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Abstract:
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This thesis investigates how innovation as a new pedagogical tool has led to changes in the
modes of learning and in different mechanisms within and around the lessons at a Danish high
school. The innovative pedagogy mindset and tools is analyzed in order to find changes in
motivation, action and attitude toward education among teachers and students at Københavns
åbne Gymnasium. The thesis analyzes connections and divergence between innovation and a
discipline dispositive, and is based on Københavns åbne Gymnasium’s three-year innovation
project (2009-2012). It is investigated whether the students and teachers are educated and
motivated differently when influenced by the mindset and tool of innovative pedagogy compared
to traditionally teacher centered classroom teaching.
Both teachers and students are treated as subjects in the sense of Michel Foucault, where human
beings are made subjects through the power relations they engage with. A dispositive analytical
approach is used in this thesis with reference to Foucault’s power analysis, discipline dispositive
and governmentality, combined with Nicolas Rose’s analysis of freedom as norm for the subjects.
The analysis is approached under the three different themes; transparency, normativity and
subjugation, inspired by the keywords of Michel Foucault’s and Nicolas Rose’s theory and
analysis.
The empirics are based on seven semi-structured interviews with three teachers, two students, a
government official, and an architect, as well as a student journal/diary from 1964, photographs,
architectural drawings and educational regulations.
An analysis of the shifting educational regulations through time shows a new articulation and
awareness of the subject. Before 2003, the students are invisible in the paragraphs describing the
aim of the education. With the reform in 2005 of the educational regulations, the students and the
development of student skills and attitude get a key position in the aim of the education. In the
reform from 2005, it is written, that the students should develop skills for innovation and
creativity.
The analysis shows that the innovative mindset produces new ways of learning and new ways of
teaching. The subjects are working more creatively and independently, involving their own
background and individuality in the work process. In traditional lessons the teacher evaluates the
process and the product. In these innovative projects, all the students evaluate each other, and the
teacher coaches the students in their progress. And it is demonstrated that, as a part of the
innovative pedagogy, the process involve the students and teachers in a more visible way. It
seems that this is motivating both students and teachers in their work.
It is also shown, that there has been a change in the normative approach. In a discipline
dispositive, a good student has certain qualifications, e.g. nice and proper. With a new
innovation dispositive under construction a good student is expected to be creative and inventive.
As a part of the Innovation project Københavns åbne Gymnasium has build new rooms for
learning, called Innovation Rooms. It is demonstrated, that the traditional rooms places the subject in a predetermined position, with the teacher in front of the students, and with the teacher
in a watching position as a supervisor. In the Innovation Rooms, there is no predetermined
position for the furniture or for the subjects. They have to cooperate in making structures and
rules for the ongoing project, and therefore they have to reflect on their roles and their relations.
It is concluded, that a displacement of the discipline dispositive has taken place, influenced by
the innovative practice at KG, and that what I would call an innovation dispositive is under
construction. The innovation dispositive may be perceived as an answer to the problems with
students drop out from the school system and with the absenteeism from classes on a daily basis.
Or it may be perceived as a solution to the challenge of making the independent and selfmanaging
youth function in the discipline dispositive.
To put the thesis into perspective, it is postulated, that the innovation dispositive is a wider trend.
As an important part of the innovative dispositive, there is a positive focus on diversity as a
resource. You may recognize the innovative dispositive in primary and secondary schools in
western societies, and in companies. It is postulated, that people with new skills and new
attitudes and the diversity approach are demanded by a new order in the global market economy.
On the other hand, people demand to be governed in order to succeed in a world of change an
uncertainty.
Finally, it is problematized that an innovation dispositive will cause other subjects to be
overridden. Subjects that are well functioning in the discipline dispositive, may have problems
with the ideas of freedom and with the demand for creativity and self-regulation.
At the end of this thesis, I reflect on what I have learned during my process writing this thesis. I
am the headmaster at Københavns åbne Gymnasium, and it is important for me to think about
how I can govern independent subjects in such a way, that they can develop their creativity and
innovation skills without overriding other subjects. And it is questioned in which way, the ongoing
change caused by the Innovation Project at Københavns åbne Gymnasium can be
governed in an explorative way. |
