SUBJECT LECTURER

EFL PEDAGOGIES FOR FLEXIBLE MELGIS DILKAWATY PRATAMA,

LEARNING M.Pd

FLEXIBLE PEDAGOGIES

Group 12 :

MIFTAHURRAHMAH (1181042606)

RIKA PRATAMA (11810423122)

WELI ANDRIANI (11810422543)

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND TEACHER’S TRAINING

STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY OF SULTAN SYARIF KASIM RIAU

PEKANBARU

2020
 PREFACE

Assalamu’alaikum Wr.Wb

The author thanks to the Almighty God, Allah SWT who has given us mercy
and blessing during writing this paper entitled “Flexible Pedagogies” is properly,
correctly, and on time.

The purpose of writing this paper is to fulfill the assignment that given by
Ma’am Melgis Dilkawaty Pratama, M.Pd as lecturer of EFL Pedagogies for flexible
learning. This working paper is supplementary material for student of State Islamic
University of Sultan Syarif Kasim Riau. Although this paper has not been complied
maximally, the author as a human being realizes that there are still many errors in the
writing of this paper. Therefore, critics and suggestions are needed here to make this
paper be better. Hopefully, this paper can be useful and add knowledge for the readers.

Wassalamu’alaikumWr.Wb

Pekanbaru, December 26, 2020

Group 12

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 CONTENTS

PREFACE................................................................................................................................i

CONTENTS............................................................................................................................ii

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background...................................................................................................................1
B. Formulation of The Problems.......................................................................................1
C. The Purpose of Writing................................................................................................1

CHAPTER II

CONTENT

A. Learner Empowerment.................................................................................................3
B. Future-Facing Education...............................................................................................5
C. Decolonizing Education................................................................................................7
D. Transformative Capabilities..........................................................................................9
E. Crossing Boundaries...................................................................................................11
F. Social Learning...........................................................................................................13

CHAPTER III

CONSLUSION......................................................................................................................17

REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................18

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 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A. Background of The Paper

Flexible learning enables learners to choose aspects of their study. This
is typically the ‘when, where and how’ of learning (Higher Education Academy,
2013), although there are some broader dimensions, such as being learner-
centred (Moran & Myringer, 1999). With the definition of flexible learning,
flexible pedagogy may refer to ways of considering approaches to teaching and
learning that enable such student choices. The Higher Education Academy
addresses flexible learning and flexible pedagogies in their report “Flexible
Pedagogies: new pedagogical ideas” (Ryan and Tilbury 2013)
The development in higher education is triggered by technology changes,
rising participation, changing employer expectations and globalization of the
sector, which has been resulting in growing diversity in learner profiles and
pathways through higher education. Several of these challenges are challenges
across the educational system in a globalized world, and the conception of the
need for flexibility in education in the future is as compelling for schools as for
high schools and higher education.
This paper identifies six key ‘new pedagogical ideas’ positioned at the
leading edge of future Higher education teaching and learning
B. Formulation of The Problem
1. What is Learner Empowerment ?
2. What is Future-Facing Education?
3. What is Decolonizing Education ?
4. What is Transformative Capabilities?
5. What is Crossing Boundaries?
6. What is Social Learning?
C. The Purpose of Writing
1. To find out about Learner Empowerment
2. To find out about Future-Facing Education
3. To find out about Decolonizing Education
7. To find out about Transformative Capabilities

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4. To find out about Crossing Boundaries
5. To find out about Social Learning

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 CHAPTER II

CONTENT

A. Learner Empowerment

The idea of ‘learner empowerment’ addresses the challenge of changing the basis
for interaction between educator and learner, to involve students more actively in the
process of learning and thereby in the process of reshaping teaching and learning
processes as well as the university. It is underpinned by the concept of flexibility in the
move to reframe academic relationships, connecting students and educators in
collaborative effort to recreate the ‘intellectual commons’. It foregrounds the essentially
political nature of education systems, seeking to engage learners not only in ‘co-
creation’ of the academic project, but in challenging and changing social practices in
their lives beyond Higher Education (HE).

