Using ‘numbers’ to construct persuasive conditions / arguments for Change Activity 17 Block 4 Macfayden & Dawson (2012)
Wednesday, 15 June 2016, 12:53
Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Steve Bamlett, Wednesday, 15 June 2016, 12:57
Reframe the reasons
given in this paper for poor uptake of LA?
The situation described in
this paper is a case study of how and why a substantive case for action to
produce change can be constructed from the numbers yielded in LA, institutions
RESIST such change both at the level of actions taken by aggregations of individual
members of the institution and institutional processes.
The authors frame the
reasons for the resulting stasis using two category heads:
·Perceived attributes of an innovation – in which they argue that that it is how the
change is perceived that blocks change. They use this to argue that innovation
is often misrepresented conceptually at the level of reception of the idea,
using formulation of a concept of ‘cognitive evaluation’ in Rogers’ (1995) theory
of the diffusion of innovation.
·The realities of university culture. Here they widen and deepen the issue of
‘resistance’ to include effects at the socio-cultural (and organisational)
level of the university’s style of governance. The case is that universities
are structurally and functionally biased to innovation because of a governance
culture rooted in ‘agrarian’ modes of institutional governance (wherein nodes
of consensual governance over discrete areas of operation – subject discipline
faculties – control the university’s key functions of teaching and research).
Why these are labelled agrarian defeats me but let’s leave that. Universities,
it says are culturally built to resist the model of corporate management -
hierarchical and top-down that represent innovative ‘industrial’ innovation.
These reasons clearly
represent innovation as bound to cognitive misrepresentation at a number of
levels (understanding and application for instance) and pre-determined to fail by
cultural issues that must resist if an
older culture of governance is to survive the genuine threat to it posed by
innovation. This is ‘management-speak’ that characterise the notion of corporate
business studies and which in the UK has already transformed (or is in the
historical process of transforming) institutions like the nationalised
industries, the NHS, secondary (and now primary) education and local
government. And these reasons have it both ways:
1.Our innovations are misrepresented as posing a
threat or additional burden;
2.Our innovations are a threat to a culture that
is presupposed to need to change.
Needless to say, I see this
paper as the representation of a fixed view that fetishizes change which I call
the ‘corporate’ vision that the paper insists (p.161) is one of the
misrepresentations of innovation it is fighting. Yet despite the fact that the paper itself
resists characterising the changes it desires as ‘market-driven’, its argument
spring entirely from that quarter. In asking that we argue not just from
numbers but conditions that appeal to the heart, they may appear to be
presenting something new. It isn’t – this is the corporate vision of change by
harnessing to it ‘evaluative conditioning’, the advertising innovations of the
behaviourist, Watson. Let’s start then by registering that I believe this paper
to represent a very entrenched ideological case for change that is no nearer to
pedagogy, in its content, than the patrician system of oligarchical autonomous
units it wants to replace.
We can’t change then without
better arguments – one that speak to the hard and soft realities of pedagogical
governance and without pre-conditioning the area we can to be receptive to
change. That is good management. I will leave aside however, whether I believe
it to favour pedagogical goals of substance in themselves.
What I believe we do need
from this paper is this:
1.Clear understanding that quantitative evidence
alone cannot carry an argument without specification of the qualitative data
that represents the process of teaching and learning. Purely quantitative
arguments (of whatever volume) are impoverished arguments.
2.That a case based on merely technocratic
reasons that fail to address the constitution of the identities of its audience
in the very practices it seeks to overturn will not work. Arguments must also
provide the emotional grounds for change – its potential, insecurities and
emotionally sustaining fail-safes.
3.We could call this respect for diversity – an
element on which this paper is, explicitly at least and perhaps implicitly,
bereft.
My reframing (p. 159ff):
No new Headings but one new
preface:
We have both got it wrong!
Resistance (or reactance) is
increased by top-down imposition (even if the content is presented as a
‘vision’ or ‘mission’.
Be honest about market
pressures where they are a historical factor driving change, Contextualise them
in pedagogic goals and don’t pretend they don’t exist.
People preserve their
identity, rooted in older practices and structures, as a source of stability.
The need for stability and its meaning needs to be engaged with in the argument
and the ‘incentives’ for change – seeing value in greater fluidity, new sources
of stability or reassurance are made available.
The innovation can sometimes
be presented in simpler forms or (consider Laurillard here), its complexity
embraced as part of an evolving set of practices which identify teachers and
learners as co-agents in change practices.
Workload issues need to be
at the forefront: what aspects of change will be time-consuming (these will be
areas of novice trial and error practice). How resources will be allocated to
these in the interim. The achieved and evidenced savings in personal narratives
of successful pilot implementation.
Increase the stakeholders
involved in representing change process – not just either corporate managers or
‘faculty heads’ but both of these (trained to listen and hear each other) AND
students AND employers AND counsellors etc.…. This challenges myths, for
instance, of ‘learner homogeneity’.
All I can do for now.
