Academic Development, a developers society

Internationalisation in Higher Education: The intentions were good, but where do we take it from here? Design, London: Understanding Modern Government. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 21 (4-5), pp. 289-303. Moore, P. and Hampton, G. (2014) ‘”It’s a bit of a generalisation, but …”: participant perspectives on intercultural group assessment in higher education’, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 40 (3), pp. 390-406. OECD (1999) Quality and Internationalisation in Higher Education, OECD Publishing. ‘International student mobility: patterns and trends’, London: The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (available at: http://tinyurl.com/qgt8j8f). Robson, S. (2011) ‘Internationalization: a transformative agenda for higher education?’, Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 17 (6), pp. 619-630. Wall, J. (2007) ‘Advice for engineering students’, Purdue Engineering (available at: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=00XzHGn6ezI). Nussbaum, M. (1997) Cultivating Humanity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nussbaum, M. (2002) ‘Education for citizenship in an era of global connection’, Roux, J. L. (2001) ‘Social dynamics of the multicultural classroom’, Intercultural Education, 12 (3), pp. 273-288. Verbik, L. and Lasanowski, V. (2007) Pollyanna Magne is Associate Professor and Programme Director of the PGCAP at Plymouth University. Academic development – A developers’ society Chrissi Nerantzi and Peter Gossman, Manchester Metropolitan University There is no need for academic developers as a profession in 2525. Everybody is a self-regulated learner (Zimmerman, 1990) and when they transition seamlessly into higher education, opportunities for learning are readily available and accessible to all. Each individual has been taught and has learnt how to learn. Learning happens everywhere and all the time. It is uninterrupted and fully integrated into life. In fact, everybody is a developer! The world has become a developers’ society. Higher education is no longer in existence as we know it. It appears fully integrated into society. It is part of it. It shapes it and is shaped by it. Students and academics are all learners and developers at the same time. They feel and are empowered to learn, develop and innovate for the personal and collective good. Learning and development is truly lifelong and lifewide and wraps around life (Dewey, 1938). Douglas’ and Seely Brown’s words echo around: ‘The almost unlimited resources provided by the information network serve as a set of nutrients, constantly selected and incorporated into the bounded environment, which provides the impetus for experimentation, play and learning. Accordingly, the culture that emerges, the new culture of learning, is a culture of collective inquiry that harnesses the resources of the network and transforms them into nutrients within the environment, turning it into a space of play and experimentation.’ (Douglas and Seely Brown, 2014, p. 12) www.seda.ac.uk So learning is organic, playful and embedded, not an add-on (Illich, 1971). People can and are supported by facilitators to pursue their learning, when they need to, but also by peers and the wider dynamic communities and networks. At times they are facilitators themselves and help others. All people are developers. People are free to learn at their own pace and in their own time in their very own way. They can gain recognition based on their engagement and learning, which can have been on their own, with others, formally, informally or non-formally. Personal development routes are constructed and tailored to specific situations and aspirations. Prepackaged education no longer exists (Illich, 1971). There is a plethora of ways to create multiple personalised development pathways and people maximise on these: • Choice over force • Playfulness and co-operation over competitiveness • Empowerment, activity and engagement over passivity! The developers’ society is active and proactive and the above characteristics drive it forward. Resources and tasks can be undertaken and connections made, they just need to be selected and synthesised to achieve specific goals. Learning and development menus are constructed, shared, connected and interwoven into the fabric of living. In the developers’ society, everybody creates, owns, develops and curates a portable lifelong record of their learning and development journey and adventures, progress and achievements. It is constructed progressively and it grows, it travels through life with the individual. It illustrates who they are and who they are becoming. It is shared and is a useful medium to engage with others in a plethora of ways, including learning conversations, constructing narratives, stories and artefacts for themselves and others, through which they learn and develop their understanding about themselves and the 21 EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS 16.4 DECEMBER 2015 world they live in, on their own and in collaboration with others, in the complex digital and non-digital world that is seamlessly connected. It captures a moment in time and their journeys through time, process and product. People are no