (students) should be assessed against these ‘facts’.

• Once we establish what this corpus of accepted ‘facts’ are, we can assess students as being able to demonstrate this ‘knowledge’.

• ...These processes have led to counter allegations of ‘teaching to test’ and a ‘learn it and forget it culture’

Jarvis, Holroyd and Griffin

• How do we know when someone has learnt something? – NOT A SIMPLE QUESTION...

• In practice the role of assessment has many other effects.

• Rowntree (1987) educators have found these other effects, to be more important, or at least more urgent, to just discovering how much learning has taken place.

Jarvis et al :158

• “Assessment is not a ‘neutral’ technique for measuring the performance of learners. It has become a central feature of how education and training are organised in almost every society. Assessment shapes how students, teachers, and administrators think and feel about education and training systems.

Jarvis et al :162

• Contextualized learning and assessment: Ecological or performance based. Knowledge must have a ‘realistic’ application, and often centres around ‘problem solving’.

• Up until recently (1980’s) schools, colleges and universities emphasized ‘decontextualized’ knowledge. (Abstract).

Jarvis et al :163

• Learning involves active engagement between learner and what is learnt. This is known as ‘constructivism’.

• The learner, not the teacher determines what is learnt.

• This points us towards a difficulty: The issue is for the teacher to help students construct understandings which are ‘progressively more mature and congruent with accepted thinking. (Biggs, 1996).

Jennifer Moon

• Assessment DRIVES learning.• What makes a ‘good learner’?• What makes a ‘poor learner’?• ‘Deep’ versus ‘Surface’ approaches

to learning.• Read from para 4 on page 117.

Fisher on Post 16 Education

• Concerns about the A-level system, introduced in 1951, led to the Curriculum 2000 reforms.

• Intended to tackle the lack of breadth in post-16 studies, and that students were being required to specialise too early.

• Replaced 2 year A-level with six module courses.• A-levels had long been considered the ‘gold

standard’ of courses.

Teachers were critical of Curriculum 2000:

• Hargreaves (2001) – A climate of ‘cramming’.• Hodgson & Spours (2005)Courses were rushed

with more didactic teaching and less scope for practical work.

• Subjects had become more concerned with ‘Spoon feeding’ and passing exams than about genuine engagement with the subject.

Fisher (2007: 109)

• Head of History 1 (AS Level):• “I’m not sure it’s challenging. And I feel

it’s just exhausting students, and a bit boring. It’s not very exciting. It’s about, it’s not about learning, it’s about passing the exam”.

Fisher (2007:109) Furthermore…

• Head of History 1:• “Learn it, forget it… the old A Level was

more kind of liberal, open, exploratory. You had time to make mistakes and time to explore issues. Now you’ve got this tight schedule”

So… What should students be taught?

• Santome: • Page 68: Table 5.1 Misguided Curricular

Interventions.• Page 68 Table 5.2 School Culture.• Group tasks 1 – 9.

Conclusions• Historically, knowledge has developed institutionally, and

with this acceptable technologies of ‘knowing’ (Foucault) and authority.

• The needs of the information society have forced societies to re-evaluate what counts as ‘knowledge’.

• Some institutions are continuing to use ‘old vehicles’ to with new ‘occupants’, however these occupants are regularly replaced (‘shifted’). This can lead to responses of ‘post-modern’ nihilism.

• Is there any intrinsic worth in knowledge anymore? Or are we reduced to nihilistically and pragmatically ‘playing the education game?’

• Is the alternative to let go of the bad milk….?