1. Different ways of knowing
Dr Valerie Mannix
1

2. Rationale
• Call by several academics in the field of
education for an alternative view of
learning i.e. Enabling learners to perceive
themselves as creators of personal
knowledge.
• Need to escape “a one size fits all approach
to teaching and learning” (Gamache, 2002)
2

3. Discussion Outline
• Draw on key PhD research finding- motivational
self systems in a SLA context (Mannix, 2008)
• Explore the reconstruction of learner identities
(habitus) and learner perceptions of knowledge,
skills, dispositions and qualities via motivational
self systems and life wide learning.
• Implications for curriculum development and
learning facilitation
3

4. PhD Research Project
• Involved 49 student participants at WIT
• Investigated the perceived sources of language
learner motivation and demotivation.
• Students were pursuing language studies across a
wide range of disciplines – engineering, science,
business, humanities.
4

5. Kind finding of the research
Academic Year Abroad/ Work Placement
• Students pursuing language studies were more
motivated and self-determined in their learning
and had developed a more defined sense of self
or future self having spent an academic year
abroad (alternative learning space).
5

6. Having spent time in a second
language (L2 ) community:
• Students were more inclined to relate
aspects of their previous learning
experience to their current one.
• Use creative strategies in achieving their
learning goals (e.g. Tandem learning)
6

7. Having spent time in a second
language (L2 ) community:
• Students reported being able to identify
more with the second language and culture
and their attitudes towards learning other
languages and other cultures (alternative
spaces) had changed in a positive way
(actual and future selves).
7

8. Learners who did not partake in
the academic year abroad:
• Perceived the value of learning and indeed
the value of language learning to be purely
instrumental, for example, the completion
of an academic degree course in order to
enhance their employment prospects
• Reported feeling anxious before
assessments.
8

9. Learners who did not partake in
the academic year abroad:
• Reported less confidence or a lack of
confidence in their own ability to succeed
or to improve on their existing grades.
• More reliance on lecture notes and support
from Lecturer.
9

10. Studies in Second Language
Acquisition
• Strong evidence that learners who
encounter and draw on different spaces of
learning are more self-determined in their
learning and are more willing to engage in
new and multiple spaces (also
collaborative spaces) of learning.
10

11. Motivation – Possible and Ideal
Selves- Learning Spaces
11

12. The notion of ‘Self’
• Traditionally self-representations were
static concepts
• Self-theorists have become increasingly
interested in the active dynamic nature of
the self system reflecting changing realities
(Leahy, 2007).
12

13. Changing reality
• Globalisation
• Widespread political and economic
migration
• Increased mobility
• Ever-developing media technologies
• Electronic discourse communities.
13

14. The Notion of Self-
Key Researchers
• Markus and Nurius (1986) Multiple Self
Systems
• Higgins et al (1985) and Higgins (1987
&1996) – Self Discrepancy Theory
( One single ideal or ought self shaped by
composite self guides)
14

15. Markus and Nurius 1986
Multiple Possible Selves
• Possible selves, “a future self state rather
than a current one, represents the ideas
which an individual has regarding what
they could become, what they would like
to become and what they are afraid of
becoming”.
(Markus and Nurius,1986, 954)
15

16. Markus and Nurius 1986 –
Multiple Possible Selves
• Information derived from past experiences
also plays a significant role in this regard.
• Markus and Nurius provide a broad outline
of the scope of possible selves, that is,
multiple future orientated possible
selves, but do not provide a finite
taxonomy.
16

17. Markus and Nurius 1986
Multiple Possible Selves
• The possible selves that are hoped for
might include:
• the successful self
• the creative self
• the rich self
• the loved and admired self
17

18. Markus and Nurius 1986
• The dreaded possible selves could be
• the alone self
• the depressed self
• the incompetent self
• the alcoholic self
• the unemployed self
18

19. Higgins et al. (1985)
Self- discrepancy theory
• A systematic framework of the interrelations
among the different self states.
• 3 Self domains – Actual, Ideal and Ought Self
• 2 Standpoints- One’s one; significant other.
6 Basic Self States
19

20. Domains of the Self
• Actual Self – representation of the
attributes that someone (yourself or
another) believes you actually possess.
• Ideal Self – representation of the attributes
(hopes, aspirations or wishes for you) that
someone (yourself or another) would like
you ideally to possess.
20

21. Domains of the Self
• Ought Self – representation of the
attributes that someone (yourself or
another) believes you should or ought to
possess (sense of duty, obligations or
responsibilities).
21

22. Implications of Self State
representations
• Individuals differ as to which self guide they are
motivated towards.
• Individuals are motivated to reach a condition
which matches their personally relevant self
guides.
22