longer concerned with credentialing learning and development and this is liberating! It sets them free! They feel empowered and hungry to learn and help others to do so too. Learning and development has become ‘cool’ or ‘wicked’ (or however ‘down with it’ is characterised in 2525) but most importantly it has been normalised. People recognise the value of learning and are expert, emotionally intelligent, self-regulated learners. They are masters of their own learning (Zimmerman, 1990). They are pro-active, resourceful and resilient when meeting obstacles and they seek help when needed. They follow their own internal voice with criticality and determination to shape their life. They are self-authors of their own lives. They have ‘the capacity to internally define a coherent belief system and identity that coordinates engagement in mutual relations with the larger world’ (Baxter Magolda and King, 2004, p. xxii). In the developers’ society everybody is in charge of their own learning (Deleuze and Guatarri, 1987). People learn to live and live to learn. They make good use of the myriad of learning resources available, to immerse themselves in learning and development activities that are of value for them. Learners put their own learning menu together and create social learning opportunities for others for the common good. There is individual decision-making with a collective balance. Resources are shared, as is expertise, and people have come to realise that working and developing together is good, both for each individual and for the wider community and society. Everybody is creative and resourceful, sharing freely and openly, respecting the ideas of others and building on them to make new discoveries, their own meaning and to advance knowledge. Some of this was already happening as long ago as 2015. Individual voices had been heard around the globe. All people on earth are confident and competent and have access to, and practise, learning. In fact, they are immersed in learning. All know how to learn and how to facilitate others to learn. Facilitating is a reciprocal process. Teachers and learners learn alongside each other and with each other to co-construct meaning based on learning partnerships (Baxter Magolda, 2014). They do this because they recognise the importance that this has for their own learning, development and society. Distributed, connected and dynamic networks of learners drive learning, knowledge creation and innovation in every aspect of human life. The structure is horizontal. Looking at it from within, one might not see any structure. It is messy and dynamic and it might look a bit rhyzomatic in nature (Cormier, 2008). Everybody has a voice and is heard, everybody creates, everybody contributes and collaborates. People manage their own lives, learning and development. 22 People come together for a while depending on what unites them at that time and go their own paths when their direction has changed. They wonder and wander. The unifying factor is a common interest, a passion for learning and development as well as joy, to create, enrich and transform life and lives. The atmosphere all around is positive and motivational. The developers’ society has become a reality. Seeing the world as rose coloured? This future had been recognised but not realised before 2015 because of an imbalance between the individual and the collective. The breakthrough occurred when people recognised that their achievements did not have to be recognised or archived at the expense of others. References Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2014) ‘The journey to self-authorship and a more meaningful life’, Lifewide Magazine, 9 March 2014, pp. 8-11 (available at: http://www.lifewidemagazine.co.uk/). Baxter Magolda, M. B. and King, P. M. (2004) Learning partnerships: Theory and models of practice to educate for self-authorship, Sterling, VA: Stylus. Cormier, D. (2008) ‘Rhizomatic education: community as curriculum’, Innovate. Journal of Online Education, vol. 4, no. 5, June-July 2008 (available at: http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ840362). Deleuze, G. and Guatarri, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia, London: University of Minnesota Press. Dewey, J. (1938/1997). Experience and Education, Macmillan. Douglas, T. and Seely Brown, J. (2014) ‘A new culture of learning’, Lifewide Magazine, issue 11, September 2014, pp. 10-12 (available at: http://tinyurl.com/psnesy2). Illich, I. (1971) Deschooling Society, New York: Harper and Row. Zimmerman, B. J. (1990) ‘Self-regulated learning and academic achievement: an overview’, Educational Psychologist, 25(1) (available at http://tinyurl.com/pe9hgyc). Chrissi Nerantzi (c.nerantzi@mmu.ac.uk) and Peter Gossman (p.gossman@mmu.ac.uk) are Principal Lecturers in Academic CPD at Manchester Metropolitan University. Information for Contributors The Editorial Committee of Educational Developments welcomes contributions on any aspect of staff and educational development likely to be of interest to readers. Submission of an article to Educational Developments implies that it has not been published elsewhere and that it is not currently being considered by any other publisher or editor. 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