What does it mean ‘to learn’ as a post-graduate on an international programme of teacher education? What does it imply of the learner and of the power of learning to liberate or to change? In this paper, as part of the X symposium, Rebecca Webb will begin to unpick these questions in relation to her own current Higher Education teaching experiences. She will draw on some philosophical work of Rancière (2010) and academic research of Biesta (2006, 2010) and Biesta & Osberg (2008, 2010), in particular, to frame her thinking. She will engage with a range of qualitative data. This will be gathered through the reflective and reflexive interrogation (and the ‘Speaking Back to’) of a visual multi-media resource that she has developed alongside her ten students over the course of an academic year. This resource – a Padlet ‘Sharing Wall’ - charts chronologically a selection of experiences and activities undertaken by the students in photographic, written, audio and visual form. The students are the first cohort of a new post-graduate course she is leading for expert teachers from Kazakhstan, studying at the University of Sussex as part of a scholarship programme designed to develop their professional, academic and English language competencies. It is envisaged that they will transfer and apply some of this learning in their home settings of teaching secondary aged pupils in Kazakhstan. As this is the first year of the programme, interrogating questions of learning and change, within the context of developing teachers’ working practices, have a particular piquancy. This research will inform the development of the Sussex Programme in subsequent years for future students from both Kazakhstan and other international arenas. Rebecca hopes to ‘complicate’ the model of straightforward transference of learning from one space to another.

Biesta, G. (2006) Beyond Learning: Democratic Education for a human future, Boulder and London: Paradigm Biesta, G. (2010) Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy, Boulder and London: Paradigm Biesta, G. and Osberg, D. (2008) The Emergent Curriculum: navigating a complex course between unguided learning and planned enculturation, Journal of Curriculum Studies, Vol.40, 3, 2008 Biesta, G. and Osberg, D. (eds) (2010) Complexity Theory and the Politics of Education, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers Rancière, J. (2010) On Ignorant Schoolmasters, in G. Bietsa, C. Bingham and J. Rancière: Education, Truth, Emancipation, London: Continuum