Session Information
32 SES 13, Creating Learning Communities: Collaboration in Doctoral Journeys
Symposium
Contribution
This paper reports developments in a research lab-based learning community. It began as a means to create a communicative space for students from different cultures. When a major earthquake destroyed university buildings in 2011 the social space replaced physical offices and became the means to hold students together and support their learning. We came to better understand that learning is a social as well as an individual process and that knowledge is mobile and flows in communities. We also became aware of the gap between the aspirations brought by many of the international students for creating change at home and academic perspectives which were, unconsciously, somewhat homogenising. A number of collaborative projects, and later publications, grow out of this evolving awareness and these were reported at ECER in 2013 and 2014. In 2015 we reported (Greenwood et al 2015) how the group began to undertake collaborative exploration and theorisation of place and its role in shaping the meaning of individual research projects. Through shared critical reflections participants’ navigated between the university place with its knowledge systems and values and the knowledge systems and values of the place where their research is located, and provoked examination of the tension between deconstructing hegemony that may come through imposition of dominant externally originated epistemologies and the need to look outside one’s context to critique and improve it. As a result of such as these at a conceptual explorations, individuals began to frame and develop their research projects more adventurously, identifying and prioritising approaches to knowledge that they saw as significant to their focus of inquiry. For example, Maori, Samoan, Bangladeshi re-conceptualisations of participatory practice were developed. Whereas the learning community began as a means unifying a disparate group and facilitating the sharing of knowledge, a new, perhaps complementary, centrifugal energy is developing. At the same time individual members are imitating new collaborative alliances: developing active learning communities in their field work, creating nested circles with new candidates they have adopted, or simply inviting friends to our lab’s hot-seats and discussions. This paper reports the shiftings, spreading and seedings that have evolved. It builds on a extends Lave and Wenger’s theorisation of knowledge construction within communities of practice, Freire’s concept of conscientization and Kemmis and McTaggart’s explication of communicative space. It then proposes further theorisation of centrifying and centrifugal aspects of learning communities, and suggests ways these can be used to support doctoral study.
References
Alam, S. (2016): Teachers, Collaboration, Praxis: a case study of a participatory action research project in a Bangladeshi rural school. Thesis. University of Canterbury. Freire, Paulo (1972). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greenwood, Alam, Salahuddin & Rasheed(2014) Learning Communities and the Doctoral Journey: Developing Interaction, Criticality and Collaboration. Porto: ECER Greenwood, Alam, & Kabir. (2013) Making the International Trade in Teacher Development a Fair Trade: Report of a Collaborative Project. Istanbul: ECER Greenwood, J., Lim, J., Alam, S., Salahuddin, A. Hasnat., A., Rahaman, M., Amin, Md., Kaur, H., Rana, R. and Tisi, S. (2015) Learning Communities and the Doctoral Journey: Exploring Understandings of Place. Budapest: ECER . Kemmis , S. & McTaggart, R. (2005). Participatory Action Research: Communicative action and the public sphere. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds). The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. California: Sage. O’Halloran, D. (2015). Raising our voices: restorying Paskifika inclusion, success and effective learning supports at the University of Canterbury. Thesis. University of Canterbury . Riwai-Couch, M. (2014). Puna kōrero: iwi and schools working together to support Māori student success. Thesis. University of Canterbury.
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