UK Centre for Materials Education
Working with you to enhance the student experience
Working with you to enhance the student experience
This report presents a brief summary of a one day symposium hosted by the UK Centre for Materials Education and supported by the Generic Centre of the Learning and Teaching Support Network
The Royal Society of Arts was an inspirational venue for our recent workshop (6 September 2001) entitled 'Travelling Facts'. Having original art on the walls does not force you to think, but it does help! Caroline Baillie kicked off the proceedings by asking how knowledge travels, not only from teacher to learner but from researcher to researcher and learner to learner.
During the morning several related issues were explored: Daniel Dor (University of Tel Aviv) mounted a serious defence of jargon, as not only helpful within a close group of knowledge sharers, but also as an identifier and a token of belonging. We should not, he asserted, protect our students from jargon, but attempt to include them so that they too feel part of the community.
Simon Parker (University of Bangor) pointed out how extensive is our use of metaphor in passing on knowledge and encouraging understanding. His examples ranged across many fields but in discussion it was clear that the cricket field should not (at least in multi-cultural higher education) be one of them. Neither 'googly' nor 'sticky wicket' has much currency in Texas or Mongolia. We are on safer (but not absolutely safe) ground (a metaphor) using metaphors related to universal human experiences such as our bodies, eating, sleeping and travelling.
Caroline Baillie (UK Centre for Materials Education) introduced the idea that 'facts' are not absolute but that they are usually negotiated with the learner and asked how we might help students to participate in these negotiations? Many of us could agree that the concept of the hard, uniquely defined 'fact' has almost disappeared, aided by the arrival of quantum ideas (and in particular the uncertainty principle). Has this new perspective yet been embedded in teaching practice? Caroline asserted that it has not.
This notion of negotiation was also reflected in a presentation by Richard Varey (University of Salford) who spoke from the perspective of communication studies, considering the idea that facts in discussion are after all no more than 'negotiated fiction'. Finally, Chris Rose (University of Brighton) related his experiences with drawing as a 'construction site for ideas' and traced the pathway of the 'fact' as it travels through images, colour, texture and dynamic representation.
In the afternoon we broke up into small groups to consider in more detail whether and how these ideas impact on teaching in our Universities. A key unanswered question was 'would our students find any of this interesting?' Even closer to home than this, many of us in the RSA on that afternoon did not fully understand each other's jargon. Perhaps that is inevitable when 35 people from many different disciplines get together to discuss abstract ideas - it was certainly a delight to see representatives from five very different Subject Centres, and the Generic Centre, animatedly involved in discussion of the educational process.
The facilitators of the afternoon discussions brought the day to a riotous close by trying out some metaphors for knowledge as 'facts'. Their most successful was the fact as virus - we hope it is infectious, spreads rapidly, is almost undetectable to the bearer, occasionally transmutes in transmission and (whisper it) can be fun to catch!
And where did marmalade come into all this? Lewis Elton pointed out that some ideas have no meaning outside their region of usage. He cited 'wissenschaft' as one example but 'marmalade' is better because it is an idea easily accessible in the UK. Marmalade, as any fule kno (monocultural allusion), is bitter and can only be eaten at breakfast. Jam is sweet and cannot be eaten at breakfast. Try explaining this in a foreign hotel, with all the metaphors you like!
Professor Peter Goodhew
Director, UK Centre for Materials Education
