Subject: Authority and Authorship
From: Cathy Burke (cathy@windses.free-online.co.uk)
Date: Tue 25 Jan 2000 - 23:11:29 MET
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 22:11:29 +0000 From: Cathy Burke <cathy@windses.free-online.co.uk> Subject: Authority and Authorship
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Ania said, in response to my ealier post
I wonder whether it is the classroom that is at fault and whether
it is the book that is at fault. I.e. whether it is the walls and the
book
that dictate to us what to do.?
I am wondering too! I don't say I have any answer, but I think the
question is valid and to me, at least, useful.
Having spent the last three days pouring over student papers - part of
which include an evaluation of their experience of
on-line learning, I have noticed a related point which has been put by
several students in different ways. This is to do with a notion of
'authority' and how we become familiar with it in an educational
context.
Here's a quote from one of them, posed as a question she felt the need
to express at the outset.of the course which would include an element of
on-line learning...
‘how could we learn without the valuable input of the traditional
classroom environment ? This is what all students were used to, from
being 5 years old, the image of the classroom and education has been the
‘Teacher’, the blackboard, desks and pupils, how can we learn without
this?’.
Another said that she really felt, having experienced on line learning,
that she needed the reassurance of an 'authority figure'.
The 'input of the traditional classroom environment' !
Authority and Authorship. As a teacher, I am interested in creating
environments which encourage the learner towards autonomy and self
reliance, which encourage active learning and criitical thinking.
Traditional teaching models have historically been shaped around the
figure of the sage - the authority, literally the one with the pen - the
literate. Books represent authority . For many students it stops there:
they have difficulty in questioning authority and this is reflected in
their own writing which is often deferential.
As a student 20 years ago, I was encouraged by the wild and wonderful
Marxist historian, Gwynn A Williams - who reckoned the Welsh had first
discovered America - to treat books with disdain. He used to say 'be
thoroughly un-British!' with them - open them up, pull them apart, treat
them like your worst enemy...struggle and win. I watch and observe now
how students operate with the web - treating it like some giant book
with all the answers, if we only find the right search engine and key
words...
What excites me about introducing on-line learning within traditionally
taught courses is that authorship can be reflected upon and that the
authority figure can be shifted from centre stage. Although, as I
suggested earlier, this is sometimes difficult to achieve in the context
of the classroom.To give the best possible chance for the encouragement
of autonomous, independent, self reliant, collaborative learning,
perhaps we need to use the web in ways which exploit its possibilities
other than as a massive library... to use it for things we cant possibly
do in a classroom.
One use which I have been experimenting with is text based 'role play'
within an asynchronous discussion space. The students together have
produced a large archive of messages in role which remain a resource for
themselves and other students to follow. Some argued that they could not
have done this face to face. What was extraordinary about this effort
was the fact that gradually the role play took on a form - through the
application of a thick inpenetrable dialect - which effectively cut me
(as teacher) out... they were drawing on a knowledge base and resource
from which I was excluded. This was very exciting and interesting to
observe.
Cathy
Catherine Burke
7 The Windses
Grindleford
Hope Valley
S 32 2HY
Tel: 01433 631907
Dr. Catherine Burke
Lecturer in Education: Child & Family Studies,
Bretton Hall College
West Bretton
WF4 4LG
01924 830261
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