ABSTRACT

Automation is becoming increasingly common in higher education. This is generally posed around accepting large number of students while seeking to keep faculty numbers static and casualising an already fragmented academic labour market. Much of this automation is positioned around perceived gains (efficiency, time, cost) and learning personalisation (personal assistants as a means of providing support). Yet there has been little work in exploring how human and student agency, code, algorithms, and further digital instruments might be reconfigured through automation to service the teacher function. In this paper, we draw on a combination of speculative events and qualitative work conducted with students, faculty, and staff across the three colleges at the University of Edinburgh to explore automation as a component of the teacher function assemblage. Through participatory student and teacher-led research and development, narratives of teaching practice and the role of automation in performing aspects of the teacher function emerged. Consequently, this paper offer insights into debates about sociomaterial dimensions of higher education and demonstrates what mobilities are being engendered as a result of the reconfigured teacher function.

摘要

自动化在高等教育中变得越来越普遍。这通常是在招收大量学生，同时力求保持教职员工人数的稳定以及使本已分散的学术劳动力市场不景气的情况下造成的。这种自动化的大部分定位在可感知的收益（效率，时间，成本）和学习个性化（个人助理作为提供支持的手段）周围。然而，探索如何通过自动化来重新配置人员和学生代理，代码，算法以及其他数字仪器以服务于教师功能的工作很少。在本文中，我们结合了对学生，教职员工，和爱丁堡大学三所学院的员工一起探索自动化作为教师功能组合的组成部分。通过以学生和教师为主导的参与式研究和发展，出现了教学实践的叙事以及自动化在执行教师职能方面的作用。因此，本文提供了关于高等教育的社会物质层面的辩论的见解，并说明了由于教师职能的重新配置而引起的各种流动。