The concept of ‘co-creation’ is used to indicate interactions that encourage

collaborative and democratic input from students as stakeholders in shaping knowledge
practices (Bovill et al 2011). The pedagogical ambitions behind learner empowerment
are realised through the use of participatory, transformative and ‘active’ pedagogies,
positioning students as peers with valuable contributions to make to curriculum design
and teaching approaches, as well as the broader culture, practice and experience of
learning in Higher Education.

Several key influences and components currently influencing thinking and

experimentation in this area include scholarly prompts as well as changes to education
policy and practice in Higher Education (HE), such as:

a. an increase in pathways for direct student engagement in curriculum

development and quality assurance processes (eg the sparqs initiative in
Scotland and recent QAA work in this area);

b. scholarship and models from the radical pedagogy tradition, critical literature
on the nature and role of Higher Education (HE) and work in critical social
theory (Boyer 1990; Neary and Winn 2009);

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 c. growing recognition of capabilities students develop through their HE
experience, connected with moves to extend the graduate transcript with new
Higher Education (HE) Achievement Reports (HEAR) (UUK 2012b);

d. the recent wave of initiatives devised to enable students to operate as ‘change

agents’ within the existing Higher Education (HE) system and to lever changes
of practice within their own institutions;

e. expanded understandings of ‘entrepreneurship’ in supporting co-creation and

democratic forms of education (as well as more recent developments to
promote social ventures in Higher Education (HE) institutions).

.........This landscape for student involvement and influence in UK HE is, in part, driven
by a changed funding regime and prevalent discourse around the ‘student as consumer’
of the HE offer. It also connects with broader understanding of the need to engage with
different needs, expertise, purposes and ambitions of learners, as participation in HE
diversifies, moving decisively beyond the ‘tabula rasa’ notion of the undergraduate
student and recognising the breadth of skills they bring to their HE experience. The
focus on student input also provides some response to the historical blind spot,
identified in evaluative reviews of HE policy, around using student perspectives to
improve teaching and learning (CHERI 2007; NUS 2012).

As students take greater roles in shaping the curriculum, developments around this
theme are increasingly critical in revitalising learning dynamics and reconfiguring
learning processes. Cutting edge work in this area attempts not just to improve the
presence and voice of students in shaping specific learning experiences or providing
input to existing academic systems, but in reconnecting the academy with everyday
realities, the interests of students and the priorities of its various stakeholder
communities. This moves beyond what can be an illusion of the empowerment and
influence of students on the HE system and instead seeks to create meaningful ways that
learners can influence both their educational and their social futures.

The pedagogical challenge in this theme is to equip people with an understanding

of the constraining hierarchies and transmissive or ‘top-down’ educational models that
guide their HE experience, as well as the power and capabilities to challenge and shape

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the options before them. In this respect, learner empowerment provides an important
cross-cutting theme that connects with a range of education movements (including
ESD) that prioritise futures-oriented and emancipatory pedagogies.

B. Futur-Facing Education

The idea of ‘future-facing education’ communicates an educational vision

concerned with enabling people to think critically and creatively and flexibly about
future prospects, to generate alternative visions of future possibilities and to initiate
action in pursuit of those visions. The theme taps directly into commentary about the
lack of futures perspectives in education and the need for learners in Higher Education
(HE) to develop ‘informed foresight’ in relation to contemporary discourses about the
future (Slaughter 2008). Moves for futures-focused education attempt to improve
human prospects and quality of life through the development of skills and capabilities in
learners that will help them to anticipate and challenge likely future scenarios.