23. Implications
• Applied to an educational context the motivation
to learn involves the desire to reduce the
discrepancy between one’s actual self and the
projected behavioural standards of the
ideal/ought selves
• This would imply that future self guides provide
incentive, direction and impetus for action
23

24. Implications
• Discrepancy between actual and future
selves initiates self-regulatory strategies to
reduce the discrepancy.
24

25. Imagination- envisioning futures
“Imagination refers to
a process of expanding
our self by
transcending our time
and space and creating
new images of the
world and ourselves”.
(Wenger, 1998, 176)
25

26. Imagination- Wide Array of
Contexts- Life wide learning
The wider the array of
contexts, (spaces for
learning –past, present
and future), the more
capable and willing,
people will be to
generate possible
selves.
Markus (2006, xii)
The Searcher
26

27. Life wide Learning (Liquid
Learning)
• Learning in different and multiple spaces
simultaneously (Ronald Barnett, 2008,1)
• Goes beyond the boundaries of disciplines
Learning
Learning Space
Space
Learners
drawing on
various
experiences in
Learning their learning
Space 27

28. Examples of Learning Spaces
Barnett (2008)
Individuals inhibit created learning spaces
• Work, non work, occupational networks.
• Family, leisure, social networks and
engagements,
• Manifold channels of news, information and
communication
• Physical and global mobility (actual and virtual)
28

29. Examples of Learning Spaces
Savin- Baden (2008,12)
Individuals inhibit created learning spaces
• Bounded learning spaces: days away in which to
think and reflect as a group
• Formal learning spaces: Courses and
Conferences
• Social learning spaces: dialogue and debate in
informal settings
29

30. Examples of Learning Spaces
Savin- Baden (2008,12)
Individuals inhibit created learning spaces
• Silent learning spaces: away from noise that
erodes creativity, innovation and space to think
• Writing space: Places not only to write but to
consider one’s stances and ideas
• Dialogic spaces: critical conversations where the
relationship between the oral and the written can be
explored.
30

31. Examples of Learning Spaces
Savin- Baden (2008,12)
Individuals inhibit created learning spaces
• Reflective learning spaces: which reach
beyond contemplation and reconsidering past thought,
they are spaces of meaning-making and consciousness-
raising.
• Digital learning spaces: where explorations
occur about new types of visuality, literacy, pedagogy,
representations of knowledge, communication and
embodiment.
31

32. Striated and Smooth Spaces
Deleuze and Guattari (1998,487)
• Striated Learning Spaces: Characterised
by a strong sense of organisation and
boundedness- Spaces of arrival.
Strong sense of authorship. Clear definition
of outcomes, of a point that one is expected to reach
32

33. Striated and Smooth Spaces
Deleuze and Guattari (1998,487)
• Smooth learning: Open, flexible and
contested spaces in which both learning
and learners are always on the move.-
Spaces of becoming.
` Sense of displacement of notions of time and place so
that the learning space is not defined but is defined by
the creator of the space.
33

34. Categorisation of forms of
Lifewide Learning
• The language of knowledge and skills is
insufficient to capture the complexity of the
learning processes that many are undergoing.
• These domains need to be supplemented with a
sense of a student’s being, and indeed , their
continuing becoming- dispositions and qualities.
(Barnett, 2008)
34

35. Being and Becoming
Dispositions
Qualities
Skills
Knowledge

36. Being (Actual Self) and Becoming
(Possible Self)
Being Becoming
Actual Possible Ideal/
Self Self Feared
Personal self guides + Formation of strategies Self
Dispositions Dispositions
Qualities Qualities
Skills Skills
Knowledge Knowledge
36

37. Implication
Investment in learning
through different spaces and
in various forms is also an
investment in the learner’s
complex identity (habitus)
37

38. Implication
Further exploration of the
possibilities for the creation
of smooth spaces in straited
environments is required for
higher education.
38

39. Incorporating
the Imaginative Capacity Promoting Learner Systematic
i.e. Visual Learning Style Reflection
Self and Social (particularly n the creation and
Awareness and Management maintenance of smooth spaces in
Straited learning environments)
Pedagogical
Implications and
Professional Development
Facilitator Awareness
of ways in which
straited learning
Spatial Ecology
environments
mould their Idea that staff and students
assumptions, come to understand how they interact
perceptions with one another and the various learning
and pedagogies. spaces in which they live, work and learn.
39

40. Creating harmony
between Robust assessment
the ideal and ought selves procedures
(learners personal and social identity). for
liquid learning outcomes.
Pedagogical
Implications and
Professional Development
Design of curricula
needs Promotion of
collaboration in learning
to reflect learning
Utilizing approaches
intentions to learning such as problem-based learning,
as opposed to project –based learning
outcomes pedagogy. and action learning approaches
40

41. Thank You
41