Towards auto/pedagogy:A reflexive auto/biographic case study of professional learning mediated by technology

Abstract

Tracing the development of my thinking and professional practice from the late 1980s to the present day, this thesis uses the auto/biographic method developed at CCCU by Linden West (e.g. West, 2004), in combination with a personal, reflexive dialogic hermeneutic redolent of the epistemological approaches of liberation theologians in the 1970s and 1980s, to evaluate critically the influence of five illustrative moments on the generation of new knowledge. The thesis argues that demonstrable learning gains were made when particular factors came together in these autobiographical moments. The insertion of the slash "/" in auto/biography denotes the self-directed reflection on these narratives, carried out systematically in order to derive meaning from them. The process of critical reflection on the narratives interwoven with reading around epistemology, the self and (information) technology, led to a framework emerging. Within the illustrative moments there appear to be four factors that, in combination, cause learning to occur: need, knowledge, networks and the application of newly-acquired knowledge in a new context or setting. Phonically, the framework can be argued to be N4. I argue that in the 21st Century, especially where what is to be learned is something technological, learning most likely occurs when all these factors are present. Recognising this to be a personal phenomenon I adopt the term auto/pedagogy to describe it since I believe that learning is a personal commitment to changing the state of one's being.