In terms of pedagogical need, one of the important touchstones for learners is to

have the confidence to address complex, uncertain and changeable global situations,
through the use of engagement and change processes that help them to rethink and
create different pathways for the future. Teaching and learning approaches linked to
futures thinking include processes for understanding different perspectives and hopes
about the future, envisioning alternatives to current scenarios, challenging social
practices that constrain future outcomes, engaging stakeholders and planning ways to
work towards positive change (Tilbury 2011a; Tilbury & Wortman 2004). In terms of
educational practice, this approach takes a decisive step away from problem-solving
approaches that are framed within the parameters of a visible or emerging challenge.
Instead, it begins with processes for imagining alternatives, uncovering tacit beliefs and
assumptions about the possibilities, and using ‘envisioning’ activities as the basis for
actions that are more coherently aligned with the preferred goals identified.

Innovation in this area has been informed by international scientific, cultural and
economic dialogues around education and sustainable development that are concerned
with future prospects for humanity. Key pedagogical thinkers in this area have
foreground the role of education in perpetuating and challenging existing socio-

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economic patterns that have damaging consequences for people and planet, with
particular attention to the role of schools and the importance of equipping young people
to explore the future (Hicks 2006). Certain developments can be highlighted as key
influences on this theme:

a. the emergence of ‘futures studies’ since the 1970s, in key scholarly

publications and the concerns of organisations such as the World Futures
Studies Federation to examine possible, probable and preferable futures and to
embed relevant learning approaches into the curriculum;  international
dialogues in ‘education for the future’ that provide thematic principles for
rethinking education, such as the UNESCO International Commission on
Education for the 21st century, Learning: the Treasure Within (Delors 1996);

b. growth of the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) movement, with

its focus on changing education systems, institutions and pedagogies to
promote deeper engagement of people with sustainability challenges (see
Appendix 5.4);

c. trends in pedagogy geared to transformative learning, learner engagement,

systemic thinking, developing capabilities and global citizenship (Tilbury and
Wortman 2004; Ryan & Cotton 2013; Sterling 2011; Tilbury 2011a).

In the HE sector, the idea of future-facing education is not well known; the term
‘futures’ appears regularly in academic discourses, but pedagogical strategies in this
area have scarcely entered the scholarship of teaching and learning discourse.

These pedagogical approaches have, however, gained prominence under the UN

Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014), accompanied by
dedicated funding and engagement from governments worldwide (Jones et al 2010;
Tilbury 2011b). As with most aspects of education, debates about the place of futures
thinking represent a new frontier and also provide an interesting interplay with the role
of historical understanding in society. This theme proposes additional learning
dimensions in the overall attempt to navigate the tensions between tradition and
innovation, to identify connections between the past, present and future and to examine
the influences and perceptions involved in those dynamics (Tilbury 2011).

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 C. Decolonising Education

First it’s necessary to understand those two words: “decolonisation” and

“education”. The Cambridge dictionary calls decolonisation “the process in which a
country that was previously a colony controlled by another country becomes politically
independent”. “Education”, meanwhile, is what the Oxford dictionary calls “the process
of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university”.
Placed together, then, the decolonisation of education means that a nation must become
independent with regards to the acquisition of knowledge skills, values, beliefs and
habits. This makes a lot of sense. It’s surely what any nation should be doing.

The idea of ‘decolonising education’ is concerned with deconstructing dominant

pedagogical frames which promote singular worldviews to extend the inter-cultural
understanding and experiences of students, plus their ability to think and work using
globally-sensitive frames and methods. It has emerged as an urgent and important
pedagogic need for HE, linked to rapid globalisation and the issues of cultural diversity
and inclusivity this implies. As a learning challenge geared to embedding ‘diversity’
within the idea of flexibility, it includes efforts to ‘internationalise’ the curriculum
through the inclusion of global examples, reach and content, but also moves past this to
extend inter-cultural literacy among staff and students through their broader experience
of Higher Education (HE), improving their ability to think and work using different
cultural perspectives (Hyland et al 2008; Welikala 2011).

The pedagogical concerns linked to this theme involve recognition of the critical
importance of the learning environment in nurturing global perspectives and fostering
inclusivity and cultural interaction in the Higher Education (HE) experience (Welikala
2011). Application of these principles requires significant changes to curriculum content
and pedagogical practices, including the approaches that expose different values and
aspirations among societies and cultural groups. Pedagogical innovation has been
prompted by work in fields of citizenship education and global learning, seeking to

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develop forms of education that enable people to understand global-local connections
and links between their lives and the experiences of other people worldwide, including
the political, cultural, economic and environmental factors at stake and the wider
implications for justice and equity (Pike & Selby 1988).

