EDUC20065: Knowledge, Learning and Culture

2x 2000 words essays (50% each)

Knowledge Learning and Culture
If you thought you knew everything about what Melbourne uni has, think again. Basically, this subject is like one gigantic museum tour that takes you to different cultural collections on campus. The weekly 2 hour seminars will involve you going to places like:

. Old and rare books collections in the uni archives
. Ian Potter Museum
. Rare Map Collection
. Medical History Museum
. Dental Museum

One of the key principles taught in the seminars was see think and wonder. You are given an object; a random object that you have never seen before, be it a portrait, dental equipment, maps, etc. You are then asked to examine the details of the object without any subjectivity. Following this you begin to form your own explanations about why certain things are the way they are. And finally you form questions about what you want to know about it. Each seminar usually has an expert, or the curator of the museum you can direct your questions to. By being given a chance to practise this each week, you’ll come to the realisation of the difficulty separating your biases from objective analysis. But hey you got to start somewhere. Note that nothing is assessed in these seminars, and what you get accomplished during these sessions is up to you and your curiosity.

There are 2, 2000 words reflective essays as part of the assessment in this subject. The first involves a discussion about two of the objects from any of the cultural collections. You use the see think wonder approach in answering the question, and also incorporate things like the knowledge required for interpretation and discuss the culture surrounding that object. I wrote mine on medical records of Australian P.O.W’s written on the back of Japanese cigarette packets and an old 1880 monaural stethoscope. Some of the objects are listed with their image on the digital archives online, but I found that there were others which I could not find. The P.O.W record for example could not be shown in detail due to privacy reasons. But luckily I took the initiative and during the seminars and just scribbled a whole bunch of my observations and interpretations down into my notes, which I encourage other people to do.

There are objects that have plenty of information associated with few, so choose carefully (you do have to cite sources). I found that objects in the medical museum tend to have some good resources following them. Each week you are given some readings to prepare you for the seminar. Did I read everything? No. For some readings I realised that I would not use as they were not related to the cultural collection I selected. But hey, I could have missed some ideas that I could have used for my essay. Just letting you know that it isn’t the end of the world if you haven’t read everything.

To be honest, you don’t need to go to all of the seminars in order to start the first essay (although you do need to go to all of them since there is an 80% attendance requirement, i.e. 2 classes missed and you’re out), and the earlier you start them, the less stress you will have. For the first assessment I realised that since you could select any objects to study from any cultural collections, by doing those you encountered in the earlier weeks will obviously mean that you can get them done faster.

The second requires you to talk about the various factors that influence your interpretation and how direct engagement with objects improves learning. This is more like a recap on what you have experienced. Those who did Psychology or Understanding Knowing Learning (the level 1 subject prior to this) will find their knowledge of the various learning theories useful for this essay. But if you haven’t studied any of these, don’t worry; they go through learning theories in one of the lectures. The last essay is more general compared to the first, so you can start brain storming after a few lectures and seminars.

This subject gave me an opportunity to explore the campus and see some really fascinating historical objects. You learn to appreciate the story behind the objects. Furthermore, it wasn’t a stressful subject, so those who don’t want to add to much weight to their studies, I recommend this one.

Yes, with screen capture.

Amanda Burritt

4/5

No textbooks, you are given readings along the course on the LMS.
Although from the level 1 subject before this (EDUC10050), I did find the book "Perspectives on Learning" by D.C. Phillips & Jonas F. Soltis quite useful for the last essay.

1x 1 hour lecture per week, 1x 2 hour seminar per week

Semester 1 2014