Warwick Institute of Education

WIE

Pierre Schramm

Personalized learning?

Those who can consume enjoy both the reality and the illusion of choice: subjectivity and identity are now shaped and defined in consumption where once they were shaped through the meanings of social roles and structures, and of those of participation in an economy of production. The analogue in education is the niche education of 'personalized' learning and curricula. At a more profound level the effect on learners is their taken-for-granted assumption that they have power, that they are agentive in their own learnin, that they choose that with which they wish to engage on the basis of their interest, and that in their actions they remake their world in their image. That presents a deep paradox for the school, which may wish to say 'yes' to the learner's agency, but 'no' to the personalized curriculum."
 

Kress, G. (2006), Learning and curriculum - Agency, ethics and aesthetics in an era of instability in

Moore, A. [ed.] Schooling, Society and Curriculum, London: Routledge (p. 162)

Blog entry to come soon for comments.

 

 

After this opening "quote of the month", a bit about me:

I am a student in Mathematics Education at the University of Warwick, and quite frankly - I love it!

Though I have not carried out any field research yet, I have a few areas of interest, including:

  • the theory of situated knowledge/learning, as set out by Lave.
  • the constructivist/behaviourist divide, which has much more to it than the obvious "behaviourism is a bad, outdated ideology" answer. It would be far too simple to say I'm a Vygotskian - it's much more fun and more interesting to contrast his view with other ideas, especially for very early ages. Favourite reading includes Bruner's Making Sense.
  • other general theory bits and pieces. Skemp's differentiation between relational and instrumental understanding, or David Tall's "three worlds of mathematics", or other dichotomies (or trichotomies) are generally fairly useful to position myself in a debate - as long as I don't get blinded by them.

At this stage, I am more looking at the first of the above bullet points, and am setting out into a project to analyse different settings within and outside the classroom.

If you have too much time on your hands, you may well be interested in the education part of my blog (or in my entire blog if you're really really bored). Comments will always be much appreciated!

Some of my essays, written for the Maths Ed course, are available here.

Other projects and interests include Doctor Who (if you did not know that, you haven't met me in person yet), Warwick Student Cinema, Warwick Revelation rock-gospel choir (and actually the whole of Rev), where I sing, and Warwick Volunteers' Language Tutoring project, which I am currently co-leading.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

me
Page contact: Nicola Wilkinson Last revised: Tue 31 Mar 2009
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