Designing for Emergent Learning

Re: Designing for Emergent Learning

by Scott Johnson -
Number of replies: 4

Jenny, one way to become stuck is to couple the question with its answer in an attempt to streamline the process of inquiry. "This looks like a THIS therefore it is resolved by a THAT. We cheat the problem of its ability to teach by first supposing we recognize it and then search out the answer. Or we have an answer and alter the question to fit? (Is this a description of jumping to a conclusion?

How about changing the term "risky" to "unconfident"? To me, the change of words lowers the price of being wrong and it also might lower the urge to be "right" over a more productive speculative approach. To walk away from a known answer may be risky but it also may allow us a new and better answer.

I like the footprint idea as it seems to decouple question and answer. Listening to a situation and recording without struggling to resolve it is what I see in the patterns.

This is interesting: On The Reality of Congitive Illusions http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~martin/Csci6402/Papers/kahneman-tversky.pdf

In reply to Scott Johnson

Re: Designing for Emergent Learning

by Roy Williams -

One and All ...

encountering the world as it is rather than as it is modeled to be ...

...that is an interesting question ...

The footprints are at one level a complex model, referencing many, many people, texts, and practices, which could obscure our perception.  But we try to work with the paradox of encountering the world as it is, while using the semiotic tools we have - by framing the enterprise (it is a 'continuous beta' or WIP) as a palette-for-description. 

So, we try to attempt no more than to describe the way we encounter the world (of learning and much else besides) as it is - as learners, as designer, as participant researchers, as facilitators. We offer a palette, but its an open palette, as all palettes must be.  

Use some of the colours/factors we have put on the palette, if they are fit for your description of your  engagement with the world as it is. In the process you are ikely to find that you are describing yourself - your emergent self - too, and that can be quite unsettling.  Ignore particular colours/factors, leave them aside if they are 'not applicable'.  Re/Mix new concepts/colours if you need new ones, and share with us, please.

Latour sets us a challenge, i.e. to get the description right, in which case most of the analysis will flow from it automatically. That's a big ask, and I'm not sure if it allows enough role for the imagination, but its one way to think about it. 

 

 

In reply to Roy Williams

Re: Designing for Emergent Learning

by Barbara Berry -

Hi Roy, 

I really like the idea/metaphor you are proposing - the "palette" - as a way of "describing" my engagement with the world or I wonder if it is my perception of what is going on at a point in time that I am describing? Either way, its an opportunity to paint and thus "see" one's experience of the situation one is describing. By mapping my experience, I am able to see something but without comparing this to another I might not be able to see a full picture or what is possible. I am not sure how by painting the picture I can see my potential as a learner? I am not sure "analysis will flow automatically". What are your thoughts about this?

I am so glad we are going to get practical with our footprints....my head is spinning with all of the comments and I need to ground myself in a real map : )

cheers, 

Barb

In reply to Barbara Berry

Re: Designing for Emergent Learning

by Roy Williams -

Barb, a footprint is exactly that - its what you leave behind you at a particular point in time and space. 

You can try to describe what's in your mind as it happens, but that's really difficult.  I would advise a little room for retrospection - the amount is up to you. 

Your next choice is what particular point (or points) in time you select - we advise creating a 'design' footprint (the footprint you as designer are hoping will describe the experience of most participants at the start, or the footprint you as a learner experience/d at the start of the learning event).  

You can then add a number of footprints of later stages of your experience of the event, or of most people's experience of the event (if you are a researchers, and are trying to interpret data from participants and visualise it).  How many? Depends on how many distinct phases or stages you describe. 

Painting a picture is, in our experience as describers of our own experience, a strange experience in itself, and most often surfaces things and thoughts and feelings that you (as footprint creator) were not that aware of.  So, who knows what will happen?  You have to try it and see ...

The analysis will follow?  Its an interesting dream, and a demagogical conceit of Latour's.  For us we just want to create a number of descriptions and visualizations that people can use to start conversations with themselves and with others about what 'actually' happended. We can take it quite a bit futher than that, but that's another webinar! We need to cross this bridge first!

In reply to Roy Williams

Re: Designing for Emergent Learning

by Barbara Berry -

Hi Roy, 

Excellent I am keen to get these footprints underway! I watched the video on your wiki last night - it is very good! Thanks to Jenny for pointing us to it in prep for your webinar today. I will try both the digital tool and the pencil/paper version. I rather like the interactive possibilities of the digital and I suspect it will potentially yield a different experience. 

Good advice to generate the footprint as "designer" at the start of what we are hoping for. This will definately yield material for conversation not only at the beginning but over the duration of the course. 

Sorry to miss you all in the webinar today! I had previously agreed to attend student final project presentations in one of the courses that I have been involved in as a design consultant. I am sorry about this but I will come back this evening to the webinar and will back back in the conversation later as well.

Barb