Programme and Practical
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Programme and Practical The 6th NoFa-conference 2017: Interplay between general and subject specific knowledge about teaching and learning in school and teacher education - per- spectives and challenges. May 29-31, 2017 University of Southern Denmark, Odense Dear colleagues A warm welcome to all participants in the NoFa 6 Conference. NoFa 6 is organized by three institutions, University College Lillebaelt, University College Syd and University of Southern Denmark. Organising team is presented in the back of this conference publication. The NoFa is short for Nordic School Subject-Conference (NOrdisk FAgdidaktisk conference) and started in 2007 in Oslo. And indeed, the conference is Nordic having participants from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Greenland and Denmark. But NoFa is growing international. At this conference, we have participants from The Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, The Netherlands, UK and USA. I hope not to have forgotten anyone. One of the founders of NoFa, Bengt Schüllerqvist from Karlstad University, expressed around that time a strong defense for the status of school subjects (my translation): "Sometimes it is argued that one of the school's major problems is its division into" subjects ". Substances may appear as static or very rigid entities. But is it possible to think of an education system where the studies were all about "everything"? You can of course imagine other delimitations than those established. However, it is difficult to imagine an education system without giving certain knowledge domains a certain position on certain occasions, and others on other occasions. These knowledge domains, which are prioritized in various societies, we call subjects "(Schüllerqvist 2009). Knowledge is organised in subjects, and the idea was to strengthen the knowledge dimension within education, not to strengthen focus on school subjects as such. This is still a fundamental idea in NoFa. But there are related ideas: • NoFa is about subject specific teaching and learning (didactics in the subjects) – It’s about what kind of knowledge that is important in school, why it is important and how to deal with it in school • NoFa is for all school subjects, meaning that the dialogue between subjects is prioritized • NoFa is for subjects at all educational levels – although the weight is on the primary and secondary education • NoFa is about interdisciplinarity – very visible in the program for this conference 1 NoFa 6 takes up yet another important theme, namely the interplay between general and subject specific knowledge about teaching and learning in school and teacher education. School subjects are taught in various cultural, intercultural and social settings applying various pedagogic ideas and practices and political goals. Subjects are dealing with children and young people who stand before serious global challenges, such as climate change, but also their personal identity development. School subjects need to address these questions. NoFa is important. Torben Spanget Christensen, Chair, NoFa 6 Department for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark Find list of organising team including e-mail addresses below 2 Conference theme Interplay between general and subject specific knowledge about teaching and learning in school and teacher education - perspectives and challenges. General and subject specific knowledge about teaching and learning is complementary. Both have the aim to understand and deal with problems of education in order to facilitate student learning. From a general position scholars are investigating general conditions for schooling, such as child development, social background, multilingualism, classroom management etc. and from a subject specific position scholars deal with legitimacy and importance of school subjects and investigate particular problems, traditions and discourses in the different subjects. Up to a point the two positions have lived their separate lives, as distinct research traditions, and they have generated separate policy recommendations with little interplay, and sometimes even tensions, between them - this is true at least in a in a Nordic context. In recent years, there have been encouraging signs of new perspectives promoting interplay of the two. In a Danish context one such perspective has been labelled comparative didactics (Sammenlignende fagdidaktik - SFD). Maintaining a dual anchoring in general and subject specific knowledge about teaching and learning comparative didactics takes an interest in problems and conditions common to the school subjects, such as the use of technology and implementation of learning goals, competence perspectives and multi subject course work, which are relatively new on the agenda, but also classic cross subject problems facing new challenges, such as reading, writing, creative skills, assessment etc. Writing is one example that can be considered a generic phenomenon with generic characteristics such as letters, spelling, writing acts, modes of writing, use of media etc. On the other hand, writing always takes place within subjects, with subject specific demands on style, genre, and specialised vocabulary and so on. Some functions in the subjects remain more or less unchanged when using the new technology in writing; other functions are transformed in the process. Therefore, there is an apparent need for interplay between general and subject specific knowledge which hopefully could produce new insights e.g. into the consequences for the subjects of the introduction of new writing practices, and new technology. The same can be said for other areas of general interest; problem solving, competence-building, innovation, learning strategies, effective teaching, values in education etc. Where ever we look, connection can be seen between the general interest in teaching and learning, and the subject specific interests. 3 Keynotes Karen Risager, Roskilde University, Denmark. Monday May 29: 10.00 – 11.00, Plenary Auditorium U55 Title: Representations of the world in learning materials: What directions for intercultural competence? Karen Risager, Professor Emerita in Cultural Encounters, Department of Communication and Arts, Roskilde University, Denmark. Member of the research groups ‘Intercultural Studies’ and ‘Language and Learning’. She has published widely on language, culture and identity in a transnational and global perspective. Empirical areas researched are the cultural dimensions of foreign language teaching and learning, the cultural dimensions of second language learning among migrants, culture in language learning materials, and multilingual policies at the international university. Selected publications: Language and Culture: Global Flows and Local Complexity (Multilingual Matters 2006); Language and Culture Pedagogy: From a National to a Transnational Paradigm (Multilingual Matters 2007); Researching Identity and Interculturality (ed. by Fred Dervin & Karen Risager, Routledge 2015). Co-editor of Sprogforum, tidsskrift for sprog- og kulturpædagogik (Aarhus University Press; translations into e.g. English can be found online). e-mail: [email protected] References that might be of interest for the participants of this conference: • Risager, K. (2006) Culture in language: A transnational view. In: H.L.Andersen, K. Lund & K. Risager (eds). Culture in Language Learning. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, pp. 27-44. • Risager, K. (2007) Language and Culture Pedagogy: From a National to a Transnational Paradigm (Clevedon: Multilingual Matters) • Risager, K. (2009) Intercultural competence in the cultural flow. In: A. Hu & M. ByraM (eds) Interkulturelle Kompetenz und fremdsprachliches Lernen (pp. 15-30). Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. • Risager, K. (2011). Lærerens interkulturelle kompetence. Sprogforum 49-50. JubilæuMsnuMMer, ss. 53-60. • Risager, K. (2014) Analysing culture in learning Materials. Sprogforum 59, online. 4 Marte S. Gulliksen, University College of Southeast Norway Monday May 29: 11.00 – 12.00, Plenary Auditorium U55 Title: Making matters: Unpacking the role of practical aesthetic making activities in the general education through the theoretical lens of embodied learning.’ Marte S. Gulliksen is Professor of Culture Education, Culture Production and Aesthetical Practice at University College of Southeast Norway (USN). She is leader of the University’s Embodied Making and Learning research group at USN, Guest Professor at Iceland University and a member of the Human Ingenuity Research Group, Western University, Canada. Her teaching responsibilities at USN is today linked to the PhD-program in Culture Studies and the MA-program in Art and Craft Education. Gulliksen’s research has two main trajectories: studies of the practice of art and craft in education; and educational studies (fagdidaktikk, almendidaktikk, kulturdidaktikk). The PhD-thesis “Constructing a Formbild” (Link, 2006) and related works forms the main body of publications in the first trajectory. International, comparative research on creativity in the project “Creativity, culture and education” (see e.g. http://bit.ly/1Z694js, 2014) and studies on embodied making and learning in her “Why making matter”-project, also contributes to this line of research. In the second trajectory, an eight-year long post-doc level research study “content and methods in subject teacher education in arts and craft” (see e.g. http://bit.ly/1R3v2if, 2016 and http://bit.ly/26NQxy5) form the main body of publications. At NOFA6 Gulliksen is invited to represent ”det praktisk-musiske/æstetiske