What’s Good What’s Bad? Conceptualising Teaching and Learning Methods as Technologies Using Actor Network Theory in the Context of Palestinian Higher Education

Abstract

This paper analyses problem-based learning (PBL) as part of an Actor Network within the (2016–2019) Erasmus Plus Project ‘Modernization of Teaching Methodologies in Higher Education: EU experience for Jordan and Palestinian Territory’ (METHODS). This project introduced a range of learning modalities into formal learning contexts in higher education settings in Jordan (4 universities) and Palestine (4 universities). The project was jointly led by the University of Jordan and the University of Birzeit, Palestine, and there were six European partner universities. The paper focuses on the positioning of PBL approaches as a socio-intellectual technology within an Actor Network through which the impacts of the project might be analysed. PBL is conceptualised as an actant in a heterogenous network of human and non-human actors that reframes the participants’ relationships with each other and the network within which they are located. Equally, through this reframing, the paper considers whether greater realisations of self-organisation and agency are enacted or evidenced within the findings of semi-structured group interviews with students and corresponding staff across a range of undergraduate courses in the arts and sciences within the Palestinian context.