TransparentPedagogies: CreatingtheConditionsfor aTransformativeEducation Associate Professor Katie Hughes.

Transparent Pedagogies:Creating the Conditions fora Transformative Education

Associate Professor Katie Hughes

Welcome!

In this seminar, I’m going to discuss the use of transparent pedagogies as a means of creating high- engagement classrooms which lead to• Higher retention• Higher success rates for students and• Higher staff satisfaction

Massification

Over the past ten years, there has been a growing international push for an increase in the proportion of people with a tertiary education in every population. The reasons for this are manifold. Its origins can perhaps be found in the global need for more educated citizens, most notably to meet the needs of changing economies, sometimes called ‘knowledge’ economies.

Higher education is in the midst of seismic change as it becomes increasingly constrained by a range of neoliberal practices and discourses whilst at the same time - massifying.

Social inclusion?

The UK, NZ and Australian governments have engaged in large scale policy directions to encourage people from non-university-going backgrounds to enter universities, and hopefully to graduate – with demographic groupings and national targets established. The US has also made significant attempts to do the same.

Tertiary graduation rates as apercentage of the population aged

20-28

New students and universitiesmeet one another

Complex challenges for universities when accepting comparatively lower levels of preparedness for university level thinking and writing, and more generally, lower levels of educational and cultural capital.

It is ubiquitous to lay the blame for transition difficulties at the feet of incoming students, or the schools they attended. This deficit model is ubiquitous through government policy and common to the remedial approaches universities have taken to new student cohorts.

Let’s consider thisEach subject has its specific prerequisites and/or assumed entry knowledge; subject matter (content or process orientated, text-bound, oral or computermediated); language; texts (study packages, lecture notes, PowerPoint notes, web CT documents, CD Rom); cultural practices (ways of dressing and showing respect – Professor, first names); attendance [mode] (lectures, tutorials, practical sessions, clinical sessions, external/internal/online); behaviours (rule-governed/flexible, compulsory/optional attendance, consultation times, electronic discussion groups); class participation (passive, interactive, experiential); rules (about extensions, participation, resubmissions, appeals); theoretical assumptions (scientific/sociological); research methodologies (positivist/interpretive/critical, quantitative/ qualitative); ways of thinking (recall, reflective, analytical or critical, surface or deep); referencing systems (APA, Harvard, MLA); ways of writing (essays/reports/journals/ orals); structure (particularly in relation to assessment); tone and style (word choice, active/passive voice, third/ second/first person, sentence structure, paragraph structure); formatting (left/right justified, font, type, spacing, margins); assessment (exams, assignments, orals, formative/summative, individual/group) (Lawrence 2005:247

The FYE

Of course there has been much written about the first year experience in Higher Education and how universities might best support students through:• the curriculum• a raft of support strategies dedicated towards

‘patching’ students’ skill gaps, and social capital gaps, in order that they quickly become conversant with the many literacies identified by Lawrence (2005)

Transparent pedagogies

One way of approaching the question of how best one might teach diverse students (by this I include those who enter from both university-going and non-university-going backgrounds) and best support those with the greatest needs, is to use transparent pedagogies.

Transparent pedagogies are:

• Active• Engaging• Innovative• Democratic• Student-centred• Collaborative and• Develop critical thinking and writing

Context and approach

There is a dearth of material which discusses classroom pragmatics and, more particularly, the perceptions of academics working in this rapidly changing environment.

OLT Project

The following data arises from a project conducted in two Australian universities in different states at the lowest end of the league tables with a strong commitment to social inclusion.

Neither are research-intensive and bothhave a high percentage of sessional staff.

• Teaching teams - including sessionals – from Humanities, Biomedicine, Nursing, Creative Arts, Physiology, Education, Paramedics, Communication and Design attended a series of workshops on transparent pedagogy over two years (n=167).

• Most of these staff had no formal teaching qualifications, were teaching large numbers of firstin- family students and increasingly facing the metrics of retention and success data against which their performance was measured.

OLT Project 2

Pedagogies modelled

• Building a dialogic classroom where students are known and know they are valued

• Collaboration – showing students how to work together effectively for a common purpose

• Developing academic literacies – being completely explicit about the ‘what’, the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of your class.

• Critical Thinking - using Socratic questioning, enquiry-based pedagogies, questioning credibility, analysing text; visuals; artefacts, critical reading

Transparent pedagogies.

• Transparent pedagogies were modelled, with an explicit articulation of their purpose (and theoretical grounding) which positioned the participants in the liminal space of both student and teacher.

• Explicit modelling, involving a purposeful, express articulation of the rationale for, and process of, each activity undertaken is an effective way of facilitating the use of such pedagogies in the participants’ practice.

Method

• A purposeful sample of twenty staff• From each of the discipline areas• Equal numbers from each institution, of each sex and of

both permanent and casual status.• Hour long semi-structured interviews which canvassed

their experiences and perceptions of the workshops, their use of the pedagogies and more general questions about the ways in which their participation had impacted on their perception of themselves as a teacher, the ways in which transparent pedagogies transgress traditional power relationships in academia.

Dialogic classroom

Building a sense of belonging and engagement is one of the most crucial tasks facing academics since without this, their students are much more likely to leave and much more likely to fail, particularly if they are first-in-family.These elusive qualities also create a foundation from which it is possible to create a culture of co-operation and discussion, rather than competition or withdrawal, which become the catalyst for transformative education.

