I was at the OSS Watch conference on Thursday and very interesting if at times above my head it was. David Plans Casal who is a part of the Apache Foundation gave an illuminating presentation on Open Source Software. David’s experience dated back to at least the mid 1990’s and as such his historic perspective was particularly interesting in its analysis of the social processes surrounding the Apache Foundation. Back in the 90’s OSS was perceived to be the Wild West of software development inhabited by communist vegan activists (sorry for the mixed metaphors) whereas the past couple of years have seen it transformed into the to the sharp suited mainstream. Although not quite, as although many large multinationals such as finance houses use OSS they are reluctant to say so because of the impact that this has on their share prices as they are seen to be a ‘risky’ company.

David identified recent trends:

I was browsing through my iPhoto and it brought back loads of memories. These two examples were from Cornwall a couple of years ago when I vistied Ian Tindal with Pete Bradshaw. Ian introduced us to beach stone sculpting. I wonder if the images help me to remeber the experience better than if I were reading a diary entry.

What do we mean by criticality? This is a much used term in Higher Education and it could be argued that it is at the heart of the ‘University Experience’, that is teaching students how to be critically reflective thinkers or developing ‘criticality’. But what does it mean?

It is certainly the case that undergraduates can find the term off putting as it is often associated with a perceived negative behaviour of being critical of someone – something that most of us hate to be on the receiving end of! However, this is not what is meant by criticality. One framework outlined in the table below (Barnet 1997) conceptualises the term criticality and I think that it is worthy of some thought.

The idea of critical thinking can be traced back to Dewey (and possibly beyond), and in simple terms he was talking about being an active rather than a passive learner. That is not simply absorbing information and calling it knowledge, but seeking out meaning through analysis and evaluation of both data and ideas to develop understnding and create knowledge.

Barnet identifies three aspects or domains of criticality, knowledge, self, and world. He also identifies four different levels of criticality from critical skills, to reflexivity, through to refashioning traditions, and at the highest level transformatory critique. So what does this all mean for Undergraduate studies?

Well in making sense of this I am tempted to view it from a perspective of learning. Shallow, deep, and profound learning are terms often used by Professor John West-Burnham in the context of learning and leadership (look at either of thses resources 1 2). Perhaps of most interest is profound learning which for West-Burnham is “rooted in personal change and growth, it is about the development of personal models, or mind maps, which both inform and interpret behaviour.” Is this any different from the highest level of criticality identified by Barnett? I suspect that it isn’t that different and West-Burnham also talks about displaying deep learning in terms of emotional intelligences which is involves taking into account others views and perspectives or what Barnet terms the world domain.

So what about deep learning? For West-Burnham deep learning is the internalising and understanding of public information. This might be achieved through the applying of theories to practice, carrying out literature reviews, discussing ideas with fellow students, etc.

Shallow learning we can forget, as it is “short-term and is unlikely to have a significant impact on behaviour”:^)

So how do we get towards the deeper end of learning or level 1 an 2 of criticality? West-Burnham offers these learning strategies:
1. Systematic and structured reflection.
2. Coaching, mentoring and critical friendship.
3. Focused review and feedback
4. Theory building and testing
5. Team based learning
6.The creation of a learning community

I hope that in Ultraversity, many of these things are taking place and if there are any shortcomings for individuals or the project as a whole, then we need to address them. And I would put forward a combination of the two models using the domains of Barnet with the shallow, deep, and profound of West-Burnham as a practical and useful framework for undergraduate learning.

Ron Barnett, (1997), Higher Education: A Critical Business, Buckingham: SRHE and Open University

Bob Fryer’s (new role as NHS National Director for Widening Participation in Learning) take on the e-learning agenda came from a slightly different perspective from other delegates. His passion was located in the notion of citizenship and identifying the implications for what might be called an ‘e-social agenda’! That is how can we ensure e-learning does not further disadvantage those on the margins of society?

Bob posed a number of questions and observations to stimulate discussion. The overarching question being “what questions are we trying to solve and what are the right questions?”.

Bob identified four ‘high level’ core questions:

• What challenges of the emergent world must be met for learners to thrive?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of ‘personalisation’ in meeting those challenges?
• How can e-enablement enhance those strengths and those weaknesses?
• Can all of this be squared with the core purposes and values of learning, including its ‘public value’?

The questions were developed into a series of sub questions, observations, and problems:

• what is the character of citizenship and what are the character of the learners?
• what kind of learning supports learners to thrive in the risk society?
• There are doubts about the capacity and flexibility of traditional and existing educational institutions
• at the heart of a notion of personalisation is an implied moving away from mass production (a Victorian model of ‘industrial’ education)
• there is confusion between choice (and customisation) and personalisation
• where does discipline come from in personalisation?
• personalisation advantages the already advantaged
• there are poorly articulated educational theories and concepts in e-learning
• concern about an erosion of the social nature of the world we know, what does e-learning mean for community, the common good, critical reflection…..
• why ICT? Would the inclusion agenda be better served by spending the billions we do on ICT in education be better spent on work with young mothers?

Bob explained the key ideas of the ”Risk Society” (Beck) as being choice, risk, uncertainty, and fuzzy nature of boundaries. He went onto identify a fundamental barrier to change in education and thereby to addressing some of the points above as being the risk adverse nature of the powers that be in a society that is characterised by risk (referring to Beck for support in this assertion)!

In this points Bob pointed up the change from an industrial society to a post-industrial society where the ‘practice’ of mass production is increasingly replaced by one of personalisation and with this an increasingly complicated and consumer driven society. Bob then drew the parallel to education and offered his observations on Jarvis’s (2001)‘ “Emergent Model of Learning” which adds detail to the identified trend of increasing personalisation.

I have added two domains to Jarvis’s model as I believe that they should also be included. They are the applied philosophy of learning, that is do teachers see themselves as experts or as facilitators and even co-learners recognising that the increasingly students bring to the learning a great deal of experience, expertise, and knowledge especially of they are studying later on in life. I also believe that the agenda is another important domain as indicated by Bob. Is learning (particularly in HE) about the pursuit of scholarly knowledge or is it increasingly I would hope about a democratisation of the process and institutions based on notions of citizenship and social inclusion.

In all of this I think that what Bob was getting at was how do we ensure that the move to personalisation and the implied freedom and opportunity it brings doesn’t lead to individualisation and a weakening of society? He offered this quote from Dewey “Fraternity, liberty, and equality isolated from communal life are hopeless abstractions… Democracy must begin at home, and its home is the neighbourly community”

Of course Bob is right to be concerned as it is not so long ago that main stream UK politics was driven by beliefs such as “And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.” (Thatcher 1987)

I could not but reflect on the Ultraversity project and how we have attempted to address some of the points raised by Bob and how the project is in many ways pioneering much of the emergent model put forward by Jarvis. We do see Ultraversity as a part of creating a more inclusive society by offering the choice of a personalised learning experience in the context of the characteristics of the risk society. Part of the philosophy underpinning UV is one of community learning and not the learner as an learning in isolation but someone with critical skills, critical understanding and critical action in the domains of Knowledge, Self, and World (Barnet 1997). The world being the wider society and implied in this are the obligations to participate positively in that wider society.