[SSC] Discussion Document (SSC Curriculum Group)

[Richard Hall]

Thanks for this work, folks. It is appreciated.

I want to drag us back to our statement on the website:

"The co-operative principles on which the management of the Centre is based extend to the ways in which courses are taught. All classes will be participative and collaborative, so as to include the experience and knowledge of the student as an intrinsic part of the course. Students will have the chance to design courses with the professors and lecturers, as well as deliver some of the teaching themselves with support from other students and the teaching staff. Students will be able to work with academics on research projects as well as publish their own writings. A core principle of the Centre is that teachers and students have much to learn from each other."

A few hasty notes/questions.

1. How prescriptive do we wish to be? e.g. coherence with Bologna, the choice by teachers of mode of study, setting assessment types?

2. I think that we might need to be more radical than framing a curriculum *for* students or scholars. Much of this will need to be undertaken through negotiation, rather than prescription. Unless I missed something at the last meeting. If I did, then I think we need to consider removing the paragraph I note above from the website.

3. Suggestion #1, I know that there is a balance here, but where you note "We think it has merits. It simply works with the grain of what our ‘teachers’ wish to, or are prepared to, offer", how does this stand with our (student-as-producer?) ethos? It seems like HE but just in a co-operative setting.

4. Shouldn't we start with the individual learner/scholar?

5. I like suggestion #2, and I like that students might be able to negotiate their own work. But I would like to de-emphasize the role and therefore power of the SSC teachers. Again, shouldn't "assessment", whatever that is, be negotiated, and depend upon what the scholars-as-producers want to produce? I think we need to mind our language too - "different requirements (e.g. essay lengths) can be set for the different students." Essays, *set for*?

6. In the dicussion piece #1, a curriculum that challenges neo-liberalism: if we use this term, we can't then (as we have previously) state that our politics are contained in and by our constitution. This is a thesis nailed to a door/website/whatever.

7. Discussion point 3 seems very important and vital to the framing of a curriculum that can then be defined by individual scholars once they have arrived and once they have found themselves in the SSC.

8. Does any form of prescription beyond a framework/ethos/range of topics offered, mean that we are just aping formal HE? How tied to formal HE practices do we wish to be?

I'll miss you all tomorrow.

In solidarity.

Richard.

-----Original Message-----
From: ssc-bounces at lists.aktivix.org on behalf of Laurence Davis
Sent: Fri 21/10/2011 11:44
To: ssc at lists.aktivix.org
Subject: [SSC] Discussion Document (SSC Curriculum Group)
 
Dear all,
On behalf of the SSC Curriculum Group (Joyce Canaan, Jonathan Coope, David Young, and myself), I am circulating a preliminary report we have drafted collectively with the aim of encouraging open, imaginative, and constructive discussion about SSC curriculum possibilities at Saturday's meeting. 
As this is a discussion piece, we kindly request that you take a few minutes to read the report *in advance of* the meeting. It should make especially good reading on the train!
We look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Best wishes,
Laurence

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