Aims and objectives
The CROSSLIFE learning pathway aims to revitalise academic apprenticeship in the field of education and work. It enhances and enriches existing Masters and Doctoral programs so that participants develop qualitatively new expertise relevant to research and educational work in global times.
The specific objectives are to:
- Create cooperative networks in universities that cross boundaries and enhance collaborative learning through the exploration of cultural diversity
- Develop research-led teaching and learning that develops competencies and capacities required by researcher-professionals working in global lifelong learning and work; and
- Enhance critical and respectful team working that allows participants to learn, compare and interrogate perspectives and share knowledge across different cultural and contextual settings
Content and process
The CROSSLIFE learning pathway uses a cross-cultural collaborative methodology across occupational, national and disciplinary boundaries to create practical settings for peer-learning.
In these cross-cultural environments students are introduced to theories, empirical studies and interdisciplinary approaches that underpin research and professional expertise relevant to lifelong learning. They also engage in experiential and reflective learning activities that develop their cultural understandings and awareness in cross-cultural contexts.
This approach to content and process learning builds competence and capacities that enhance student’s professional and research expertise and practices in multi-lingual and multi-cultural collaborations and networks.
The methodology encourages dialogue and knowledge-sharing that recognises the way participants are embedded within contexts, cultures and knowledge traditions. This cooperative approach builds on the personal and professional knowledge that students bring to their work as well as the academic knowledge of senior professors. It models the kind of critical respect and trust that sustain productive global relationships.
Structure
The CROSSLIFE learning pathway is designed for full- and part-time students enrolled in research degrees in education, social sciences or history who have professional interests in lifelong learning and work.
The 5-step learning pathway runs over 1.5 years. The pathway involves pre- and post-workshop study in the home university and attendance at three intensive 1-week, cross-national workshops hosted by different partner universities.
Student’s participation in the learning pathway and the interface with home university studies is negotiated with the home university tutor through a personal study plan, equivalent to 30 – 60 ECTS. The pathway does not lead to a degree but awards credits to students that fulfil requirements. Students are expected to have access to computers that support electronic communication (email, skype).
Special features
The CROSSLIFE learning pathway implements ‘revitalised academic apprenticeship’ through a series of supported boundary-crossing activities. Students build close relationships with their tutor and group at their home university through pre- workshop reading, discussion and project work, plus post-workshop reflective writing and communication with local lifelong learning agencies. This collegial base supports their participation in the cross-national workshops.
At the workshops students work across national, occupational and discipline boundaries through their engagements with international tutors and researchers, students from each partner university, lifelong learning agencies and representatives from working life in the host country. The workshops offer a rich program of lectures, discussion groups, visits, and independent investigations, which build on the host’s local networks and display the culturally embedded knowledge and practices of lifelong learning and work. The workshops provide the context for supported experiential learning, critical reflective inquiry and theory-building related to global lifelong learning and work, cross-cultural communication and collaboration. This content and process learning draws on the formal expertise of the international tutors from each partner university and also models ways of working as a cross-disciplinary and cross-national team.
The use of advanced communication technologies facilitates this work at every stage. ICTs serve as means of communication, record keeping and as repository that are accessible over space and time. Using technology to mediate the work of the project supports further boundary-crossing as students and tutors learn to work with technology, understand delegations between people and machines, and develop new ways of using ICTs in project work and research. The storage of electronic records also makes CROSSLIFE activities available for subsequent collaborative reflection, research, teaching and public communications.
Learning security is a precondition in this curriculum design. Students are being asked to work beyond their comfort zone and take risks as they engage in boundary crossing and build peer relationships across cultural differences and hierarchies. They must feel secure if they are to engage productively in the learning pathway. This is addressed by providing pastoral care, ensuring a supportive learning culture and encouraging supportive social relationships.
This integrated design revitalises academic apprenticeship. Linking content and process learning with learning security in this learning pathway creates social relations of learning that seem light compared to conventional programs. Crossing boundaries prompts questions about features of everyday life that are usually taken-for-granted. These experiences stimulate academic engagement and theory building when supported by formal academic input, dialogue and critique. Boundaries and their effects are revealed as objects of inquiry and as opportunities for innovation.
By nesting these learning activities in supportive collaborative student-tutor relationships, students benefit from the expertise of professors and other students, but are also endorsed as knowers with professional knowledge and research competence. They are empowered to ask questions, investigate and build knowledge within rigorous but respectful relationships. In this way learning to know and do cross-cultural work becomes a process of learning to be a researcher-professional with the knowledge, skills and dispositions needed in global times.
Realisation
The CROSSLIFE learning pathway had its first intake in 2007. The 1-week intensive workshops was held in London (November 2007), Tampere Finland (March 2008) and Malta (September 2008). This timing acknowledges the different academic schedules in north and south hemispheres. English is the shared language in CROSSLIFE.
The partner universities built on CROSSLIFE curriculum design by consolidating the practices and insights arising from the implementation in sustainable learning pathways that support revitalised academic apprenticeship.
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