Learning & Disciplinary cultures
Essentials of Management and International
Business
Hertta Vuorenmaa
Practicalities
•  Is there something that worries you?
On grading the Reaction Papers & your
Journal
Evaluation Criteria
•  The key criteria we use when evaluating the journals
•  How analytical is the paper/journal?
•  How reflective, does it show thought and understanding of the
covered topics?
•  Are all the sessions of the course as well as all the readings
mentioned in the syllabus covered? In the case of a reaction
paper is the reading mentioned?
•  Is the referencing done correctly and thoroughly?
•  General ability to describe the course and the writers own
journey as a learner / the paper and your reactions to it.
Deadlines for the course work
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Reaction paper 1. 15.9.16 at 9am
Reaction paper 2. 20.9.16 at 9am
Reaction paper 3. 22.9.16 at 9am
Reaction paper 4. 27.9.16 at 9am
Writing assignment 29.9.16 at MIDNIGHT 23.59
Reaction paper 5. 04.10.16 at 9am
Learning & reflection journal 06.10.16 at 9am
What is learning?
“Learning is …. A way of interacting with the world.
As we learn, our conceptions of phenomena
change, and we see the world differently. The
acquisition of information itself does not bring about
such a change, but the way we structure that
information and think with it does…Education is
about conceptual change, not just the acquisition of
information”
(Biggs, 2002)
Surface Learning Approaches
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I came to class.
I reviewed my class notes.
I made index cards.
I highlighted the text.
•  Cognitively Passive Learning Behaviors
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Deep Learning Approaches
•  I wrote my own study questions.
•  I tried to figure out the answer before looking it
up.
•  I closed my notes and tested how much I
remembered.
•  I broke down complex processes step-by-step.
•  Cognitively Active Learning Behaviors
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Passive Learning vs. Active Learning
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Motivations for learning
Deep learners: learn for the sake of learning
–  Intrinsically motivated
–  Tend to embrace and enjoy challenge
Surface learners: avoid failure
–  Extrinsically motivated
–  Avoid challenge at all cost
Strategic learners: earn good grades
–  Extrinsically motivated
–  Organized form of surface learning
–  Tend to avoid challenge, especially if it is incompatible with good
grades
(Martin & Saljo 1976, Ramsden 1988, Biggs 1987 & 1993, Entwistle 1981)
A deep learner…
A surface learner…
•  Connects concepts
•  Sees concepts as
within/between courses
isolated pieces of
information
•  Relates learning to
everyday experiences
•  Finds meaning in
learning
•  Does not relate learning
to experience
•  Memorizes meaningless
information
Active versus passive learning
Active learning:
Passive learning:
•  Student-centered
•  Teacher-centered
•  Students are talking
•  Teacher is talking
•  Students construct
knowledge
•  Students receive
knowledge
Two metaphors for Learning
Acquisition
Participation
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Acquisition of something
Gaining, accumulating, constructing,
internalization…
Knowledge, meaning, concept, fact…
Transferable
Focus on individual mind
Possession of knowledge determines
the identity of the possessor
May draw people apart
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Participation in activity
Reflection, participation, being in the
world, Co-operative learning, …
Knowing, doing
Situated, contextual, culturally
embedded, socially mediated
Learning subject: becoming a member
of a community
Dialectic nature of learning interaction
Identity is a function of being/becoming
part of greater entity
Draw people together: shared activities
Sfard, A. 1998. On Two metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just One
Self-assessment
•  Using the hand out please take a few minutes AT HOME
to evaluate your learnings at the university so far
•  Ask yourself: How would you like to change as a
learner?
Group work – You teach today
•  Organise into groups of 4-5 students (ideally at least 1
Aalto student per group)
•  Discuss today’s article (you all wrote a reaction paper on)
and choose what were the main learning points for
your group, you all need to agree on them. (max 20
minutes for this)
•  Be ready to present in a clear manner, limited time 5min
per group - quality over quantity
•  Present the main learning points discussed as a group, try
to include both individual & organisational level
•  Listen and react/ask questions whilst the other groups are
presenting – that was interesting, why do you feel that etc.
Some Questions for you to consider…
•  Where are you located in terms of the cognitive
dimensions? As business students? As a group? Where
you locate yourselves and why?
•  What kind of tacit knowledge does an Aalto Business/
replace with other university if you come from elsewhere
student possess - examples?
•  What kind of moral order/codes do you have? Are you
comfortable with them?
Academic tribes
•  University is a heterogeneous entity.
•  Different fields have different epistemic cultures.
•  Different disciplines have their own social and cultural
characteristics.
Cognitive dimensions of academic
territories (Becher 1987)
Pure
Maths,
Physical
Sciences
Humanities,
Social
Sciences
Hard
Soft
Applied
Engineering Social Sciences;
Law, Education
Applied
Moral Order
•  Defines what is valuable in a community, worthy to strive
for, and what are the basic principles according to which
one is expected to behave (virtues and vices).
•  Socialization of the students involves a successful
commitment to the moral order of the disciplinary culture
of the study field.
•  The standing of a person depends in part on the degree
to which she/he is capable of fulfilling commitments of
the moral order.
•  You live by a number of different moral orders that can
be conflicting.
(Harré 1983, Ylijoki 1998, Katila 2000)
What is culture/cultural change?