All the best
Steve
Macfayden,
L.P. and Dawson, S. (2012) ‘Numbers are not Enough. Why Learning Analytics
Failed to Inform an Institutional Strategic Plan’ in International
Technology & Society, 15 (3), 149 – 163.
Using ‘numbers’ to construct persuasive conditions / arguments for Change Activity 17 Block 4 Macfayden & Dawson (2012)
Reframe the reasons given in this paper for poor uptake of LA?
The situation described in this paper is a case study of how and why a substantive case for action to produce change can be constructed from the numbers yielded in LA, institutions RESIST such change both at the level of actions taken by aggregations of individual members of the institution and institutional processes.
The authors frame the reasons for the resulting stasis using two category heads:
· Perceived attributes of an innovation – in which they argue that that it is how the change is perceived that blocks change. They use this to argue that innovation is often misrepresented conceptually at the level of reception of the idea, using formulation of a concept of ‘cognitive evaluation’ in Rogers’ (1995) theory of the diffusion of innovation.
· The realities of university culture. Here they widen and deepen the issue of ‘resistance’ to include effects at the socio-cultural (and organisational) level of the university’s style of governance. The case is that universities are structurally and functionally biased to innovation because of a governance culture rooted in ‘agrarian’ modes of institutional governance (wherein nodes of consensual governance over discrete areas of operation – subject discipline faculties – control the university’s key functions of teaching and research). Why these are labelled agrarian defeats me but let’s leave that. Universities, it says are culturally built to resist the model of corporate management - hierarchical and top-down that represent innovative ‘industrial’ innovation.
These reasons clearly represent innovation as bound to cognitive misrepresentation at a number of levels (understanding and application for instance) and pre-determined to fail by cultural issues that must resist if an older culture of governance is to survive the genuine threat to it posed by innovation. This is ‘management-speak’ that characterise the notion of corporate business studies and which in the UK has already transformed (or is in the historical process of transforming) institutions like the nationalised industries, the NHS, secondary (and now primary) education and local government. And these reasons have it both ways:
1. Our innovations are misrepresented as posing a threat or additional burden;
2. Our innovations are a threat to a culture that is presupposed to need to change.
Needless to say, I see this paper as the representation of a fixed view that fetishizes change which I call the ‘corporate’ vision that the paper insists (p.161) is one of the misrepresentations of innovation it is fighting. Yet despite the fact that the paper itself resists characterising the changes it desires as ‘market-driven’, its argument spring entirely from that quarter. In asking that we argue not just from numbers but conditions that appeal to the heart, they may appear to be presenting something new. It isn’t – this is the corporate vision of change by harnessing to it ‘evaluative conditioning’, the advertising innovations of the behaviourist, Watson. Let’s start then by registering that I believe this paper to represent a very entrenched ideological case for change that is no nearer to pedagogy, in its content, than the patrician system of oligarchical autonomous units it wants to replace.
We can’t change then without better arguments – one that speak to the hard and soft realities of pedagogical governance and without pre-conditioning the area we can to be receptive to change. That is good management. I will leave aside however, whether I believe it to favour pedagogical goals of substance in themselves.
What I believe we do need from this paper is this:
1. Clear understanding that quantitative evidence alone cannot carry an argument without specification of the qualitative data that represents the process of teaching and learning. Purely quantitative arguments (of whatever volume) are impoverished arguments.
2. That a case based on merely technocratic reasons that fail to address the constitution of the identities of its audience in the very practices it seeks to overturn will not work. Arguments must also provide the emotional grounds for change – its potential, insecurities and emotionally sustaining fail-safes.
3. We could call this respect for diversity – an element on which this paper is, explicitly at least and perhaps implicitly, bereft.
My reframing (p. 159ff):
No new Headings but one new preface:
We have both got it wrong!
Resistance (or reactance) is increased by top-down imposition (even if the content is presented as a ‘vision’ or ‘mission’.
Be honest about market pressures where they are a historical factor driving change, Contextualise them in pedagogic goals and don’t pretend they don’t exist.
People preserve their identity, rooted in older practices and structures, as a source of stability. The need for stability and its meaning needs to be engaged with in the argument and the ‘incentives’ for change – seeing value in greater fluidity, new sources of stability or reassurance are made available.
The innovation can sometimes be presented in simpler forms or (consider Laurillard here), its complexity embraced as part of an evolving set of practices which identify teachers and learners as co-agents in change practices.
Workload issues need to be at the forefront: what aspects of change will be time-consuming (these will be areas of novice trial and error practice). How resources will be allocated to these in the interim. The achieved and evidenced savings in personal narratives of successful pilot implementation.
Increase the stakeholders involved in representing change process – not just either corporate managers or ‘faculty heads’ but both of these (trained to listen and hear each other) AND students AND employers AND counsellors etc.…. This challenges myths, for instance, of ‘learner homogeneity’.
All I can do for now.
All the best
Steve
Macfayden, L.P. and Dawson, S. (2012) ‘Numbers are not Enough. Why Learning Analytics Failed to Inform an Institutional Strategic Plan’ in International Technology & Society, 15 (3), 149 – 163.