COM3001 : Natural Systems Approaches : Nature of Informal Culture

1. Nature of informal culture in Ontario Universities

The major problem that arose in the Ontario University was related to the job opportunities for university graduates and the implications of the same on the educational culture of the university affected the mindset of students at the University of Ontario. According to Cote and Allahar (2007) the students of the university suffered from disengagement due to the various internal and external factors that were affecting the university. The university along with similar institutions in the country did experience significant increase in the number of attending students. However, the students were sometimes pushed to attend the university due to the strong government inclinations towards higher education. As a result many of the students were not prepared for the rigorous university curriculum hence resulting in an informal culture that hampered the effective educational framework of the institution (Nast, 2015). It undermined learning goals as due to the disengaged attitudes of many of the students the students that were motivated at the beginning lost much of it at crucial junctures of their academic endeavors. Academic goals became weaker due to the environment of the university.

Rational systems can be utilized in the case. However, structural and functional changes within the university can only be beneficial to a certain extent. This is mainly due to the fact that the students are mostly disengaged due to obvious reasons (Muhar et al., 2018). In order to make the students perform better and get motivated, natural systems mechanisms can be effectively utilized. Mentoring and moral boosting attitudes from the end of the faculties can greatly help towards making the students more curriculum oriented in their focus. It has to be effectively implemented and at times symbolic rewards can also be provided to students. The main issue is the lack of new jobs for the students that graduate. Thus, it is important to create an environment where students can be made aware of the multifaceted benefits of the higher study courses that students enroll in (Liu et al., 2015). Mentoring can include student teacher interactive sessions and even special tours. Communication can be effectively used by the faculty in order to induce better student engagement. Thus, the organization needs to focus more on the values, aspects and factors that can attract the students to the university curriculum. It is important to establish goals with students at the center.

2. Implications of Progressivism in today’s schools

Progressive learning focuses on enhancing the optimal learning capabilities of students. In a broader sense it focuses on making the students not only good learners but also develop their personalities at the same time so that they can become better individuals. This is important as along with the learning requirements of the students, growth of personality and complete development is necessary. The current situations focus more on the external learning outcomes and motivations. Students are asked to be more focused towards getting better grades in classes and achieve their syllabus requirements. However the model proposed by Kohn (2008) that focuses on complete development oriented teaching perspectives and developing intrinsic affinity towards education is much required in the existing situations concerning traditional education.

Education is now mostly focused towards developing the students in terms of achieving better assessment grades. This makes the students more focused towards achieving better results than gaining better learning outcomes through their studies. The educational values of the students are not properly evaluated through this criteria (Lackéus et al., 2016). Thus it becomes much important to implement specific changes that are focused towards developing the human aspect of the students along with the educational aspects. Students often feel disengaged in the currently existing educational framework. This is mainly due to the fact that they are very much monotonous and at times stereotypical concerning their attitudes towards education. It is important all the essential aspects pointed out by Kohn are given equal importance towards effectively developing educational systems. The specific area where the suggestions of Kohn (2008) can be implemented is towards the existing assessment techniques that are implemented across schools. The assessments are more focused towards assessing the memory of the students. In this regards, the collaboration aspect that is emphasized through the progressive learning models can be used. Collaborative assessments that depend more on the performance of students in interactive classes can point towards significant developmental aspects of students rather than measure their abilities only through uncertain assessment techniques (Mitrofanenko, 2018). Moreover, in order to keep the students motivated to learn more and optimize their educational abilities intrinsic motivation can be enhanced through the implementation of progressivism. Deep understanding can help to create relational aspects of students with schools that stay with them throughout their lives.

References:

Côté, J. E., & Allahar, A. L. (2007). Ivory tower blues: A university system in crisis. University of Toronto Press.

Kohn, A. (2015). Progressive education: Why it's hard to beat, but also hard to find.

Lackéus, M., Lundqvist, M., & Middleton, K. W. (2016). Bridging the traditional-progressive education rift through entrepreneurship. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 22(6), 777-803.

Liu, J., Mooney, H., Hull, V., Davis, S. J., Gaskell, J., Hertel, T., ... & Li, S. (2015). Systems integration for global sustainability. Science, 347(6225), 1258832.

Muhar, A., Raymond, C. M., van den Born, R. J., Bauer, N., Böck, K., Braito, M., ... & Mitrofanenko, T. (2018). A model integrating social-cultural concepts of nature into frameworks of interaction between social and natural systems. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 61(5-6), 756-777.

Nast, J. (2015). Bowen Paulle 2013: Toxic Schools. High?poverty Education in New York and Amsterdam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 39(1), 181-183.