I think community building's really been fantastic, I always thought ice breaker, I didn't think community build…Now I actually even tell them why; I say after we've done it, I say why we did it…we talk about opening up, having trust, community where we're talking about creativity and where we're doing creative activities. (Karen, 46, sessional, Communication)

Dialogic classroom 1

Even community building, I think they understood why we were doing it, I said "I know you've done icebreakers and stuff like that, but let me just.." That's about being explicit about every step, social contracts, I've done that in every workshop now (David, 34, teaching scholar, Creative Arts)

Dialogic classroom 2

…the thing that stands out in my mind that was really powerful for me was that technique on setting class rules, and the expectations you had of one other…And it was insane, it was absolutely unbelievable how quickly rapport was built, how people were relating to me differently themselves. Definitely there was this air of just honesty and connection and mutual support that I don’t think I often see until weeks in, once people opened up a bit more, and it was instant from the first class and I thought that was unbelievable…this idea of equalising power. They don’t feel like they're separate and down here and you're up here. They feel more empowered, I think they feel more part of the learning process (Josef, 31, sessional, Humanities)

Dialogic classroom 3

Engagement

Engaging pedagogies are designed to challenge. They are designed to enable students to confront new material in an active, engaged, challenging manner and in so doing, they are themselves changed.It is the work of understanding which transforms.

In terms of what's happens in the classes, I think it just opens it up, allows the students in, so it's not this war between, not even you and them, between knowledge and them. It's like we're here to teach them and help them to learn and that's not just about the content, it's about the process of that. So how can you teach that without being explicit? And the cost is what? That as a teacher you somehow lose your power or control over the class? Well I think if that's a problem for you, maybe it's a deeper problem than just being explicit about how you're teaching. (David, 37, permanent, Creative Arts)

Engagement 1

Once we start teaching in a different format, students can feelreally uncomfortable, because ‘I just want you to tell me what I need to know’, rather than, ‘We want you to identify what you don’t know and then go and learn it’ (Maria, 42, casual, Nursing).So what I try and achieve, there is one goal that I do have which is cognitive dissonance. And if you get people off balance intellectually then you’ve got them because of their thinking(George, 61, sessional, Education).

Engagement 2

.I mean again this is my gut feeling, but if they're engaged, they're going to be thinking more deeply about things. They're not really going to just sit there and letting a conversation meander around them and then not engage. Then there are some of the activities – I mean like for the ones I like to use most, so the Socratic seminar and the ACAPS thing with photos, you see students taking an interest at sort of digging deeper and deeper and deeper. You can see it happening in class, actually, you know, it's quite strange in a way. You can see that moment where some student brings up a point and then you can see that they're bringing the others along with them and then they can take a bit of a greater interest in that, so I think this is what I hope to be achieving long-term, you know, like when they leave and they can do that (Mario, 62, permanent, Humanities).

Engagement 3

• The first thing I tell them is that I'm here to ask you a question, to get you confused. If you're not confused you're not doing your work! (Danh, 34, .5 sessional & .5 permanent, Design)

Engagement 4

Transforming

I can give you so many examples of students who don’t come in with much academic confidence at all, they’ve come from families with backgrounds where they’re not academic backgrounds or they haven't done very well at high school and they're made to feel a bit stupid. And it'sreally incredible to see them with just the right sort of support and structure and guidance, watch them change and get a sense of things and see their appreciation. And it is transformative for them, I'm sure it is. (Josef, 31, sessional, Humanities)

Teaching can have a transformative effect on me when I see that the light bulb’s come on for them… most of these students don’t believe they’ve got any right to be at uni, and the way our team works is that we show them very much that they have got the right to be at uni, they’ve got the right to achieve at uni, and it is a partnership. It’s not just them by themselves doing it, it’s a partnership between the teacher and them. (Maria, 42, sessional, Nursing)

Transforming 1

I just love interacting with the students, I love it when they discover new things. I really love it when I can sit down with them towards the end of the year and go “Just have a think about how much you’ve learnt in this time” and now it’s even more sort of spine tingling because I can go “Look at how much you’ve learnt” and they’ll go “You taught me that” and I’ll go “No I didn’t, I taught you how to learn that” which for me is much more engaging and much more powerful. (Naomi, 51, sessional, Humanities)

Transforming 2

Well I still learn from students and I think teachers have to keep their minds open as well and even though I’ve been doing this a long time, there are still some students who surprise me … they’ll enlighten you about something and you think ‘I’ve not thought about it from that way before, okay’ so it makes me reflect and from that perspective it transforms me because I think it makes me a richer person because of it. .. transformative for the student because yes, it could be the thing that suddenly the light comes on and it makes it clear and they can walk away with some clarity. Sometimes it means they’re starting to question, there’s many more angles to it, there’s much more to this than I thought there was. There’s lots of layers to it so they go away feeling a bit confused but excited. I think that’s transformative.(Barbara, 59, permanent, Nursing)

Transforming 3

Metrics!

Semester one Campus A Campus B

2012 66.8% (n=319) 53% (n=58)

2013 61.02% (n=254) 81% (n=179)

2014 59% (n=174) 73.2% (n=145)

Conclusion

I’m suggesting• That the demand for performance metrics can

be a catalyst for growth and change in learning and teaching

• It is possible to create the space for transformative education for our students (and ourselves)

I’m suggesting:• That transparent pedagogies can generate

transforming classrooms through• High levels of student (and staff) engagement• Building a reflective, dialogic classroomWhich can lead to both much greater success levels for both staff and students measured by data, but also classrooms where students learn to engage critically with their world.

Conclusion 1

Thanks so much!

A/Prof Katie HughesAdjunct Associate Professor, College of Education,Victoria University, Melbourne.E: [email protected]: + 61 434 072 193S: birsay1