#ccourses - Leveraging our ‘why’ – reaching out to the #ccourses community

#ccourses has suggested that we ‘leverage our why’ – and Jonathan Worth said we ask others to help with the HOW.

So - HOW?!

We are lecturers in an institution that reaches out into our local communities. Our students are often described as ‘fish out of water’ (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992),  swimming in educational currents composed of regimes of inspection and the over-riding narratives of assessment, SATs, League Tables, OFSTED, moral panics about plagiarism – and the ‘dumbing down’ of education:

There are Mickey Mouse students for whom Mickey Mouse degrees are quite appropriate (Starkey in Brockes ‘Taking the mick’ The Guardian, [online] 15 January 2003).

They are re-territorialising tricky academic space (Deleuze & Guattari1987/2005) – and do not get an easy ride. More than ever they need to experience connection – engagement – inspiration – creativity and joy…

We’re sustained by our communities (of Practice, of Inquiry, of Engagement): ALDinHE, (#loveld, #studychat) - and #edcmooc, #rhizo14, #ccourses … BUT we know that many staff in HE generally are feeling pretty battered and bruised right now. As with the students, they, too, experience regimes of control and surveillance: targets and strategies; Performance Review; Academic Work Allocation Model. Every hour is mapped and measured and there is no time to ‘be with’ students. Overworked and under-valued, they do not feel trusted – they may not feel trust. How can we celebrate and sustain creative emancipatory practices …in this cold HE climate (Sinfield, Burns and Holley 2003)?

So we are experimenting with Take 5:

http://learning.londonmet.ac.uk/epacks/take5/index.html

Take5 includes some tips on:

Role playing and simulations

Creative and visual learning strategies – using:

Drawing, collage, performance, poetry, prose

Object and Inquiry-based learning

Project Based Learning

Real research projects – from the first year

Academic & empowering literacies – with a positive twist!

Using the MOOCs - #edcmooc, #ccourses, #ds106, #rhizo14

Resource and artefact production.

At the moment we are planning to write fortnightly blog posts speaking of things that we have done in our classrooms and our MOOCs – in the hope of seeding conversations and re-engaging people in their own love of teaching and learning.

What do you think?

What should we do next?

Who wants to join in?