From Nicolaus of Cusa to
Graduates for the 21st Century: Personalising knowledge-based skills
and toolkits for staff and students
Professor Brian Whalley (Geography)
What is this about?
Amongst many books, Nicholas of Cusa wrote De Docta
ignorantia ‘On Learned Ignorance’ (1440). More recently, Donald
Rumsfeld gave us ‘unknown unknowns’. However, ‘Modern universities through trial, error and experiment, … are now
trying to find new ways of thinking and acting that will help them to prosper’
(Nature 16th October 2014). This presentation is aimed at colleagues looking
after modules and programmes, dealing with employability and communication
skills, digital and information literacies etc. That is, all who are involved
with ways to enhance students’ ways of ‘thinking and acting’ in the HE context.
Experience shows that students do not always realise that they may be
incorporating skills and employability attributes in their day-to-day
education. Skills education, by its very diversity, needs to be practiced by
more than ‘examination and essay’ and shown how ignorance can be turned into
knowledge. Tools for identifying, promoting and personalising skills will be
presented and related to assessment practices. Students need transparency and
this can be achieved by specifying embedded skills, especially at early stages
in their HE sojourn. We shall also see how Cormier’s idea of ‘rhizomatic
education’ might be developed in this context by considering skills practice as
a ‘mycorrhizal system’.
How will colleagues
benefit?
Colleagues
will benefit from discussion about procedures and practices in ‘skills’
education. Colleagues will be able to take away ideas of good practice (and
what works and what doesn’t) to develop in their own subject areas. They will
also be able to show students and employers the benefits of a wide range of
skills developed in their undergraduate programmes.
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