Change Or Be Changed

Assign 1A.1 By DY DZANSI 2005097155

CHANGE OR BE CHANGED

1. Introduction

Colleagues, the title says it all. With current trends in education, we just have to change our ways including how we facilitate learning. This change requires us educators to be aware of current views and best practices in education. This presentation is an attempt to make educators aware of some important developments that affect our roles as learning facilitators. The point is that awareness should enable us change our "old" methods so as to meet current requirements of the so called "good learning facilitation".

2. A New Era

We have all experienced change all our lives. The philosophers say we are now in the postmodernist era. According to Usher and Edwards (1996:1), postmodernism is not just a theory. It is also a way of practicing. The premise of this paper is that we are indeed in a postmodernist era. The implication of this for us educators is how we practice our "trade". The impacts of two aspects of postmodernism (plurality and difference) on learning facilitation are examined here. The concepts plurality and difference may be interpreted to mean that there are different kinds of learners and many ways of approaching our learning facilitation task.

Ð'* What does postmodernism (plurality and difference) mean for us educators in terms of learning facilitation?

Firstly, in our day-to-day practices, educators have to work on the assumption that our learners are different in many ways including how they learn. Secondly we have to accept the plural nature of our student population. That is our students come from different cultural religious, ethnic, etc. backgrounds. In this regard, we need to realise that all these differences are bound to impact on how individual learners approach learning tasks. Thirdly, while celebrating differences, we must not ignore commonality, mutuality and co-operation. Fourthly, we have to adapt to working in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-faith society. Five, we have to be sensitive to all these differences in the design and presentation of our lessons. You the educator can now think of many other ways postmodernism can or has affected your role as a learning facilitator. Our task is to identify ways of overcoming these challenges. There are several other aspects of postmodernism that have on learning facilitation.

3 Other Developments

From this broad philosophical basis we can move to some other specific issues. A major impact is presented by the requirements of implementing Outcomes Based Education (OBE). Since the introduction of OBE, learning facilitation has become a different ball game because of its special requirements.

Ð'* What does OBE mean for us educators in terms of learning facilitation?

According to Pretorius (2001: iv) OBE requires all including educators to undergo a major paradigm shift. For us educators, among others it means we have to