Learning Journal

This last week has been disconcertingly busy - although the workload has been eased considerably by the splendid nature of half term. As I have not been expected in college, I've been able to dedicate myself to study.
First came Unit 5 of the teaching portfolio. This assignment seems to be part of the course for many reasons. First, it involves the student going out there and asking questions, getting involved, and 'embedding' themselves in their college like a war reporter with pressing news from the front line to get back to CNN. Second, it asks us to consider the way the college promotes itself to the students, and the institutional beliefs of the management that lie behind the classrooms and the courses - therefore looking at the college from viewpoints that aren't that of the teacher. Third, it forces us to slog through a mind-numbingly buzzworded OFSTED report as an introduction into the utterly meaningless language that surrounds government policies on education.
I can understand why it is part of the course, and appreciate the lessons it is meant to teach me. It was still pretty annoying, though. The 1,500 words took a lot of arduous stopping and starting, and re-reading pages of strategic aims.
After completing that I immediately started work on the microteaching. As the topic of Mass Psychology and PR are not exactly normally on the curriculum for A-Level, I've had to plan the lesson from scratch, pulling in the information and figuring out how best to present it. However, I really wanted to do this, because I can imagine the use of this sort of information in the future, if I ever have to teach any Mass Psychology. I believe that knowledge of how democracy is supposed to be controlled by the management of information and perception should be an important part of any psychology course, as it is something that effects us all. Also, I am considering how PR made it acceptable for women to smoke, and I find it a very amusing story. This is the sort of facet of psychology that has bearing on everyone's everyday life, especially politically, and Paulo Freire's work showed that it is this connection to the student's political world that is immediately effective in inspiring interest and motivation to learn.
It is entertaining to plan all the slides I want to use. There will be pictures and everything.
The only downside this week, other than having to get up early to start on assignments, has been the ePortfolio meeting. I found the endorsement of 'use this technology and you'll have one over on the other STE groups' somewhat unpleasant, as I don't particularly feel honoured to be part of the experiment, or deserving of the chance over anybody else to be able to impress future employers with an online portfolio. Part of this is an academic ('postmodern') understanding of the arguments against the unquestioned and unproblematised proliferation of technology, based on the Frankfurt School, Lyotard, and Nikolas Rose. I think that the ePortfolio system will be useful for many people - such as those who have aptitude and opportunity to use it easily, a group in which I must include myself - but also have negative effects. Most obviously, it will exclude those who feel alienated by the technology. But it has been theorised that it can alienate people in other ways, most especially from meaning itself. In my experience of networked computing, it often both relativises intellectual positions into unrelated perspectives and makes the individual's own perspective into a matter of absolute 'fact', albeit a subjective and unquestionable fact. "This is my opinion, and nothing can stop me from holding it." Is there a difference between how things are read on paper and on screen? I certainly cannot bring my attention to bear on the computer screen in the same way. How will relations between the mentor and the students be changed by this technology? There will be all sorts of changes, and all sorts of different effects and problems due to this new technology. The question is, will it be in any appreciable way better than the traditional paper portfolio? That's the sort of question I think should be asked first.
My reading has still been Kelly. I have enjoyed his critique of the aims and objectives movement, and of mastery learning. The problem this raises for me is to how to change the focus in the AS and A2 classes I will be teaching from learning-the-curriculum-to-pass-assessment to the development of the student - of their view of psychology, of their learning, and of knowledge itself. I know all too well how much more though degree-level Psychology requires, and I believe college should have a role in the development towards this standard.