Course design
Starting the rationale with the references to IELTS/CEFR or the Graduate Attributes Matrix might bring to mind performance-based or experiential approaches in which student’s attention is drawn to, respectively, precise attestable behavioural competencies or desirable skills and qualities in their current/prospective context (Toohey, 1999). Mentioning the scales might relate to the university being frequently preoccupied with audit and accountability (Edwards, 2010) and valuing ‘hard’ knowledge over creativity, self-understanding and interpersonal skills (Toohey, 1999: 47). Although those might be the ‘curriculum ideologies’ domineering my professional context, the design of Digital English aspires to have roots in a blend of cognitivism and critical pedagogy.
The course aims to engage the student in in-depth and creative exploration of their subjectivity by examining it visually and problematising it by tracing links between the familiar and the unfamiliar and thus synthesising the self in the story-within-a-story assignment. The consistency with which the tasks ask the learner to examine and discover relationships is in line with cognitivism (Posner, 1995 in Toohey, 1999). So is the inclusion of regular reflective blog entries, collected in the second assessed assignment, which engage the student in a metadata analysis, leading them to become more self-aware and –directed learners. The role of the tutor here is crucial not only as a question- or problem-poser but also as a provider of formative feedback that facilitates self-regulation (Nicol & Mackfarlene-Dick, 2006). There is clearly a focus on developing higher cognitive skills in the main themes of the project as well as intended learning outcomes aligned with the teaching activities and assessments (Biggs, 2003).
Apart from strengthening thinking skills, the course intends to initiate the development of ‘critical consciousness’ in the students, whereby they start to gain power awareness, become self-organised and self-educated, critically literate and desocialised (Shor, 1993:32-33). I mostly see this opportunity in the students undertaking the task of presenting a visual testimony of themselves and trying to elaborate on that through references to academic sources. Through this inquiry into themselves it is hoped they recognise myths, values and language that might be underlying their own behaviours and actions, which they can challenge and deconstruct in the dialogue with the tutor on the blog and via email. Similarly , Ulmer’s goal for his students is not confession but their attempt to elevate their personal condition onto a more abstract level to align themselves with public and community issues and become agents for change (Bayne, 2004:308-9). This is perhaps too ambitious an aim for the Digital English participants. Considering their ethnic provenance, one must remain sensitive but I can see the possibility of laying foundations to prime them for social change in the follow-up workshops.
At this stage, engaging the student in doing and making the education (Shor, 1993:26, 29) is the most crucial element and with this view in mind, the online learning space has been designed in such a way that it is participatory (students initiate and maintain dialogic blogs), situated (contextualisation prominently features in the course activities), critical (self and social reflection has been prioritised, for instance by being made an assessed component – Biggs, 2003), democratic (indirect evaluation of the course syllabus in the students’ constant reflection), dialogic (the student recasts their experience in their own words or rather images), desocialised from passivity (the instructions are often deliberately left open, the models are sometimes given but it is stressed that independence and creativity are favoured over simple replication), research-oriented (not only the student but also the tutor undertakes the research, the latter for example to provide appropriate and informed feedback) and affective, elements that are highly reminiscent of the socially critical approach (Shor, 1993).
Read on to learn about the constraints.