As a pedagogical challenge, this moves far beyond the need for language skills or
an understanding of global markets (although these are important) reaching towards an
appreciation of the wider world and of diversity, as well as the mindset and capability to
operate effectively in international settings. From within the HE sector, the needs have
been articulated in several critical studies forecasting the urgency and importance of
preparing students in this area (Hyland et al 2008; Lowden et al 2011; Ramsden 2008).
The power of the HE institutional setting, overseas experiences and informal learning,
are all highly significant arenas for promoting diversity, equality and participatory
interaction across social and cultural groups.

To decolonise the Higher Education (HE) learning experience also means creating
more inclusive learning environments and encouraging the kind of informal learning
that takes place through cross-cultural socialising and co-curricular activities. In these
areas, as noted in one report on the internationalisation experiences of staff and
students, UK universities still have some distance to travel (Hyland et al 2008).
Additional complexities arise in recognition of the pedagogical and political issues
around transnational education and rising participation in Higher Education (HE). As
recent statistical reports and scenario development exercises have shown, HE is being
significantly shaped by the development of transnational HE; in the UK recruitment
expectations are linked to the growth of international students and high levels of
participation among growing second and third generation minority and migrant
communities (UUK 2012a, 2012c).

These trends present challenges at many levels, linked for example to the use of
other languages in the delivery and experience of HE, as well as the exploitative
relationships and knowledge hegemonies that are easily enacted or reproduced in the
establishment of validation partnerships and curriculum development systems (Alvares
and Faruqi 2012; Welikala 2011). It is critically important that pedagogy is considered
at all levels of the HE transaction to address the patterns and traditions that have been

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transmitted through our education systems rather than taking them at face value, as well
as consideration of who controls learning objectives, standards and practices in the
surrounding corporate, professional and quality frameworks of HE. The ambitions
behind this pedagogical idea have been expressed in Paulo Freire’s work on pedagogy
as the channel for ‘conscientization’ in order to respond critically to dominant cultural
interests and construct alternative ways of life for future generations (Freire 1970).

D. Transformative Capabilities

Transformative capabilities constitute enduring ability to transform available

general knowledge and competence into plant, firm or task specific knowledge and
competence. This is a core competence particularly in LMT industries : the general
knowledge on traditional industrial techniques like welding etc. is spread all over the
world. The ability to transform it into specialized and economically competitive ‘high
class zero defect’ competence separates the profitable firms from the rest.
(Bender/Laestadius 2005, p. 9, italics in original)

One crucial key element of these transformative capabilities is, in our

understanding, the ability and willingness of an economic actor to establish systematic
linkages to actors and institutions who may serve as important sources of knowledge
and know-how. This concept additionally refers to processes of adaptation, use, and
recombination of available knowledge, which are shaped internally mainly by a
company’s technological or organizational means of knowledge management and by its
dominant personnel policy (including training and the use of skills and qualifications).
Primarily human labor and work-force is the moving force of these transformative
capabilities. Within that transformation process low-tech companies create new
adaptable knowledge especially via human resource management (HRM) and
vocational education and training (VET). Training-related aspects of transformative
capabilities therefore include a static and a dynamic profile. In the static dimension
vocational training enables the work force and enhances the firms´ ability to transform
external knowledge sources into usable internal knowledge and company-specific
know-how. In the dynamic dimension vocational training improves the further

9
development of transformative capabilities of the firm in itself. So the basis for a
dynamic perspective on transformative capabilities lies in a permanent creation,
recreation and transformation of qualifications and skills.

