Curriculum, Learning and Society: Investigating Practice

Course Coordinator: Dr Diane Hui, PhD (Washington University in St Louis, USA), MSc (University of Edinburgh, Scotland), BEd (University of Stirling, Scotland)

Aims
This course aims to develop in learners an understanding of the:

• Interrelationship between the specified, enacted and experienced curriculum in a range of cultural, social and institutional contexts;
• Theoretical views on learning, knowledge and pedagogy underlying the sociocultural approach, and how these relate to the main research debates in the field;
• Theories as tools of a community and as part of practice;
• Implications of different theoretical perspectives on the nature of learning and knowledge for pedagogy and assessment.

Contents
The course covers the following topics:

• Concepts of theory and practice — the relationship between collective and individual learning, and the location of meaning, as well as the dialectical relationship between agent, activity and the world.
• Learning and practice — the sociocultural perspective on learning, the usefulness of examining learning from this perspective, and ways to open up practice so as to enable learner participation and individual agency.
• Understanding pedagogy — the implications of the perspectives on learning for approaches to pedagogy.
• Knowledge and practice — views and theories of knowledge from both the educational and workplace perspectives, and how these theories are embedded in structures such as assessment policy and specified curricula, as well as how these theories shape practice.
• Bridging cultures and transforming identities — the shaping of identities in the community of practice, and how learning involves negotiating new identities in response to tensions in a community.

Learning support
This course involves 600 study hours. There will be 10 three-hour tutorials and two three-hour day schools, the latter of which will take place at weekends.

Assessment
There will be five assignments (including a project) and a final examination. Except for some designated assignments, students are required to submit assignments via the Online Learning Environment (OLE).

Set book(s)
There are no set books. The course materials include four Readers.