Pedagogy as Cartography: Creating a Learning Compass and Map for Personal and Professional Development
Billy O’Steen
University Centre for Teaching & Learning
University of Canterbury
Focus of workshop/discussion
The map orders individual experiences, connecting them with one another. The map is not a substitute for personal experience. The map does not take the place of an actual journey. Through the map every new traveller may get the benefit for his own journey. John Dewey, The Child and the Curriculum
As the traveller unfolds the map and reveals all of the paths available for her or his unique journey, questions can be used to decide where to go: The desired destination? The type of route? The time and energy involved? Potential challenges? Amidst these questions, some instrument or gauge is necessary for the traveller to find her or his bearings along the way. Quite often, this instrument is a combination of an external and internal process that relies on intuition and validation. Equally often, the traveller might not have a clear explanation of where and how this instrument was created and therefore, adjustments to it are not systematic or based on reflection – they are more likely strung together with Number 8 wire on the side of the road during moments of crisis.
Context and significance of focus
As an educator, our maps come in many forms – lesson plans, syllabi, programme curricula, university guidelines, PBRF regulations, professional development plans. Knowing that these are just maps and not representations of or limitations to our journeys, how do we go about deciding where to go? Many of the traveller’s questions are our own – the desired destination? The type of route? The time and energy involved? Potential challenges? Like the traveller, we also need an instrument or gauge to find our bearings in answering these questions and proceeding. For us, this instrument can be created in an explicit manner in the form of a Learning Compass.
Outline of process
In this interactive workshop, participants will be invited to join in several experiential activities and reflections that lead toward creation of a Learning Compass that is specific to an individual’s past, present, and future travels. Throughout the workshop, the philosophies and texts underpinning the Learning Compass (John Dewey, Donald Schon’s The Reflective Practitioner, and Peter Turchi’s Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer) and will be shared as will ongoing research about how this process has been implemented in several different professional development contexts in the United States.