This thesis focuses overtly, on developing undergraduate curricula both generally and specifically in agriculture and related fields and covertly, on an appeal to raise the status, quality and products of undergraduate education. A closer examination is made of the relationship between the structure, function and purpose of tertiary education, the immediate and long-term professional needs of the undergraduate student and the current and future requirements of the communities in which graduates will study, lead, live, learn and work. It is my contention that the reality and challenge of the undergraduate student’s on and off-campus community experiences should be the catalyst, motivation and transformational cauldron for their professional and personal development and that their curriculum should be designed, delivered, assessed and reported to reflect this individual development. I argue that currently this is not the case and consequently students graduating from more traditionally designed and delivered courses are less prepared for a changing and changeable world. Primary and secondary research evidence presented supports this position. A universal remedial model, schema or conceptual framework emerging from the assimilation of primary and secondary research, is presented and substantially explained. The schema is so designed that a wide variety of core curricula could be developed based on context, need and circumstance. The intricate design of the schema as a “mandala” was inspired by a creative fusing of ancient western, ancient eastern and modern philosophies however, a wide range of essential underpinning ‘developmental’, ‘educational’ and ‘learning’ theories are integrated into its structure and function. The “Twilight Curriculum”, a unique component of the schema was inspired by theories relating to the “Hidden Curriculum” and “Self Determined Learning”. It focuses on the development of wisdom through interest and needs-based action research / action learning projects. Wisdom in this argument emerges in the student as attributes such as professionalism, cognisance, compotency, autonomy, synergism, perspicacity, persistence and expertise all of which contribute to the student’s overall character. Contextually relative praxis development central to the student’s personal and professional transformation, is presented as the generator of wisdom. An argument is made in Chapter 1 that universities generally have two sides “an espoused” and “an actual” this duplicity tends to diminish the veracity of the university’s purpose and subsequently stifles undergraduate curricular innovation and development. This confusion ultimately reduces a graduate’s professional effectiveness. Chapter 2 focuses on the role of the agricultural graduate in helping the community1 cope with an increasingly complex and changeable world. Chapter 3 presents 1 Community refers to collectives based on many uniting properties, forces and boundaries, some of which are: locale, family, social networks, culture, religion, ethnicity, norms and habits, common purpose, professional pursuits.(Smith, 2001) the primary research process focusing on the research question ‘What are the conceptual framework design properties for an undergraduate, agricultural core curriculum that is grounded in community?���� The Research Methodology is discussed and theoretically underpinned. The three quantitative and qualitative research instruments and their respective theoretical foundations are explained and validated. The research was conducted with staff and students in two agricultural institutions, one in India and the other in the United States of America. The research results for the three instruments are presented in Chapter 4. The results across the three research instruments indicate a desire by both staff and students for a general change in the structure, function, delivery and assessment of the undergraduate agricultural curriculum. Staff and students’ indicated a change from the current generic, teacher/subject based, theoretical approach to curriculum design, delivery and assessment, to a preferred specific, student / needs based and applied approach. These research results are analysed and discussed at length in Chapter 5. An overview argument is proposed suggesting that learning is a personal journey and that knowledge resides in the experience of the learner, however that journey can be enhanced by not only the nature of the experience but also the critical sense made. Chapter 5 also provides clarity for the results in the form of secondary research. This mainly focuses on a variety of learning theories, student development theory, community engagement theory and preferred graduate attributes as well as an array of the author’s professional experiences that related directly to the research. Assimilating the primary and secondary results provide not only an answer to the research question, but also partially lay the foundation for the core curriculum schema design. The conceptual framework design properties for designing the core curriculum schema are: individualised personal and professional transformative learning cultivated within relevant on and off campus community engaged environments and facilitated by concerned academics, that incorporate mutually beneficial relationships between self, others and the setting using praxis development as the central educative process resulting in the development through action learning and action research projects of generic and specific attributes that are periodically formatively and summatively assessed. The properties identified in Chapters 5 and 6 are applied in the development of a unique undergraduate agricultural core curriculum schema or model in Chapter 7. Curriculum Theory, Educational Theory, Community Engagement Theory, Rural Development Theory, Graduate Attribute Theory, ancient history and Eastern Philosophy, the author’s secondary and tertiary teaching experiences, his professional and rural development activities are discussed and provide an underpinning for the schema development process. In this chapter a philosophical argument about ‘who owns the curriculum, who owns the learning’ is presented, drawing upon ancient Chinese Taoist ideas in a generic and specific quest for wisdom. The Taoist Yin and Yang are symbolically converted into a scholarly relationship between theory and practice, as praxis. The author’s praxis development of the core curriculum schema has also generated several innovative concepts, models, expressions and processes, such as: • The Twilight Curriculum—the individual student’s self-initiated personal and professional development. • The concept of ‘compotency’—a hybridisation of concepts such as capability, capacity and competency. • A model for Praxis Development incorporating a figure eight loop that integrates research, experience and compotency. • The notion of Career Constructivism—building effectiveness initiated through critical on and off-campus community experience. • Presenting a curriculum model as Mandala—an ancient Sanscrit geoglyph style based on intricate, interconnected and convoluted circles with priority positioning towards the centre. • The notion of a Venn Trigram as a model for describing student development pathways from epistemic framework to personal and professional attributes. ���� The notion of integrated three stage development modes as nested ellipsoids. In Chapter 8 the Undergraduate Core Curriculum Mandala constructed in Chapter 6 is ‘reverse engineered’ in order to more fully explain the components in particular, the developmental process as an evolution from epistemic sources to effective student attributes producing job ready graduates who have truly learnt how to learn. Chapter 9 presents a conclusion to the thesis. The research outcomes are briefly re-outlined and attention is drawn to the plight of rural communities and the need for a different kind of graduate—a need that could be satisfied by utilising the proposed Core Curriculum Schema to inform undergraduate curriculum design. Reservations are expressed about challenges to the status quo in modern commercial universities in that staff and student cultures are so ingrained that adoption of the proposed schema or any such diversion from a traditional model,would not be an easy. I believe that a transformational journey of approaches to undergraduate education is inevitable if undergraduate agriculture in particular is to remain viable as a tertiary field of study. Chapter 9 is concluded with a personal reflection of the scope and focus of this thesis. A plea is made for raising the status of the undergraduate curriculum as a finale to the argument. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/216351 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Langford, Kenneth V., University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, School of Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
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