Session Information
22 SES 02 B, Teaching, Learning and Assessment in Higher Education
Paper Session
Contribution
A research project (2002-2011) is integrated in the curriculum where third year students(tutors) are responsible for carrying through a four day compulsory seminar in counseling skills for first year students(tutees). Group work and roleplay are their educational tools. Teachers are supervisors and responsible for administration and curriculum as well as being responsible for the research, in cooperation with the students. The program has previously been valued in two directions- firstly examining what student tutors learned from the experience( Fougner, Tønnesson Utne 2008), and secondly, what first year students learned from their tutors(Fougner 2011). This particular paper focus specifically on peer tutoring as a critical approach to the authority of knowledge as this comes to expression in the learning community.
A socio-cultural perspective on learning emphasizes learning through collaboration and dialogue (Dysthe 1996; Rommetveit 1996; Bruffee 1999; Boud, Solomon et al. 2001). This perspective questions the authority of knowledge (Bruffee 1999) as it is performed in the traditional class-room, where knowledge is regarded metaphorically as transferred from teacher to student. (Säljö 2000; Wells 2006). The teacher in this position is coding and transmitting information through language, either orally or written. The student receives and decodes, or acquire (Niemi 2009) the information and stores it in the memory for later use. This is a simple and technical view of how people learn from each other, and it is, according to one critical researcher, `a historically dominant approach being the problem of teaching, rather than a solution to learning.’ (Säljö 2000: 26). In contrast, teachers using collaborative/dialogical curricula of learning are regarded as agents of cultural change who foster “re-acculturation”of the studentsin order for them to speak and write in ways unlike their former habits of speaking and writing. In this way it is believed that they will eventually understand and learn what it takes to become a member of the new learning community represented by their teachers (Bruffee 1999; Dysthe 2001; Niemi 2009).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Bruffee, K. (1999). Collaborative learning: Higher Education, Interdependence and the Authority of Knowledge. New York, The John Hopkins University Press. Boud, D., R. Cohen, et al. (2001). Peer learning in higher education : learning from & with each other. London, Kogan Page. Fougner, A., Tønnesson, Henning, Utne, Brita (2008). "What do students learn from facilitating the learning of younger students? Description of a peer learning program at Bachelor of Child Care and Welfare, Oslo University Colleg." Nordisk Pedagogik - Nordic Educational Research(4): 287-302. Fougner, A.(2011)Exploring knowledge through peer tutoring in a transitional learning community: An alternative way of teaching counseling skills to students in social work education. Social Work Education (in publication) Wells, G. A., R.M (2006). "Dialogue in the classroom." The Journal of the Learning Sciences 15: 379-428. Andersson, S. B. A., I. (2005). "Authentic Learning in a Sociocultural Framework: A case study on non-formal learning." Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 49(4): 419-436.
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