We sense that the distinctions between formal and informal learning are becoming increasingly blurred, yet we still resort to using such terms. Within doctoral education – the focus of my thesis – the dichotomy is particularly ambiguous and unreliable.

Even if we think of formal and informal learning as a continuum, where do we place something like presenting at a conference, or publishing a paper? These are rarely formal requirements of a PhD, yet there is an expectation that a doctoral student actively pursues such opportunities. What about attending seminars, or taking on a teaching role? Where might we place these? And how do different disciplines, faculties and doctoral programmes determine the importance of these practices?

Universities assume the custodianship of doctoral learning through the formal induction and integration of PhD students within a supportive research environment; one that provides supervision, research training and facilities, and other support services, and fosters a mentor- and peer-based community of practice. Wenger (1998) describes practice as a dialectic relationship between participation and reification. A learner’s trajectory can therefore be understood in the interrelated dimensions of greater participation and engagement within an academic community and increased familiarity with the signs and discourses that reify that participation.

According to Davies and Mangan (2006), models such as communities of practice provide a social regulation of learning. Whilst the individual student develops a unique set of reference points to his or her learning process, these must attain legitimacy within the context of the community he or she is acting. Since communities derive their coherence from particular ways of practicing, they regulate how the student’s progress can be recognised as learning. This is usually manifest as curricula and the attainment of qualifications. In doctoral education, where there is less of a structured programme and accreditation, and a far greater emphasis on student efficacy and negotiated study, this notion of legitimacy as a characteristic of the learning trajectory becomes particularly useful.

My own research and teaching indicate that the lack of recognition associated with the adoption and use of social media (and their related artefacts, such as blog posts) compared to established scholarly pursuits – getting a paper published or presenting at a conference – can be a major disincentive for postgraduate researchers. Yet in my own field of study, it is expected that I become familiar with, and actively engage in the social web, because of its elevated status as a legitimate academic practice within my research communities and networks.

References

Davies, P., & Mangan, (2006). Trajectories of students’ learning: threshold concepts and subject learning careers. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for Research in Higher Education, University of Brighton.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, meaning and identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

In researching approaches to digital identity, I recently came across a model which I found particularly interesting. In their schema of experiential learning, Usher, Bryant et al. (1996) describe how lifelong learning can be understood in relation to two continua (autonomy to adaptation, and application to expression) which create four specific contemporary social practices: lifestyle, confessional, vocational, and critical.

The idea of identity formation is particularly evident in the two opposing practices of the confessional and the critical:

Confessional Practice

Drawing largely on Foucault’s notion of the ‘confession’ – which they describe as a “ritual that unfolds within a power relationship” – Edwards and Usher (2001) argue that in a confessional practice, the learner adopts the dominant socio-economic environment. In a process where the “externally imposed discipline has given way to the self-discipline of an autonomous subjectivity,” (12-13) the learner is disempowered in accepting the dominant (or often solitary) model of learning, aligning his subjectivities with formal educational discourses to articulate his own learning needs. Here, the pedagogic emphasis is on self-improvement, self-development and self-evaluation, which Tenant (2009) observes is particularly manifest in learning plans and portfolio development. This promotes a modernist notion of identity; one that is stable, unified, coherent and developmental.

Critical Practice

Critical perspectives argue that – unlike in the confessional practice, where empowerment is illusory – practice authenticates empowerment through self and social transformation. Autonomy is achieved through questioning, challenging and potentially changing (rather than adapting to) particular learning contexts. Meanings are not a given, but are produced through discursive practices (Tenant, 2009). Corresponding literature on critical pedagogies emphasises the politics of representation in the cultural processes of learning and education, and sees representation of self as a socially and politically constituted agent that shapes identity formation. Edwards and Usher (2001) see critical practice as promoting a postmodernist perspective which understands culture as an ongoing process, in a state of constant flux, and recognises that identity can be multiple, fragmentary and pseudonomic.

So how does identity formation within these two practices translate to the formation of digital identities and reputations, and to the representation(s) of self on the social web?

References

Edwards, R., & Usher, R. (2001). Lifelong Learning: A Postmodern Condition of Education? Adult Education Quarterly. 51, 273-287.

Tennant, M. (2009). Lifelong learning as a technology of the self. In Illeris, K., Contemporary Theories of Learning. London: Routledge. 147-158.

Usher, R., Bryant, I., & Johnston, R. (1996). Adult Education and the Postmodern Challenge: Learning Beyond the Limits. London: Routledge.

Howard Gardner – well-known for his multiple intelligences theory – discusses his new book, 5 Minds for the Future, in a lecture at the RSA. Shifting from the purely cognitive, towards a social policy response to globalisation and technological innovation. he argues today’s learners need to adopt to flexible, inter-disciplinary ‘outside-the-box’ thinking by cultivating five key mental capacities:

• The Disciplinary Mind
• The Synthesizing Mind
• The Creating Mind
• The Respectful Mind
• The Ethical Mind

The Disciplinary Mind

Here, Gardner refers primarily to the academic disciplines. Whilst acknowledging the necessity to achieve mastery in one discipline (which usually takes a minimum of 10 years), he stresses the need to recognise the distinctive (and essentially unnatural) ways of thinking in other major schools of thought.

The Synthesizing Mind

Quoting physicist Murray Gell-Man – who proposed the synthesizing mind will be the most important in the 21st century – Gardner suggests this is the most urgently required of the five minds, yet remains the least supported in formal education. Synthesis requires the ability to integrate ideas from different disciplines into a coherent whole that is communicable to others. Gardner argues the best synthesizers are those who can cultivate and master synthesizing methods or strategies using a range of formats – maps, taxonomies, narrative etc., – which are best developed through goal-driven and feedback processes.

The Creating Mind

The capacity to identify new problems, questions and phenomena. Creativity is not just a cognitive process, but is reliant on personality traits of temperament and attitude, and on feedback from others in the field.

The Respectful Mind

The ability to empathize; to acknowledge, understand and eventually contest the views of others.

The Ethical Mind

The fulfillment of one’s professional responsibilities and moral obligations as a citizen.

Gardner acknowledges integration of the five minds is prone to tensions, and that most individuals will have a tendency towards some over others, He concludes by emphasizing the need to expose students to communities and societies in which the qualities derived from these minds are both encouraged and prevalent.