The idea of ‘transformative capabilities’ has an educational focus beyond an

emphasis on knowledge and understanding towards more engaged approaches to
learning, taking the concept of capabilities as not just accumulated abilities but their
deployment in both familiar and unfamiliar circumstances. This notion of capabilities
connects with the concept of flexibility in its focus on type of adaptive abilities required
to apply knowledge and skills, plus the refinement and development of those abilities
based on experience and learning from unintended consequences.

The idea of transformative capability implies the capacity to learn, innovate and
bring about appropriate change, connecting with aspects of the idea of ‘competence’,
such as an appreciation of the contexts in which skills are used, as well as the values and
choices around their use in real situations. It embraces ‘lifelong’ learning (that takes
place throughout the lifecycle) in adult and community education, and recent thinking
around ‘life-wide’ learning (across different spaces and settings – which in HE includes
both on and off campus) (Jackson 2011). Education practice in this area also draws
upon holistic models of human capability (including not just cognitive abilities but
affective and spiritual dimensions) to equip learners with higher order capabilities to
respond effectively to complexity, uncertainty and change.

Transformative learning theories have had a powerful influence on the discourse

around this theme, promoting participatory pedagogies and critical reflection on
assumptions and interpretations to engage not just the intellect but affect, identity,
worldview, beliefs and values (Mezirow, 2000; Sterling 2011). This also connects with
concepts of ‘third order learning’ through the integration of new contexts and
perspectives for the learner, enabling them not only to see the world differently but to
engage and act differently in it (Bateson 1972). Transformative learning approaches in
education prioritise the use of critical reflection, challenge existing assumptions and
lead to the creation of alternative meaning schemes. Several streams of thinking and
practice contribute to this idea, with both longstanding and recent origins:

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 a. Traditions of experimentation and thought in progressive and alternative
education, for example in Dewey, Montessori and Steiner, focused on ‘whole-
person’, experiential and situated learning;
b. Thinking and practice in the area of ‘transformative learning’ and higher order
capabilities, building on the work of Bateson (1972) and Mezirow (2000);
c. Aspects of the idea of ‘competence’ relating to the ability to contextualise and
adapt knowledge and skills to situations, foregrounded in discourses such as the
‘capability movement’ in education (eg in the UK through the RSA and the HE
for Capability movement in 1988)
d. Capability frameworks for human wellbeing that serve as tools to promote
equitable forms of development but have uses in rethinking education
(Nussbaum 2011; Walker & Unterhalter 2007).

Scholarship in this area has not yet been matched by the transfer of theory to
examples of convincing embedding in the curriculum. Some of the critical discourse
around transformative learning argues that the potential for embedding ‘transformative
capabilities’ is very limited at HE level, citing the obstacles presented by conventional
academic structures and systems (Sterling 2011). In many ways, the issues have
resonance with those around inter-disciplinary learning, in that the promotion of
innovative approaches in this area is often limited by the constraints of the learning
environment. The pedagogical need is therefore for adaptable tools that articulate these
kinds of transformative capabilities and that can be put to work in various ways both
within and outside the conventions of HE. Perhaps most importantly, the transformative
capabilities theme puts the spotlight on the capabilities of the educator (as the ‘model’)
as critical to the effective development of these capabilities in the learner.

E. Crossing Boundaries

......................The idea of ‘crossing boundaries’ involves taking integrative and systemic

approaches to knowledge and learning. It recognises the need to transcend the
disciplinary points of focus and specialist expertise that are embedded in the academic
endeavour and its traditions, to support inter-disciplinary, inter-professional and cross-

11
sectoral working. Its pedagogical connection with the notion of flexibility lies in the
attempt to reconnect Higher Education (HE) teaching and learning with ambitions for
learners to be able to integrate and apply different kinds of knowledge, recognising the
translation gap between the specialisation of disciplines and the complexities of ‘real-
world’ scenarios.

