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S E L F

(acronym for our 'Self Evaluated Learning Framework')

One White Bit (see the breadth of our mission and some key terms including measurement
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One White Bit Noun University 4829757 Noun Stealing Money 2081308
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"If the purpose of education is to score well on a test, we've lost sight of the real reason for learning."
One White Bit (Richard Feynman)

Current approaches

  • Making assessment fairer often means excluding the more exceptional learners.
  • Indeed, as all learning is unique to the learner it defies standardised academic assessment methods.
  • It usually reflects performance (e.g. scholastic, discipline-related) rather than on learning.
  • It also calls for performance evaluation by individual experts in the relevant academic topics.

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One White Bit Tetrahedral SELF

Top-down assessment

  1. In the 21st century, fair assessment procedures became vital to the university business model.
  2. As education markets became more monetised, grades became more valued than learning.
  3. The grading normally takes place as a top-down process managed by academic experts.
  4. Indeed, many academics prefer to punish plagiarism rather than rethink the purpose of learning.
  5. Recently, AI has facilitated a technological arms race between students and teachers.

Re-defining the status of plagiarism

  • In a human face-to-face learning environment, SELF changes plagiarism virtually impossible.
  • It helps learners to identify and evaluates 6 relationships within the learning process that are unique to them.
  • The SELF system is designed to encourage self-aware, entredonneurial, ethically responsible modes of learning.
    • It requires learners to assign a purpose and a recipient, user, or stakeholder for the outcome of their activities.
    • It also requires them to specify what they have learned within what they define as their larger context.
    • It may require them to formulate outcome-seeking (rather than answer-seeking) questions.
  • The SELF system encourages learners to design, manage, monitor and improve their own processes of learning.

How It Works

  • It is an evaluation system that harnesses the learner's individual interests and ambitions via self-mapping.
  • It also encourages them to make continuous adjustments while navigating their aims and ambitions.
  • Instead of meeting externally imposed attainment targets the learner maps herself into a self-inclusive framework.
  • This encourages rudimentary levels of imaginative role play - whether collaborative or alone.
  • Instead of the teacher assessing 'specific work' the learner submits a self-reflexive 4D map of their situation.
  • It encourage learners to be more ambitious, entrepreneurial, empathetic and risk-taking.
  • Learners are helped to recognise their own strengths, weaknesses, successes and failures.
  • Instead of judging one thing (i.e. the quality of the work) our relational framework evaluates 10 things.
    • (see below for details of the 4 key agencies and their 6 relations that co-sustain the whole learning framework)

Four-fold thinking

There are practical reasons why we use four-fold logic, including organisational and cognitive benefits. Our system works by inviting the learner to register her situation under four key headings - i.e. 

One White Bit YOU (learner as X)

One White Bit WORK (e.g. proposition)

One White Bit RECIPIENT (for whom it is intended)

One White Bit CONTEXT (background interests)

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Self-mapping the Agenda

YOU means the learner:

  • From the student (or 'learner's') perspective, this is her/his own 'self'. 
  • Here, the self is scaleable:
    • What we refer to as the self may emerge from a vague, internalised moment or feeling 
      • - it might start when the learner becomes aware of a moment of excitement or twinge of conscience
    • The self may be oneself as private individual
    • The self may be onseself as family member
    • The self may be oneself as local neighbour
    • The self may be oneself as professional persona
    • The self may be oneself as global citizen
    • The self may be oneself as a tiny part of the Whole Universe

What we mean by 'THE WORK':

  • A broader notion of 'the work' is what we call the learner's 'proposition'.
  • What we mean by proposition is scaleable 
    • A proposition may be a facial expression 
    • A proposition may be a sign or gesture 
    • A proposition may be an assertion 
    • A proposition may be a belief 
    • A proposition may be an artefact made by the learner 
    • A proposition may be a song, essay or poem by the learner 
  • It always calls for the learner to define the context for any proposition or assertion. 

