Think about a conventional Business/Management or IT qualification – lots of discrete components, all contributing towards an overall Graduate Profile when their learning is aggregated, with a capstone project that allows the theory to be applied to a problem that’s a bit more wicked than the average assignment question or task. That project is typically of relatively small size and duration in the context of a qualification that might take two or three years to complete on a full-time basis. A question I first started asking myself two decades ago when I started facilitating a capstone project is this: Is a capstone that is simply another discrete component at the end of a long trail of discrete components the way to derive most value from an opportunity to “live” theory in action?
The answer, as I’ve become increasingly convinced, is No. If I think back to my own journey leading up to that capstone experience, I don’t remember being told once that I would need what I was learning in any of those other components when it came to working on a “real” project to complete my qualification. Even where one component was a compulsory prerequisite for another, I don’t remember being told how one would get me to the next – only comments in the higher components about what I should have remembered from the lower ones. Like most of my fellow ākonga (learners), I remembered some things from the components I was interested in, and promptly forgot the rest as soon as I’d achieved overall passing marks for those components.
On top of that, there was no training in any of those earlier components about how to work collaboratively. It was conveniently assumed we would know and somehow be able to work cooperatively in groups along the way, and collaboratively in a team when we got to the capstone project. I often felt that, with the best of intentions, the system was setting ākonga up to not achieve their full potential at capstone level by teaching them discrete and disconnected things but not providing any significant opportunity for a more holistic, sustained, and practical experience.
What do I mean by “holistic”? A learning experience where the components are intimately connected with each other, rather than existing as discrete and disconnected components. A learning experience where the sequence of learning can be adjusted to meet the needs of a wicked and dynamic situation, where the value in the learning comes as much from the process as whatever answer is arrived at. A learning experience where the ability to work collaboratively is a trained behaviour rather than simply an expected one. A learning experience where ākonga can work in partnership with facilitators in a shared experience, rather than competing against them in a contest where only the facilitators know the rules and the expected (scaffolded) answers before things start.
In short, a shared learning experience that is not only informed by the Graduate Profile; but driven by it. A learning experience that is as much practical as it is theoretical. A learning experience that develops soft skills as an inherent part of developing and deploying hard skills. A learning experience that values the ability to solve real rather than simulated or manufactured problems collectively, while at the same time not submerging individual excellence underneath any requirement to work collectively.
In order to make holistic projects work, I think the following things need to happen:
- Specific training in the skills and attitudes necessary for effective collaboration needs to happen before teams get anywhere near the projects they will be working on. That’s not to say that all training will be completed before the projects start – some may be scheduled on an ongoing basis (determined by when particular skills are most likely to be needed), while some may need to be revisited on a needs-must basis. What’s important is that we move into a space where ākonga are deliberately equipped to collaborate.
- Regardless of whether teams are selected by some external means or self-selection is allowed – and I will be clear here that my own preference is for self-selection (something I will discuss further in an upcoming blog) – the length of time that teams work together, and the breadth and depth of the projects they work on provide sustained opportunities to put collaboration theory, together with all the hard skills necessary for the project, into action. The ability to repeatedly deploy and further develop knowledge and skills across a complex and dynamic environment, with a project that’s more than just a part-time gig over a couple of months, provides evidence of ākonga as rounded individuals by design rather than by chance.
- Within the broad parameters of the Graduate Profile, ākonga are able to scope projects that draw on the full range of knowledge and skills developed in each of the component parts of the qualification in order to solve wicked problems or take advantage of specific opportunities. Using a Business/Management qualification as an example, that means it would be possible to scope a project that involved elements of Marketing and Human Resource Management (as examples) rather than excluding them because they didn’t fit a narrow definition of “Management.” I would argue for a very broad definition of the term, where those disciplines are actually sub-sets of “Management” as an over-arching discipline.
- Working within the broad parameters of the Graduate Profile, it would be possible to incorporate knowledge and skills from disciplines outside the specific qualification if those things were necessary to manage the project to a successful completion. Multidisciplinary projects are a very practical way for ākonga to appreciate the full complexities of a project that wouldn’t exist within an environment where a project only tests understanding and application of a relatively narrow range of knowledge and skills from a qualification. They could also expose ākonga to career options other than those they originally had in mind, as well as broadening their personal and professional networks.
- Sharing of new knowledge and development of new skills is driven more by the projects that teams have scoped than by an inflexible academic calendar. That’s not the same as saying there’s so much flexibility that some learning outcomes can be glossed over, or even left out completely – everything in the Graduate Profile still needs to be covered, as it does right down to the level of the individual (subjects) components. That will have happened by the end of the projects, but the pace at which each team works through the Learning Outcomes might differ slightly, depending on the nature of their specific projects.
- Coming up with all the planning necessary for a project to be successfully executed (in theory) is not the same as being able to demonstrate the theory works in this specific set of circumstances. Projects can be scoped in such a way that teams have a role in managing and carrying out the necessary work in practice, rather than just putting the theoretical plan forward. While there might be some valid practical constraints on which parts of the project ākonga project teams can directly manage; if they’ve been tasked with the planning in the first place, they should at least have some sort of oversight role that allows them to critique how those parts of their plan turned out in practice and take some learning from them.
This is a seriously big challenge that I’m talking about here, because moving to holistic projects and learning opportunities is a big step away from what many of us may have been doing up to now. It’s going to take us all outside our comfort zones, some more than others. I’m proposing to disrupt convention, and my justification for this is that as educators or trainers – whichever term you prefer – we have an obligation to do more than simply repeat what’s been done previously. That obligation is to use all that we know, all that we think, to develop ākonga with the necessary Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and ATTITUDES to be employed and to contribute otherwise to their communities and society in general long beyond their time with us. When we think and act not in terms of our individual subjects, or even single disciplines, but in terms of holistic learning to address significant wicked problems or opportunities, we are helping to create learning opportunities that can profoundly change lives.
I’m interested in learning about your thinking on this topic, because it’s through collaborative conversations that we can create even more valuable learning and development experiences.
In my next blog on Thursday 15 December, I will share my thinking about the role of ATTITUDE in collaborative, holistically integrated projects.
Rob
Rob Nelson Education 