This theme draws on a long and varied history of disciplinary migration and change
in HE, as inter-disciplinary teaching and learning has been an ongoing impulse shaping
the HE curriculum as part of the sector’s responsiveness to societal, economic and
industry concerns (Nissani 1997; OECD 1972; Thew 2007). In more recent
formulations the theme of crossing boundaries has drawn upon these longstanding
traditions, as well as newer developments, resulting in a range of prompts and
influences:

a. efforts to promote a ‘post-disciplinary’ landscape, supported by theoretical

frameworks to develop unified science and systems thinking, which includes the
various conceptions of inter-disciplinarity, multi-disciplinarity, pluri-
disciplinarity and trans-disciplinarity (Chettiparamb 2007; Klein 1990);
b. models of liberal arts education that have wrestled with curriculum design to
accommodate both breadth of engagement and depth of specialisation (Klein
1990; Nissani 1997);
c. curriculum and training development initiatives to promote inter-professional
education and learning, for example across health, social care and education
(Barr et al 2011; Gordon 2006);
d. calls from industry and the business community for an enhanced HE response to
equip graduates with the ‘soft skills’ to deal with complexity, ‘wicked
problems’ and inter-professional working (ASC 2007; BITC 2010; IBM 2010;
SKY 2011).

..............The ‘real-world’ emphasis and driver for curriculum change here is reflected in a
focus on participatory, reflexive and applied pedagogies, as well as skills for engaging
across sectors and professions and for involving people in genuine forms of stakeholder
engagement. This includes sensitivity not only to different conceptual frameworks and
professional interests but the ability to reflect on tensions between alternative sets of

12
values and priorities, and to reconcile these influences into coherent responses.
Pedagogical techniques include collaborative working in practice contexts, sharing
perspectives and concerns on key issues and components to be addressed by multi-
professional or cross-discipline groups, as well as methods for tackling stereotyping,
competitiveness and unequal status in group learning dynamics.

In terms of the practicalities of changing HE teaching and learning, attempts to

cross boundaries can be conceived, planned and delivered in various ways, including
through specialist programmes that co-ordinate input from multiple academic
departments; activities and assessments that engage groups of learners from different
programmes; strategic institutional initiatives or strategies (including through informal
learning and the co-curriculum) to foster cross-disciplinary learning and interaction.

Given that institutional structures and sector level benchmarks can militate against
innovation in line with the ‘crossing boundaries’ theme (Thew 2007; Brooks & Ryan
2007), one of the most important pedagogical needs appears to be in the provision of
tools that can be used and adapted for different settings and groups. This may go some
way to enabling educators to experiment in their own learning activities, despite the lack
of support structures within the formal curriculum architecture. This may assist in
harnessing the enthusiasm for this type of work that is evident in many learning arenas
and projects outside the formal structures of HE, particularly in community education
and learning.

F. Social Learning

Social learning: creates flexibility by acknowledging the “varied context in which

learning takes places” beyond the formal curriculum. This area looks at spaces both
physical and virtual to rethink how learning is shaped. Social learning can take place
through co-curricular learning spaces, informal learning and social interaction, as well
as by engaging with forms of technology that focus on interaction and collaboration
(Ryan & Tilbury, 2013).

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 The idea of ‘social learning’ is concerned with developing educational cultures and
environments that utilise the power of co-curricular learning spaces, informal learning
and social interaction in HE experiences. In this theme, attention is given to flexibility
in terms of the influence of the varied contexts in which learning takes place, in addition
to (or in tandem with) the interactions triggered within the formal curriculum. An
important component of this theme concerns the role of IT developments in extending
the learning spaces of HE and the platforms that IT innovations are providing for more
dynamic engagement of learners within the university setting, in both physical and
virtual spaces.

In this emergent field, there is a growing scholarly literature attempting to

consolidate understanding of thinking and practice around the ways that learning is
enabled through the campus learning infrastructure (Boddington & Boys 2011; Temple
2007). Commentators in this area are examining how investments in educational
infrastructure and facilities have expanded both physical and digital spaces leading to a
rethink of how learning takes shape in - and is shaped by - those spaces, to better
understand the relationships between social and spatial, as well as the implications for
optimising learning environments (Boddington & Boys 2011). This relatively new and
underdeveloped field considers how new learning spaces can serve as the locations for
formal learning in the formal curriculum, but also enable informal learning outside the
curriculum as individuals and groups interact to construct reality and determine their
learning experiences.