What we mean by 'THE RECIPIENT':

  • In broad, philosophical terms, the 'recipient' can be thought of as the other. 
  • This is scaleable:
    • e.g. The other may be a 'mate'
    • e.g. The other may be a 'mentor'
    • e.g. The other may be a 'client'
    • e.g. The other may be a 'customer'
    • e.g. The other may be a 'boss'
    • e.g. The other may be a 'government'
    • e.g. The other may be a 'Whole World/Universe'

What we mean by 'Context':

N.B. - ultimately, what we call the Context is everything that is not the Proposition, the Learner, or the Recipient.

  • What we refer to as context is scaleable:
    • The context may be a particular issues under discussion
    • The context may be designated underlying aims (e.g. money, targets)
    • The context may be a given plight/situation at hand
    • The context may be a general concern (social/environmental)
    • The context may be the Earth and its well-being
    • The context may be everything that is NOT the proposition discussed 
    • The context may be the Universe as a Whole 

Benefits of a Relational Approach

  • The Self Evaluation Learning Framework (SELF) encourages learners to take a more self-reflexive approach.
  • It can be used as a framework for comparing belief systems (e.g. religions).
  • It encourages the learner to reflect upon their own value and role.
  • It therefore helps the learner to cultivate stronger self identity, self-respect and responsibility.
  • It represents a radical shift from teacher-imposed focus on 'work' to a focus on learner-managed relations.
  • It encourages a risky and ambitious approach in a space where learning from failure may be rewarded.
  • It facilitates deeper learning through its experiential and playful nature, as a tool. 
  • It helps learners to map out the key elements of any day-to-day situation in a self-reflexive way.
  • It helps build self-confidence and empathy. 
  • It encourages an entrepreneurial spirit.
  • It makes ethical implications explicit to learners.
  • It encourage learners to manage their ambition:
    • (i.e. learners can compensate for the apparent 'failure' of a project by showing how well they have understood and/or managed a difficult task. Ideally, they will also have 'managed' all of the relationships in order to prepare for future development and success.

THE FOUR KEY 'PLAYERS'

  • The four key 'players' can be imagined as: 
One White Bit A=My self-knowing & self-ownership
One White Bit B=The integrity of my idea
One White Bit C=The bigger context (everything that is NOT A,  B or D) 
One White Bit D=My 'mate'/boss/client/customer
One White Bit 1 to 6= One White Bit Each of the relations between A to D

The Tool's History

  • The idea of a relational system for design thinkers was mooted in a conference paper (c.f. Wood, 1992).
  • This inspired John to develop the Self Evaluation Learning Framework for Goldsmiths, University of London. 
  • Since 2004, it is central to learning/assessment on their [http://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-design-futures/|MA Design Futures & Metadesign] programme.  
  • In 2013, a bespoke version was introduced in Icelandic Academy of Arts for their MA Design programme. 
  • In 2022, Birmingham University asked for permission to apply the SELF system on a new BA(Hons) programme.

References

  • Fonagy, P. (2018). "Affect regulation, mentalization and the development of the self". Routledge.
  • Wood, J., (2013), Relational Innovation, Paper presented at the Sustainable Innovation Conference Centre for Sustainable design - 4th-5th November 2013.
  • Wood, J., (2013), Heraclitus and the Tetrahedron, notes from a paper commissioned by Pernilla Glasser. It was performed at Stockholm's NobelMuseum in June 2013. 
  • Wood, J., (2012), In the cultivation of research excellence - is rigour a no-brainer?, article in the Journal of Writing in Creative Practice; Mar 2012, Vol. 5 Issue 1, 11-26
  • Wood, J., (2005) “The Tetrahedron Can Encourage Designers To Formalise More Responsible Strategies”, for the "Journal of Art, Design & Communication", Volume 3 Issue 3, Editor, Linda Drew, UK, ISSN: 1474-273X, pp. 175-192
  • Taylor, P., & Wood, J., (1997), Mapping the Mapper, a chapter in "Computers, Communications, and Mental Models", eds. Donald Day & Diane Kovacs, Taylor & Francis, London, ISBN 0-7484-0543-7, pp. 37-44, January 1997. 
  • Wood, J., (1992), "The Notion of Relational Design"; a paper given at the 17th ICSID  Conference - Ljubljana, Slovenia, 1992 May.

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