07 May 2006
The Trouble with Innovation in Education
Our fourth & final presenter on 24 April for The Learning Innovator was Cathie Doherty from QUT.
Cathie drew on the work of B. Bernstein (warning! horrific to read) , Franz Christie and Joe Muller. Christie and Muller built on Bernstein's work.
Trouble No. 1
Innovation creates the need to re-socialise.
In education we have rich processes of socialisation i.e. natural routines and certain conventions. For example if a teacher produced butcher's paper, students would all "know" they were going to do some group work! Routines = socialisation. If these are undone we need more time to do things a different way. e.g. When decimal currency was introduced in 1966 we all converted from the old currency to see how much something really cost. Three years on in 1969 we were all resocialised and didn't need to do these sums.
Trouble No. 2
The chain of re-contextualisation (distortion - Chinese whisper)
Knowledge is produced then recontextualised. There is a loss in translation. The more agents the re-contextualisation passes through the more dilution of the original knowledge.
Cathie drew on the work of B. Bernstein (warning! horrific to read) , Franz Christie and Joe Muller. Christie and Muller built on Bernstein's work.
Trouble No. 1
Innovation creates the need to re-socialise.
In education we have rich processes of socialisation i.e. natural routines and certain conventions. For example if a teacher produced butcher's paper, students would all "know" they were going to do some group work! Routines = socialisation. If these are undone we need more time to do things a different way. e.g. When decimal currency was introduced in 1966 we all converted from the old currency to see how much something really cost. Three years on in 1969 we were all resocialised and didn't need to do these sums.
Trouble No. 2
The chain of re-contextualisation (distortion - Chinese whisper)
Knowledge is produced then recontextualised. There is a loss in translation. The more agents the re-contextualisation passes through the more dilution of the original knowledge.