“… culture is the result of all the daily conversations and
negotiations between the members of an organization.
They are continually agreeing (sometimes explicitly,
usually tacitly) about the ‘proper’ way to do things and
how to make meanings about the events of the world
around them.
If you want to change a culture you have to change all
these conversations – or at least the majority of them.
And changing conversations is not the focus of most
change programs, which tend to concentrate on
organizational structures or reward systems or other large
scale interventions.”
Richard Seel (2009)
Disciplinary cultures…
•  A further dimension of how a discipline handles external
challenges depends on its novelty or maturity
•  However, disciplines are constituted and reproduced by
their practitioners: recruitment and reproduction are vital.
•  So contextual factors such as university and faculty
organisation or research funding availability can affect
processes of recruitment and the activities of recruits
and therefore a discipline's trajectory
Disciplinary cultures…
•  And the assumed goal of academic tribes is to be able
to resist external influence on their territories
•  A high degree of consensus and stability within the
networks of affiliation and association between
practitioners reduces the potential for disruption
•  In contrast a less homogeneous (pre-paradigmatic)
discipline might be characterised by a number of
conflicting networks; there is less consensus by which
to settle dispute and defection
Becher and Trowler distinguish urban and
rural modes of knowledge production
Urban (close knit)
Rural (loose knit)
Clustered
Demarcated problems
Few topics
Quick solutions
Competition
Close communication
Dispersed
Less delineated problems
Multiple topics
Long range view
Division of academic labour
Dispersed communication
•  Again, the intimation is that disciplines constituted within urban modes
are more able to resist external influence, whether regarding the
practices of disciples (e.g. managerialism) or the knowledge itself (e.g.
research funder influence on research topics)
“Communities of Practice” …
•  Simply put they are “groups of people who
share a concern or a passion for something
they do and learn how to do it better as they
interact regularly”. (Wenger)
•  Learning is social and comes largely from our
experience of participating in daily life
•  A process of engagement in a 'community of
practice'. (Lave & Wenger)
The 3 dimensions of Cop:
•  What it is about
–  Joint enterprise as understood and continually renegotiated by
its members.
•  How it functions
–  Mutual engagement that bind members together
•  What capability it has produced
–  Shared repertoire of communal resources (routines, artefacts,
vocabulary, styles, etc.) developed over time
(
http://www.infed.org/biblio/
communities_of_practice.htm)
3 Elements
•  The domain
•  The community
•  The Practice
Domain
Community
Practice
Domain - Defines the issues
•  Members have …
–  Identity defined by a shared area of interest
–  Commitment to domain
–  Shared competence
Community
domain
- People who care about the
•  Members…
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Participate in joint activities & discussions
Help each other
Share information
Build relationships so that they learn from each other
Practice - Shared ideas, tools, info.,
goals
•  Members are Practitioners
•  Develop a shared repertoire of resources
– Experiences
– Stories
– Tools
– Ways of addressing recurring problems
What CoPs Do?
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Facilitate collaboration/communication
Develop/Identify Subject Matter Experts
Filter out incorrect information by peer groups
Capture knowledge (intellectual capital)
Prevent re-inventing the wheel by sharing knowledge
and experiences
•  Share successful (best) practices
•  Decrease learning curve
•  Increase organizational learning
Benefits of a CoPs
•  Access to knowledge and experience
•  Build relationships with those who have expertise in a
particular domain
•  Develop best practices through discussions and sharing
of ideas
•  Learn how others have solved problems, instead of
reinventing the wheel
•  Keep up-to-date at the time and pace of the individual
member
•  Develop a community spirit.
Students as practitioners
•  Can become members of several communities of
practice.
•  Possibility to form communities of practice around
shared interests
•  Peripheral members of academic communities of
practice.
Levels of conversation
•  We have dealt with the individual & organisational levels
of academic communities
•  Then there is the question of what is going on with
Universities as communities/cultural entities
•  What is or is not wrong with the university today?
One picture – what is happening to
university/academic communities?
•  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZQe73IXZtU
Freewriting exercise
Carol Kiriakos’s exercise & slide
•  To do a freewriting exercise, simply force yourself to write without stopping
for ten minutes. Sometimes you will produce good writing, but that’s not the
goal. Sometimes you will produce garbage, but that’s not the goal
either.” (Elbow 1981, 13)
The Benefits:
•  Getting unblocked
•  Warming up
•  Finding out what you have to say
•  Finding your own words; discovering and developing your personal voice
•  Improving your writing
•  Maintaining and strengthening your writing practice
Based on e.g. Elbow 1981, Bolker 1998, Goldberg 1986, Cameron 2004)
Freewrite 10 minutes on: academic
communities & changing university?
Some questions to get you started, BUT you do not need
to answer them for me, after all you are writing for your
reflection diary…
•  Is it easy to see your own place/belong in this
community/communities?
•  Do you buy Professor Helfands arguments in this TED
talk?
•  Would it be nice to be able to attend the type of
university David Helfand describes?
•  Or would you rather stay in the kind that you already
are? WHY/WHY NOT
Note worthy on the Freewriting
exercise…
•  If you do this properly every time you end up having at
least a part of your reflection diary ready.
•  The exercise is thus not only beneficial for your writing it
also helps you to do your course assignment.
Thanks and see you next week!