I had a campus
session with BA students last week. I felt some of what I wrote-up about it
might be useful for you too.
We talked
about ideas and theory.
What do
they do? In the first module you are introduced to three ideas:
- The idea of reflection
- The idea of networks
- The idea of communication (via the
web particularly)
These
ideas are threads that will run through the whole of the course. They are not
taught pieces of information to memorize and write about at the end. They are
ideas to stimulate your thinking about your own Professional Practice deeply or
differently. Therefore, the order you are introduced to them is not important
but we had to choose an order (that is the one in the Module handbook). So, do
not think of them like a tree building up from starting a blog at the beginning
of Module one and layering up to handing in an artefact in Model three – this is
like a tree model.
Instead think of them all as equally feeding
your understanding of your Professional Practice – like a rhizome.
each idea is a shoot that connects underground. You cannot see the
connections from above ground. Your study is about finding the connections. So
it is not about climbing a tree of ideas we have put there for you. It is about
nurturing ideas, looking at them carefully and finding the connections between
them. Connections that will be different for different people because all your
professional practices are different.
So at the
end of each module what you hand in is the result of looking carefully at the
ideas that manifested during the term. And then making connections between
those ideas and your professional practice.
So that
being said; what is theory?
Theory
could be thought of as what someone else has come up with having done that process
of looking at ideas carefully and making connections for themselves. So you can
link your connections with connection (theory) someone else has made and
published about. They have spent more time looking carefully so you can often
be guided by (their) theory.
BUT theory
is not a justification for you to do what you want!!
Theory is
a specific set of connections someone has made. You can’t pick and choose – “I will cite Smith about this connection and ignore
that connection she made.” !!
Theory is
not a neat bag to wrap-up your actions in. We talked about theory being like
the bones not the skin. Theiry is at the core of your actions
Theory
indicates what you can do – you are following a set of connections to see what
they are like and how they lead you can’t chop and change. You can notice where
they differ for you or the situation you are in. So if theory is partly going
on someone else’s ride (which you need to do because that someone else has
spent a great deal of time thinking about ideas you are just finding out about),
what is stopping you from crashing. If someone else is driving the bus how do
you make sure you don’t end up in an accident???
-----Ethics.
Having looked at ethical issues means you are aware of where you are not willing
to go on the ride. It means you are prepared for possible issues and it means
you have drawn a line in the sand as to where you are not willing to go with
the theory. Ethics is not about a set of rules it is about being aware of and
thinking about the consequences of what you are doing. We said
Ethics is a response to what the theory
indicates.
All this was talking about what is called a theoretical
framework. The framework from which you are thinking. We went to the library to
look at Journal Articles. To see if we could spot the theoretical framework the
authors were working with. This was looking at the bibliography* which shows
whose theories the author was riding. Then reading the introduction or abstract
to see what parts of the theory journey the author was on board with, what
changed and what questions they had about it. (*That is what a literature review is
partly for to share the places you are constructing your ideas from, to show
the rides you have taken as you have thought about things.)
We
watched this Ted talk. It tells us a lot about – believing /following a theory,
using ethics, how ethical issues change for you depending on which theory you
are following, how looking at an idea carefully changes your own personal
practices and how conversation and discussion with others also looking at ideas
carefully helps you better define where you stand.
Please discuss
on this whole post in the Comments
below:
Adesola
