Knowing, acting, doing
I’ve been a lecturer for a little over six years. In that time, I’ve tried many ways to approach my teaching. I was a constructivist long before I knew what the word meant. I believe that students should be able to construct their own meaning from the information given to them. I’ve tried to bring this into my teaching with interesting projects that are more about teaching ways of thinking and being than knowledge of one particular way to do something. I cannot just teach students how to only do one type of skirt, because in the next season, that skirt will not be fashionable anymore. I need to rather teach them how and why we do a particular skirt like that so that they can apply it to the next season’s silhouette when they have graduated. I want my students to be critical thinkers who understand how to look at something so that they can figure out how to make it themselves.
When I was in first year, I was taught by route. The lecturer demonstrated and we copied. Through this, we eventually figured out the how and why of things. There were a few projects where we were tasked with making something we had designed and we had to just figure it out. We could do that, somehow, but I do remember I didn’t “get it” in first year. I was able to do what was asked of me and I had the 'knowledge', but I didn’t really understand what I was doing and why. It was only through my second and third year that these skills were really developed. This is the “apprentice” model of vocational training, where the student learns through watching and copying.
Because I was a discipline professional, when I first started to lecture I was never taught how to teach. That made it difficult for me to adapt to my students’ needs. I began to do my own research - collaborating with colleagues, attending lectures, conferences and workshops, as well as reading about what others have tried. This introduced me to the theories of teaching and learning.
Now I find that the students in my classroom are different, and they learn differently. There have been profound changes in the education system in South Africa which effect how students learn. The South African government has attempted to open access to higher education institutions. Nevertheless, these students are not always prepared for the demands of tertiary education academically, financially, socially and even culturally (Hlalele 2010: 98). This leads to a high drop out and failure rate as students are not simply not coping. Hlalele (2010: 99) argues that universities need to focus on granting epistemological access, which is “learning how to become a participant in academic practice”. More than just allowing students to register, epistemological access refers to a student’s ability to engage with and make meaning from the knowledge of the practice. Hlalele (2010: 100) argues that in order for students to access knowledge on an epistemological level, they need to develop and apply “skills to construct knowledge (constructivism) and produce meaningful learning.” In this way, students must begin to learn to be discipline professionals who are able to apply their learning contextually in the real world.
Fashion is a vocational discipline and is taught as a professional education programme. However, this education needs to be authentic and deep as knowledge and skills alone are not enough to become skillful discipline professionals (Dall’Alba 2009: 8). To be a successful fashion designer for example, students need to learn the “ways of being in the world” of fashion design (Gee 2008: 3). Gee explains that more than just knowing the right words to say or the rules of the profession, students need to develop mastery of the Discourse. Here, he uses Discourse with a capital D to mean the ways of being within that profession, encompassing the unspoken gestures, contextual meaning of words, the very way these professionals think about and value knowledge. Essentially how they think, act and are as members of this profession. Enrollment in the fashion course is expected to lead to the transformation of students into fashion designers (Dall’Alba 2009: 1). Within this process, students begin to understand contextually the how and why of the discipline (Christie, Tett, Cree, Hounsell and McCune 2007).
It is this mastery of the Discourse – the being and becoming of a fashion designer - that I attempt to teach my students. Due to the changes in the macro-context not only of South Africa, but also the world, apprenticeship style teaching now longer produces this deep understanding for my students. The way that students interface with learning and technology on a global scale has dramatically changed within the last few decades and this pace of change seems to be accelerating. Although the term ‘digital native’ (Prenskry 2001) is problematic in a South African context, it should be acknowledged that students today are more comfortable, even dependant, on technology than previous generations. Having easy access to the infinite information online means that students have less need for learning parrot fashion. I have found that students in my classroom today are not interested in remembering information and are only truly absorbed when they are actively engaged in the learning process.
Heavily influenced by authors such as Stetsenko (2010), Gee (2008), Dall’Alba (2009) and Barnett and Coates (2005), among others, I believe learning is the process that turns information and facts into understanding or knowing. In order to learn something, the concept must be absorbed and understood so that one can apply it in different situations. It is not enough to see that students can produce, parrot fashion, what I have taught. I aim to teach them understanding so that they can apply their knowledge to a variety of tasks. Fashion as a discipline is constantly evolving, and fashion is always in flux. Students need to be able to adapt to the changing trends throughout their careers.
I have found the work of Herrington, Oliver and Reeves (2003 and 2010) on authentic learning very influential. They explain that when assessments are not authentic, students see knowledge as a product to consume and fail to make the deeper connections between the different aspects that they are taught. Each assignment becomes an isolated pocket of information that students have difficulty recalling or applying in real world situations. Authentic learning is more aligned to the real world, where projects are wonderfully ill-defined and have multiple correct answers. They allow students to construct their own learning and make the leap from information to knowledge in their own way. This encourages students to participate actively in the learning process as they begin to understand the content at a deeper level. Although this method takes longer, as you must allow time for students to really reflect and stumble their way to knowing, I feel it works better. Students remember what they have discovered themselves far better than what I tell them (even if it is the same thing). Students have a greater understanding when they have made the messy mistakes and carried them through, when they are taught why we can’t do it like that instead of that we can’t do it like that. This is in line with Stetsenko (2010: 7) who believes that “students acquire knowledge by actively exploring their environment when information is embedded in meaningful contexts rather than presented in isolation.”
Furthermore, Stetsenko (2010: 6) argues that there is an “emphasis on active and situated” learning, a move away from knowledge as a product, neatly packaged for students to passively consume. In this way, learning becomes contextualised, and therefore more authentic. The concept of restructuring assignments so that students learn not only the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of the subject, but also the ‘why’ is influenced by Biggs' (2014) constructive alignment theory.
Tinto’s (2012) framework that outlined four aspects to help students through their journey in becoming pattern makers. These aspects were: Expectations, Feedback, Support and Involvement. Together, these aspects form a framework designed to help scaffold student learning through the transformation and becoming.
Barnett, R., and Coate, K., 2005. Engaging the curriculum. UK: McGraw-Hill Education. 2004.
Biggs, J. 2014. Constructive alignment in university teaching. HERDSA Review of higher education 1 (1) 5-22.
Christie, H., Tett, L., Cree, V.E., Hounsell, J., and McCune, V. 2007. 'A real rollercoaster of confidence and emotions’: Learning to be a university student. Studies in Higher Education 33 (5) 567-581.
Dall’Alba, G. 2009. Learning professional ways of being: Ambiguities of becoming. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 41(1), 34-45.
Gee, J. (2008). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses. Routledge.
Herrington, J., Oliver, R. & Reeves, T.C. 2003. Patterns of engagement in authentic online learning environments. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 19(1), 59-71.
Herrington, J., Oliver, R., & Reeves, T.C. 2010. A guide to authentic e-learning. Routledge, London and New York
Prensky, M. 2001. Digital natives, digital immigrants part 1. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6.
Reeves, T. C., Herrington, J., & Oliver, R. 2002. Authentic activity as a model for web-based learning. 2002 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA, USA.
Stetsenko, A (2010). Teaching-learning and development as activist projects of historical becoming: Expanding Vygotsky’s approach to pedagogy. Pedagogy: An International Journal, 5(1), 6-16
