#rhizo14 Challenge Week 2 - Enforcing Independance

#rhizo14 Week 2 - Explore a model of enforced independence. How do we create a learning environment where people must be responsible? How do we assure ourselves that learners will self-assess and self-remediate?

Adapted From: Celestine Chua http://www.flickr.com/photos/celestinechua/9683205509/sizes/m/

To me 'enforcing independence' seem to suggest that the person in concern does not have independence AND does not want to develop it. With reference to some learners this may be true however, there are also (at least a handful of ) learners who are independent and/or willing to develop this independence. Anyway, here are my thoughts of enforcing independence.

I would like to take couple of examples in discussing my thoughts on enforcing independence.

Research Students
Students doing research degrees especially PhDs MUST demonstrate that they can be independent researchers. So how do supervisors support them to become independent?

Learner Drivers
Learner drivers need to develop skills to be safe on the road. They are responsible for their own life as well as others on the road. They have to be able to make judgement, sometimes within split seconds, that will make the difference between life and death.So how do driving instructors support them to become independent?

Young Children
Kids need to learn to become independent - that is to feed themselves, or getting dressed.

However, in most of these cases it is the learner's desire to be independent. Young children want to show that they are capable of things adults do (at least my twins are like that). So they are happy to learn how to get dressed and how to eat on their own.

Learner drivers are paying dearly for lessons. So even not for anything else they would want to stop paying the instructor and be able to drive on their own. But most learner drivers want to take the car out on their own to enjoy the independence that it brings. Again this was true for me. I didn't drive for 14 years despite holding a drivers license, but then with the twins I had to drive because it was difficult to get a double buggy in and out of buses. So I wanted to become independent.

I think most research students want to be independent researchers and thus happily take the advice from their supervisors and do their research. However, I've never been a supervisor, so I have no experience to back this claim. I fear some supervisors may not agree with me.

In the case of Learner Drivers there are rules and laws that enforce them to be safe on the road. For example, if you do not take correct decision say to slow or stop and cause an accident, you will be prosecuted and in the worst case may even end up in jail. For young children do we enforce their independence? We encourage them to become independent well... OK we may say that you will lose X perk if you do not do Y. What about other learners? Do we enforce them or do we show them, encourage them and support them to become independent?

#rhizo14 Challenge Week 1 - Cheating as Learning

At the moment I'm registered on two MOOCs: Introduction to Forensic Science on FutureLearn and #rhizo14. I've participated in many MOOCs (I've lost count). Many of them I felt were xMOOCs but I wasn't so comfortable with my first MOOC experience which I thought was a cMOOC, in fact my only cMOOC experience (I think). That was my very first MOOC experience and I think it could also be down to not quite knowing how to take part in a MOOC. So I'm taking part in #rhizo14 to try it again.

Adapted from Molly Steenson's CC attributed 'flying duck' (Original image available from http://www.flickr.com/photos/molly/8426923/) modified image licensed with the same conditions

Week 1 Challenge - Use cheating as a weapon. How can you use the idea of cheating as a tool to take apart the structures that you work in? What does it say about learning? About power? About how you see teaching? 

I used to be a student who hardly ever questioned what was on the text. I think the main reason was a bad experience I had when I questioned the teacher in a primary class. I can't recall what exactly happened but it was not a pleasant experience. Did this non questioning harm my learning? - well... I am not sure. At least from the exam grades I received I was OK. But did the exams measure the capacity to think, reason or the capacity to reproduce? I'm not sure.

As a Physical Science Student and then an Engineering student there was always a definite correct answer for a question - or at least I believed so. But when I started a my postgraduate course suddenly there were questions with not just one correct answer. It was OK to disagree with the teacher/facilitator. It took me long to accept, understand and be able to think in these terms. My understanding of the world started to broaden as I saw and questioned the multiple truths existing at the same time. I started to question why I did not 'see' this light earlier.

If one is not given the opportunity to question, I think there is little possibility to develop this capacity. So this teaching to me is a type of cheating - cheating the children of the multiple truths and making them believe there is only one truth. Before starting my postgraduate studies if there was a government or UN (or so) publication with statistics I would accept it as the truth. But now I know that they should also be questioned as to how the statistics were collected and so on. This knowledge brings power with it. It gives you capacity to think beyond what is there in a text.

I did my schooling in a different continent, different cultural background where traditions played a major role at least in formal education. Teacher was never (or hardly ever) questioned. Teacher questioned you and it was always meant to be that way. There was a great power distance between pupil/student and teacher/lecturer. Facilitator was not a term that was even considered. Everyone was expected to progress in the same path. Being 'different' (not in terms of ethnicity or origin but in other terms - for example everyone was expected to be good at maths  being exceptional in art was not so much a thing to celebrate) was not - well hardly - celebrated. For example, I had a classmate with exceptional talent for art. She did biology for Advanced Level, I am not sure whether it was her choice. She ended up taking exams couple of times to enter the Medical College. Now she is a Fashion Designer for a major Corporate in that industry and a lecturer in Fashion Design in a leading university; studied and worked in London; now she is doing her PhD.

To me it is liberating to know that there can be different interpretations of the same; different deconstructions of the concepts I formerly held to be 'true'.