1. Creating a learning culture
with first-year undergraduates
Florence Dujardin
17 June 2014

2. What is a ‘learning culture’?
A culture of learning is an
environment that supports and
encourages the collective
discovery, sharing, and application
of knowledge... and helps the
organization continually improve,
achieve goals, and attain new
possibilities. (Gill 2010)

3. Components of a learning culture
• Stakeholders
• Formal practices, policies,
and systems
• Informal practices and
symbolic actions
• Beliefs, values, attitudes
and assumptions

4. Metaphors for learning
Acquisition
• Monological
• Within mind
Participation
• Dialogical
• Interaction
Knowledge-
creation
• Trialogical
• Shared objects
Sfard 1998
Paavola & Hakkarainen 2005
Paavola et al. 2011

5. Overview
1. Design
2. Facilitate
3. Critique
4. Educator as ‘broker’

6. Design dimensions
Cognitive
Social
Tekla design - http://www.tekla.com/uk/bim-awards-2012/shs-jarrold-footbridge.html
Time

7. Facilitating
Challenge
Support
EWP Ltd - http://www.e-w-p.co.uk/projects/norwich-petersbridge/index.html

8. Brokering
Wenger 2000
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/new_1_5m_norwich_bridge_takes_unusual_shape_1_960949
Schools University
Boundary practices
engage
imagine
align

9. Academic Literacies perspective
• Skills
• Socialisation
• Power and identity
Mirra66 - http://flickeflu.com/set/72157628684135571
Lea & Street 1998
Goodfellow & Lea 2007

10. Educator as ‘broker’
• Mediate the discipline (Dysthe 2002)
• Attend to social dimensions of learning
• Help learners to learn
• Contribute to the course culture
• Implement institutional frameworks
• Understand wider benchmarks
(e.g. HEA, QAA)
http://www.daringbookforgirls.com/about-the-book/about-the-double-daring-book-for-girls/how-to-juggle/

11. THANK YOU.

12. References
• Beetham, H. & Sharpe, R. (2007) Rethinking Pedagogy for a Digital Age: Designing and Delivering E-
learning London: Routledge.
• Dysthe, O. (2002) Professors as mediators of academic text cultures: an interview study with
advisors and Master’s degree students in three disciplines in a Norwegian university. Written
Communication, 19 (4), 493-544
• Gill, S. J. (2010) Developing a Learning Culture in Nonprofit Organizations. London: Sage
• Goodfellow, R. & Lea, M. R. (2007) Challenging E-Learning in the University: A Literacies
Perspective. Buckingham: Open University Press.
• Hakkarainen, K. & Paavola, S. (2007 ) From monological and dialogical to trialogical approaches to
learning. IN Schwarz, B. & Tiberghien, A. (Eds.) Guided Construction of Knowledge in Classrooms: An
International Workshop, Jerusalem, IL.
• Lea, M. R. & Street, B. V. (1998) Student writing in Higher Education: an Academic Literacies
approach. Studies in Higher Education, 23 (2), 157-172.
• Paavola, S. & Hakkarainen, K. (2005) The knowledge creation metaphor – an emergent
epistemological approach to learning. Science & Education, 14 (6), 535-557.
• Sfard, A. (1998). On two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one. Education
Researcher, 27(2), 4-13
• Sharpe, R., Benfield, G. & Francis, R. (2006) Implementing a university e-learning strategy: levers for
change within academic schools. Research in Learning Technology, 14 (2), 135-151.
• Wenger, E. (2000) Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization, 7 (2), 225-
246.