Development Education Resources and Methodologies - Centres

This session commenced with a presentation by Deidre O'Rourke with the promise 'to practice what we preach, in a workshop type activity, we will show how PLM works!'. Sadly no such workshop type activity eventuated maybe a result of the layout of the lecture hall or limitations of time. However, Deidre did elaborate on an interesting approach to participatory learning approaches in her presentation, Development education and participative learning methodologies (PLM) at Third Level. Deidre and her colleague's biggest challenge seems to be how to integrate PLM into large student group settings. By large group settings here we are talking about 200 students! Certainly a challenge indeed. Deidre highlighted something that I have come across many times when I talk to teachers or lecturers and that is the 'resistance of students to participatory methods and approaches'. But is it really 'student resistance'? Very often I have found that such student resistance can be easily and quickly overcome but then again I am often dealing with much smaller groups. Having said that I am more inclined to think that it is more the resistance of Third Level Institutes (TLIs) to participatory and collaborative forms of learning that is the problem (see Why is the university a bad place for learning?). Coupled with this is an educational system which from day one militates against any substantial forms of collaborative and critical learning. So until TLIs stop placing emphasis on knowledge banking and regurgitation, with appraisal and assessment based around this, then of course students are not going to see much value in the types of learning that PLM try to encourage. Deidre also highlighted another interesting issue in the general student body. That of using the terminology that is expected by the lecturer. Kind of mirrors the behaviour of many development practitioners who are equally guilty of using the terminology expected by the donor!

It was great to listen to Deidre and the efforts she and her colleagues are making. The challenge is considerable and one that is being taken up elsewhere. As I have posted on many times before the Learning and Teaching for Transformation (LTT) initiative is trying to address similar challenges and constraints that Deidre is facing at Third Level. They have collated a number of experiences and case studies, from the global north and south, that demonstrate how these challenges can be overcome but more importantly how innovative and novel collaborative and participatory approaches can improve student and TLI learning (emphasis on the latter). It would be great to hear from other lecturers at Third level in Ireland trying to grapple with similar issues regarding PLM.