Patrick Blessinger & Olga Kovbasyuk

mini-Bakhtinian Conference in Education:

Promises and Challenges of Dialogic Pedagogy

March 29-April 1, 2012

Clayton Hall Conference Center

University of Delaware, USA

*MCE Symposium

*Purpose and participants

*Purpose: the Meaning Centered Education (MCE) Panel will dialogue around the current scholarship and practice of MCE around the globe, which is the central idea of the book, Meaning Centered Education: International Perspectives and Explorations in Higher Education; Routledge Publishing; the target release date is early 2013.

*Participants: authors of the book chapters, leading experts in their relevant subject, from the USA, Russia, Canada, Europe, Australia, Asia, and Great Britain.  They will present various views on meaning making education, its theory and practice.

*Vision and philosophy

*MCE is a vision for sustainable life-long learning in the new millennium.

*The vision is planted in the soil of an educational philosophy that views higher education, and teaching and learning, though the lens of meaning making.

* It offers educators new insights about how to make HE more meaningful, responsive, relevant, and rewarding for both teachers and students.

*MCE as sustainable learning

*MCE proposes an innovative approach that focuses on authentic, holistic, integrative, collaborative, critical, dialogic, contextual, and agency-based teaching and learning.

*From an MCE perspective, sustainable life-long learning is perhaps best achieved when the learning process is personally meaningful (i.e., significant, important, relevant) to the learner.

*For the first time in human history, humans possess the means (politically, economically, socially, technologically) to make such a radical change on a global scale.

*MCE suppositions*A philosophy of education requires a coherent

and well-reasoned set of suppositions (e.g., assumptions, concepts, central organizing principles, theories) upon which to base its veracity. (Dewey, 1938).

*How do we contextualize it with regard to specific methods, techniques, and practices across a range of fields and disciplines, from the arts/humanities to the sciences?

*The focus on the MCE book is within the context of higher education, exclusively. The book does not enter the debates surrounding educational philosophies and approaches within primary and secondary education.

*MCE core questions*What are the relevant lens through which we should

view such a philosophy:*epistemologically (how we know, empirically-sensing vs.

rationally-intuiting),

*ontologically (what is reality, objectively vs. subjectively),

*phenomenologically (how we experience reality, individually vs. relationally),

*axiologically (how we value, intrinsically vs. extrinsically)

*How can MCE be implemented across the core learning domains (e.g., affective, behavioral, cognitive) and across the core modes of inquiry (e.g., scientific, artistic, philosophic) to develop sustainable life-long learners who develop the capacity to make significant contributions to their discipline (scholarship), their profession (leadership), and their community (citizenship).

*Human will to…

*Schopenhauer believed that the main driving force in humans is the will to live.

*Nietzsche believed that the main driving force in humans is the will to power.

*Freud believed that the main driving force in humans is the will to pleasure.

*Frankl that the main driving force in humans is the will to meaning.

*Victor Frankl asserted that the search for meaning in one’s personal life is the main motivator in life for all people and that this meaning is uniquely personal.

*Personal meaning-making

*What is a useful theory(s) of meaning as it relates to teaching and learning and that helps frame our understanding of MCE?

*People are constantly engaged in an analysis of their lives and their world hoping to find meaning and purpose. (Rebore, 2001)

*People seek meaning in life (e.g., personal meaning borne out of one’s own life experiences).

*Perhaps any notion of the meaning of life is best discovered through one’s own personal meaning in life.

*Meaning-making and learning

*Learning is the outcome of meaning-making processes. Potosky (2011) Meaning-making as the constructive process of reflecting, creating and testing. Zull (2002) Meanings reside in people and not exclusively in the messages or symbols themselves. Berlo (1960),

*As Dewey (1938), Schon (1991), and Mezirow (1996) have noted, learning is the output of individuals making meaning from their experiences and through deep personal reflection upon those experiences.

*Academic pluralism

*Academic pluralism means that all higher education institutions, regardless of mission and institutional type play a role in the 21st Century higher education global ecosystem.

*Barnett (2010) in Being a University defines several different types of universities that have evolved over the last several hundred years: metaphysical university, scientific university, entrepreneurial university, and the new emerging universities such as therapeutic university, authentic university, and ecological university.

*One size does not fit all. In the HE ecosystem, multiple forms can and do co-exist at the same time to serve different needs and aspirations.

*Meaning-making (and MCE) is relevant and useful regardless of institutional type.

*Pedagogical pluralism *Wegerif (2011) points out

that monologism should not be discarded. Both at an individual level and societal level, dialogic and monologic often occur at the same time and space.

*Dewey (1938) warned against the dangers of the either-or position.

*Dialogism can be defined as the ability to hold multiple, different perspectives/voices together at the same time – the shared meaning space

* Table 1. Supporting Concepts, Principles, Theories, and Activities for MCEKey Concepts Central Principles Main Supporting

Learning TheoriesMain Supporting Learning Activities

Relational Holism Dialogic Learning Simulations

Cultural Contextualism Active Learning Gaming

Identity Situatedness Integrative Learning Virtual reality

Reflection Openness Collaborative Learning Reality role play

Inquiry Continuity Experiential Learning Artistic role play

Sense-making Interactivity Transformative Learning Model building

Values Inclusiveness Collateral Learning Hypothesis testing

Beliefs Reflexivity   Problem-solving

Interests Humaneness   Research studies

Expectations Empowerment   Seminars

Assumptions Agency   Workshops

Diversity Pluralism   Case-studies

Change Transparency   Group projects

Growth Authenticity   Portfolios

Imagination Interdisciplinary   Prose writing

Discovery Transdisciplinary   Creative writing

Motivation Multiplicity   Presentations

Affective Sustainability   Public speaking

Behavioral     Peer teaching

Cognitive     Laboratories

Courage     Community service

Respect     Internships

Responsibility     Field study

Potentiality     Story telling

*MCE expandedpositive

education (Seligman)

person-centered education (Rogers)

variational education (Asmolov)

probabilistic education (Lobok)

dialogic education (Matusov)

*Probabilistic educationM. Lobok:

facilitates the formation of “the vector of subjectivity,” which navigates a human being to the maximum development of her/his individuality.

fosters the development of competencies and prioritizes: thinking over knowledge,

questions over answers,

creativity and initiative over formal task performance,

educational needs/interests of an individual over the educational standards,

holistic over intellectual,

internal attitudes over external requirements,

self-education over the trajectory exposed by someone externally.

*Variational education*A. Asmolov

*Variational education supports “variability” of an individual and encourages her/him to solve non-standard tasks along with standard ones.

*True reform of education entails reforming all the life of a growing and studying child, rather than reforming teaching methods or technologies

*Variational education pilots alternative ways of doing things in situations of uncertainty, it provides an individual with opportunities to choose own life and study strategies, it supports and individual in search of alternative ways to understand self and the world as well as to “live through” learning in a fast changing world

CreativityLearning to learnListening to othersCritical reflection

Meaning space

Uncertainty

Multiple Perspectives

Quality relationships

Inte

rnal

ize

Primar

y

Thin

king S

kill

Vygots

ky (1

997)

*Dialogic Space

Dialogic provocation

s

Reflected Discourse

Revealing strengths & resources

Multiple nature of students’

roles

Dynamic nature of teachers’

roles

Socially valuable activities The role

of teacher is opening deepening widening

resourcinga dialogue

* Understanding is dialogical ....

We can only hope…( M.

Mamardashvili)

*The Future of MCE

Your thoughts?