Developing a good translation device is not easy. It requires working closely with data and the theory, theory and data, back and forth. However, a high-quality translation device is a necessary component in your research. It supports knowledge building in LCT, makes your research replicable and allows others to apply your tool in their context. Learning a few key strategies can dramatically simplify the process of creating your translation device and improving the quality of your research.
To do this, this workshop will walk you through some of the important components of creating, questioning and refining a LCT translation device for any dimension. This will include: Covering key concepts, Developing appropriate indicators, targets and relations, Selecting effective examples, Testing your device; and, Refining. Participants will be working in pairs and small groups. If possible, they should bring their own data and a laptop. Materials will be provided online before the workshop.
The LCT dimension of Semantics is useful for teachers and researchers who are interested in cumulative learning and knowledge-building. This workshop demonstrates how teaching can build knowledge in segmental and in cumulative ways. Participants will analyse a selection of teaching materials. The strengthening and weakening of semantic gravity and semantic density will help them evaluate the extent to which cumulative knowledge building is evident in the materials.
The workshop will: introduce the dimension of Semantics and its concepts of semantic gravity and semantic density show how semantic 'waves' reveal segmental and cumulative learning patterns provide participants with opportunities to analyse a sample of teaching materials and interpret their potential for knowledge building enable participants to use Semantics to think about segmental and cumulative learning in their own courses and teaching practices
This workshop will be useful for lecturers, teachers who want to improve aspects of their teaching and assessing practices. It is also be invaluable for researchers who are interested in understanding teaching practices. No prior knowledge of Semantics is assumed.
This workshop will focus on how we create assessment tasks, guide students' responses to the tasks, and offer developmental feedback during assessment. Using semantic gravity and semantic density, brought together in both the profile and the semantic plane, we will use a range of examples from teaching and assessment practice to grapple with how we convey meaning to students in the tasks we design, and related teaching. We will also look at how we can use Semantics to guide written and verbal feedback, to enable students to more ably improve their writing and learning in appropriate ways. Specifically, the workshop will aim towards these outcomes: A more practical understanding of Semantics, and adapting it to your context New approaches to conceptualising, writing and teaching academic tasks (especially written) New ways of conceptualising and offering feedback on student writing Examples of assessment tasks, tutor/lecturer feedback, and teaching guidance will be provided by the facilitator. The workshop will be facilitated through small group tasks, and discussion, with small inputs to set up and consolidate the tasks.
This hands-on workshop will focus on how we can ‘see’ constellations of meaning and analyse them in text. It will: ● First introduce the concepts of constellations, charging and cosmology, in terms of how they organise knowledge, ● Second, hone in on two types of constellation: axiological constellations that organise meanings associated with political, moral, aesthetic, or affective stances; and epistemological constellations that organise meanings associated with specialised empirical, technical or procedural knowledge. ● Third, introduce a small set of analytical tools for teasing out the relations between meanings in text and show how this can help us build a ‘map’ of a constellation. ● Fourth, give you an opportunity to dive in, have a go and get your ‘hands dirty’ at building constellations from texts from across a range of fields.
Most people have an intuition that knowledge is built differently in different fields of study, or that in each field, there are some people who are widely accepted and others who aren’t. This workshop will explain, in accessible terms, how Specialization can help us to differentiate between types of knowledge and understand some aspects of the ‘rules of the game’ in many different fields of knowledge, both inside and outside formal education. The workshop will give you the tools to answer the following questions about any knowledge field: What makes this field special? (The Specialization plane) How does this field build knowledge, and knowers? (Knowledge-knower structures) Who’s in charge where? (The epistemic-pedagogic device)
This workshop will be useful for anyone interested in using Specialization in their research or educational practice, or those who are simply curious about the dynamics of knowledge in different contexts. No prior knowledge of Specialization is assumed, and there will be plenty of opportunities to ask questions in a non-threatening environment.
This workshop explores how LCT can be used both ‘frontstage’ and ‘backstage’ to guide pedagogical planning, design and delivery. The workshop focuses on Semantics but will also draw in the Specialisation concepts of knowledge building and knower building. Participants will engage with the following ideas: ● The value of considering educational goals (of a session / module / programme) in knowledge-oriented terms (Specialisation); ● How Semantics can be used to conceive, plan and enact those goals in pedagogy; ● How together, Semantics and Specialisation offer practicable ways to think about notions of ‘quality’ in teaching Participants are encouraged to spend a little time before the session thinking about classes they have taught recently, particularly (if possible) across very different subject areas or student groups. We will draw on the experience in the room and use LCT concepts as lenses through which to explore participants’ own pedagogical thinking and practices. By the end of the session, participants will (hopefully!) take away a renewed sense of how to enact LCT concepts for their own classrooms and educational focuses.
Professor Karl Maton is Director of the LCT Centre for Knowledge-Building at the University of Sydney and Honorary Professor at Rhodes University and the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.
Postgraduate education is assessed through a written thesis but supervisors often battle to make the disciplinary norms explicit. In this workshop, we demonstrate the ways in which Specialization and Semantics can be used to make the tacit rules of disciplinary knowledge creation more explicit in the supervision space. LCT provides key tools that can be used explicitly or more metaphorically to reveal key knowledge building strategies to support students at all stages and across all fields. In this workshop, you will learn how to use LCT concepts: ● in a broad brush-strokes way to help scholars to become more aware of the expectations of the discipline ● in a more explicit, fine-grained manner to scaffold the writing of the thesis ● to reflect on critical issues in the formation of a scholarly identity The activities and strategies that we introduce in the workshop emerge from our own practices as a supervisor and doctoral student. As such, we hope the workshop will be useful to postgraduate supervisors, those academics who plan to supervise in the future, and to those students busy with their own PhD studies. Postgraduate education is assessed through a written thesis but supervisors often battle to make the disciplinary norms explicit. In this workshop, we demonstrate the ways in which Specialization and Semantics can be used to make the tacit rules of disciplinary knowledge creation more explicit in the supervision space. LCT provides key tools that can be used explicitly or more metaphorically to reveal key knowledge building strategies to support students at all stages and across all fields. In this workshop, you will learn how to use LCT concepts: ● in a broad brush-strokes way to help scholars to become more aware of the expectations of the discipline ● in a more explicit, fine-grained manner to scaffold the writing of the thesis ● to reflect on critical issues in the formation of a scholarly identity The activities and strategies that we introduce in the workshop emerge from our own practices as a supervisor and doctoral student. As such, we hope the workshop will be useful to postgraduate supervisors, those academics who plan to supervise in the future, and to those students busy with their own PhD studies.
This hands-on, collaborative workshop is designed for academics wishing to solve a particular problem whether in classroom practice or formal research. If you would like to develop a research project, refine a research question, plan your research design, or tackle your data, this workshop will introduce you to a useful LCT conceptual tool from the Specialisation dimension. The epistemic plane offers a lens through which to get clarity on the what and how of your problem-solving research journey. Participants will be introduced the epistemic plane, given supporting existing examples of its application, and will be able to experiment with: ● Unpacking the key features of a research question ● Planning the research journey ● Developing the research design ● Analysing existing data Participants are encouraged to bring along notes for a particular problem or material related to a challenging element of their current research.
