From therapeutic to political education: the centrality of affective sensibility in critical pedagogy

While the need for humanising education is pressing in neoliberal societies, the conditions for its possibility in formal institutions have become particularly cramped. A constellation of factors – the strength of neoliberal ideologies, the corporatisation of universities, the conflation of human freedom with consumer satisfaction, and a wider crisis of hope in the possibility or desirability of social change – make it difficult to apply classical theories of subject-transformation to new work in critical pedagogy. In particular, the growth of interest in pedagogies of comfort (as illustrated in certain forms of ‘therapeutic’ education and concerns about student ‘satisfaction’) and resistance to critical pedagogies suggest that subjectivty has become a primary site of political struggle in education. However, it can no longer be assumed that educators can (or should) liberate students’ repressed desires for ‘humanisation’ by politicising curricula, pedagogy or institutions. Rather, we must work to understand the new meanings and affective conditions of critical subjectivity itself. Bringing critical theories of subject transformation together with new work on ‘pedagogies of discomfort’, I suggest we can create new ways of opening up possibilities for critical education that respond to neoliberal subjectivities without corresponding to or affirming them.

Social software in Higher Education:the diversity of applications and their contributions to students' learning experiences

Higher education institutions are increasingly using social software tools to support teaching and learning. Despite the fact that social software is often used in a social context, these applications can significantly contribute to the educational experience of a student. However, as the social software domain comprises a considerable diversity of tools, the respective tools can be expected to differ in the way they can contribute to teaching and learning. In this review on the educational use of social software, we systematically analyze and compare the diverse social software tools and identify their contributions to teaching and learning. By integrating established learning theory and the extant literature on the individual social software applications we seek to contribute to a theoretical foundation for social software use and the choice of tools. Case vignettes from several UK higher education institutions are used to illustrate the different applications of social software tools in teaching and learning.

The education and training of technicians in the construction industry

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New lecturers' beliefs about learning, teaching and assessment in higher education:the role of the PGCLTHE programme

This study was carried out with new lecturers on a two year Post Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education programme in a UK university. The aim was to establish their beliefs about how studying on the programme aligned with their teaching and learning philosophy and what, if anything, had changed or constrained those beliefs. Ten lecturers took part in an in-depth semi-structured interview. Content analysis of the transcripts suggested positive reactions to the programme but lecturers’ new insights were sometimes constrained by departments and university bureaucracy, particularly in the area of assessment. The conflicting roles of research and teaching were also a major issue facing these new professionals.

Confirmatory feedback in teacher education:an instigator of student teacher learning

This book examines the intricacies of the discourse of post-observation feedback that student teachers receive following group teaching practice. In particular, the author explores confirmatory feedback as an instigator of student teacher learning, and examines the potential links between feedback and change. The book will be of specific interest to researchers, teacher educators and other professionals involved in feedback-giving settings.

The impact of learning outcomes in business education: assessing value, relevance and graduate ability in a multi-country study of employers and business graduates

This paper discusses critical findings from a two-year EU-funded research project involving four European countries: Austria, England, Slovenia and Romania. The project had two primary aims. The first of these was to develop a systematic procedure for assessing the balance between learning outcomes acquired in education and the specific needs of the labour market. The second aim was to develop and test a set of meta-level quality indicators aimed at evaluating the linkages between education and employment. The project was distinctive in that it combined different partners from Higher Education, Vocational Training, Industry and Quality Assurance. One of the key emergent themes identified in exploratory interviews was that employers and recent business graduates in all four countries want a well-rounded education which delivers a broad foundation of key business knowledge across the various disciplines. Both groups also identified the need for personal development in critical skills and competencies. Following the exploratory study, a questionnaire was designed to address five functional business areas, as well as a cluster of 8 business competencies. Within the survey, questions relating to the meta-level quality indicators assessed the impact of these learning outcomes on the workplace, in terms of the following: 1) value, 2) relevance and 3) graduate ability. This paper provides an overview of the study findings from a sample of 900 business graduates and employers. Two theoretical models are proposed as tools for predicting satisfaction with work performance and satisfaction with business education. The implications of the study findings for education, employment and European public policy are discussed.

"We don't need no education" - Or do we? Management education and alumni adoption of strategy tools

Despite concerns about the relevance of management education, there is relatively little evidence about whether graduates use the management tools and concepts they are taught. We address this gap with evidence from a survey of business school alumni adoption of tools typically taught in strategic management courses. Our findings show that four educational characteristics-level of formal education, frequency of management training, specificity of strategic management education, and time elapsed since formal education-drive adoption of strategy tools. Specifically, features such as postgraduate over undergraduate qualifications and frequent exposure to management training predispose greater user of strategy tools. However, other factors, such as time elapsed since formal education, are not as great a predictor of variation in use. We conclude with a predictive model of the relative weight and importance of educational and demographic characteristics on strategy tool adoption and discuss our findings in light of the relevance debate. © The Author(s) 2013.

Resisting the final word:challenging stale media and policy representations of students’ performative technological encounters in university education

This article explores powerful, constraining representations of encounters between digital technologies and the bodies of students and teachers, using corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It discusses examples from a corpus of UK Higher Education (HE) policy documents, and considers how confronting such documents may strengthen arguments from educators against narrow representations of an automatically enhanced learning. Examples reveal that a promise of enhanced ‘student experience’ through information and communication technologies internalizes the ideological constructs of technology and policy makers, to reinforce a primary logic of exchange value. The identified dominant discursive patterns are closely linked to the Californian ideology. By exposing these texts, they provide a form of ‘linguistic resistance’ for educators to disrupt powerful processes that serve the interests of a neoliberal social imaginary. To mine this current crisis of education, the authors introduce productive links between a Networked Learning approach and a posthumanist perspective. The Networked Learning approach emphasises conscious choices between political alternatives, which in turn could help us reconsider ways we write about digital technologies in policy. Then, based on the works of Haraway, Hayles, and Wark, a posthumanist perspective places human digital learning encounters at the juncture of non-humans and politics. Connections between the Networked Learning approach and the posthumanist perspective are necessary in order to replace a discourse of (mis)representations with a more performative view towards the digital human body, which then becomes situated at the centre of teaching and learning. In practice, however, establishing these connections is much more complex than resorting to the typically straightforward common sense discourse encountered in the Critical Discourse Analysis, and this may yet limit practical applications of this research in policy making.

The effect of personality on the design team:lessons from industry for design education

This study examines the effect of individual character types in design teams through case studies at ARUP associates and five United Kingdom university design degree programmes. By observing an individual's approach and contribution within a team, patterns of design behaviour are highlighted and compared within the industrial and academic examples. Initial findings have identified discreet differences in design approach and ways of working. By identifying these initial character clusters, design behaviour can be predicted to help teams and individuals to strengthen their design process. This research brings together: 1. The design process and how engineering and design teams work to solve problems. 2. The natural characteristics of individuals and how they approach problems. This difference of approach can be viewed in relation to the design process where engineers and designers will recognise their preference for certain stages of the design process. This study suggests that these individual preferences are suited to different stages of the design process, and that industry uses teams to ensure a broad range of views, an approach design education would do well to apply by establishing collaborative input in the design process.