In UK HE there have been noticeable moves to generate more pedagogically-driven

learning spaces on campuses, influenced by educational and social thinking as well as
pragmatic and policy considerations. Developments have been funded and established
through the CETL initiative and related incentive schemes generating a range of
experiments with new learning environments, such as simulated, immersive and
external environments, as well as peer to peer and social learning clusters (SFC 2006;
SQW 2011). As commentators have noted, the relationship between the physical
infrastructure and its learning activities is perhaps better understood at school level than
in HE and until recently there has been little other than anecdotal examples in the
literature to explore how spaces in HE serve informal learning and community-building

14
among students and to evaluate the impacts and benefits (Temple 2007). Developments
in this area have profound significance at the institutional level and have been guided by
several influences:

a. scholarship in ‘social learning’ concerned with the social and cultural contexts
and influences upon learning, drawing on thinkers such as Vygotsky,
Habermas, Kölb and Wenger (Blackmore 2010);
b. increasing focus on the personalisation of learning experiences and maximising
opportunities for collaboration in universities, in line with expectations around
student choice and education quality;
c. developments in thinking and new initiatives under the banner of ‘café-style’
pedagogy (Cohen et al 2008) and ‘free university’ community-engaged
movements in virtual and physical spaces;
d. insights from critical theory, as well as practice-based models and experiential
learning frameworks, to understand the situated nature of education as well as
the influence of the ‘hidden curriculum’;
e. recognition that IT developments seem to be prompting shifts of lifestyles,
learning styles and thinking styles, towards more strategic, discovery-based
learning but perhaps less competence in evaluation and critical appraisal
(Watling 2009).

One of the fascinating dimensions of flexibility within this theme emerges in the
vital role that IT can play in providing new forms of learning through virtual online
spaces that can be deployed outside the formal curriculum. Although the flexible
learning arena has not always taken up this radical pedagogical potential this is where
IT can act as a significant positive enabler for innovation through the use of Web 2.0
tools geared to interaction and collaboration. Furthermore, the potency of these tools is
in part due to their existence outside corporate control and therefore their highly
adaptable nature as channels for engagement between technology and pedagogy, as well
as participation and engagement across campuses, between universities and with other
groups and organisations (Watling 2009). Additional possibilities stem from the variety
of modes they offer, including the use of sound and image, extending potential

15
pathways into critical pedagogy for those with different physical abilities and learning
styles.

Perhaps the most striking feature of social learning is its growing presence as an
institutional education concern and an imperative for organisational thinking about
improving the experiences of students to enable this type of connectivity across people,
groups and communities. The most ambitious efforts in this area, from the pedagogical
point of view, see ‘social learning’ as an institutional lens in which teaching and
learning practices are under review, prompting new pedagogical experiences that are
profoundly student-centred and that build bridges and fracture hierarchies between
educators and learners, between different specialists, and between universities and their
surrounding communities. New initiatives around this theme take full account of the
importance of these interactions within and outside the formal curriculum to ensure that
social learning becomes central to the future experience and educational impact of HE
by supporting learners to connect their HE experiences through learning, action and
reflection.

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 CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

Ryan & Tilbury define the scope of flexible learning through the lens of six
“pedagogical ideas.” In this model, the six “pedagogical ideas” are interrelated. The six
pedagogical ideas that form a framework for flexible learning are Learner
Empowerment, Future-Facing Education Decolonizing Education, Transformative
Capabilities, Crossing Boundaries, and Social Learning

In flexible learning, the “balance between instruction and facilitation is being

revisited in fundamental ways, with implications for pedagogical dynamics and the
learner educator relationship.” This model of learning challenges “the authority of the
expert educator and makes space for an enhanced contribution from the learner, by
changing the dynamics of learning interactions as well as confronting the power frames
that underpin the academic project as a whole” (Ryan & Tilbury, 2013)

17
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course/flexible-learning.pdf

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