Page 74 - Linguistically Diverse Educational Contexts

LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS
In Understanding by Design, we start the learning planning process by defining learning objectives and outcomes, and then plan by selecting appropriate activities and materials that can foster learning. In UbD, the learning design process is divided into three stages:
1. identification of desired outcomes;
2. evaluation of learning strategies;
3. specifying learning activities that will lead learners to the desired outcomes (Wiggins &
McTighe, 2006).
Understanding, rather than simply memorising information, plays an important role in learning. The aim of UbD is therefore to give learners the tools to use what they know and what they will learn, and to connect these ideas in a thoughtful way (Wiggins & McThige, 2005). In a world full of information, it is important to give learners the tools to decipher and understand different information. If the learner is able to transfer the skills and knowledge acquired during formal learning to unfamiliar situations, both in school and out of school, then we can talk about true understanding (Smith & Siegel, 2004). In UbD we speak of three types of learning: 1. acquisition; 2. meaning making; 3. transfer (Wiggins & McThige, 2011). The learning process at UbD was based on cognitive psychology and Bloom's taxonomy.
Finally, I would like to mention the concept of the Living Curriculum, created in 2010 by Unitec Institute of Technology in Australia, which refers to the design of the learning process and applies directly to transformative (critical) pedagogy and social constructivism. The Living Curriculum is not defined as the informational content of a programme, but rather as the learning experience of a learning programme (Unitec, 2010). It comprises a number of key features, such as a focus on practice, social constructivism, and combined learning experiences. The programme is research-based, interdisciplinary, and emphasises lifelong learning and embedded assessment (Order & Rata-Skudder, 2012, p. 1). The four key areas identified in this approach are enquiry, discipline, autonomy, and conversations. The table below shows these areas in more detail.
Table 3. The Living Curriculum
enquiry
The way in which learners ask and answer questions.
The process of information seeking is at the heart of the educational experience in higher education (and beyond). It requires reflecting on the world through the perspective of the field, formulating a question, finding information to answer the question, interpreting and testing hypotheses and information, generating and synthesising ideas, and presenting and reflecting on it. Synthesis, reflection, and evaluation are in turn used to generate questions for further exploration.
discipline
The way in which learners engage with the knowledge underlying a discipline.
Defined as a community of practice that has a (contested and evolving) body of knowledge and theory, based on particular ways of knowing and practising, which is taught, applied, and researched. The discipline has its own ways of writing and language. Members of the discipline
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