becoming jelly presentation 2.0

Becoming Jelly:A call for gelatinous pedagogy

within higher education

Søren S.E. Bengtsen, Assistant Professor, PhDRikke T. Nørgaard, Assistant Professor, PhD

Centre for Teaching Development and Digital MediaAarhus University, Denmark

BackgroundDIVERSITY AT THE HEART OF PEDAGOGY

• A hightened focus on diversity in learning processes across discourses

PARADOXICALLY NOT ABLE TO CONCEPTUALIZE DIVERSITY

• Unintentionally ”betraying” mongrel and diverse learning processes

VISIBLE AND CLOAKED PROGRESSSION

(1) Visible and evident learning

(2) maturation, growth, authenticity

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

• Assimilation and reduction, scripted and plotdriven learning narratives

NEW WAYS OF NOTICING & FRAMING LEARNING PROCESSES

the use of a rare and singular measuring-rod, almost a frenzy: the feeling of heat in things which feel cold to all other persons: a divining of values for which scales have not yet been invented: a sacrificing on altars which are consecrated to an unknown God (Nietzsche 2006: 50)

We need new ways of conceptually evoking the nerve of learning practices

SPEAKING FROM THE INTERIOR AF THE EVENT – AN EMBEDDED PERSPECTIVE

Now then, imagine the importance of a language or system of expressive signs whose function was not to tell us about things but to present them to us in the act of executing themselves (Ortega 1975: 138)

Lodge the research perspective within the learning processes themselves

Agenda

Gelatinous pedagogy?

Crossing boundaries

Networked students

Making students matter

The course ”Design: theories, methods

& practices”& 3 core learning goals

Be innovative towards

technological and educational tendencies

Innovative use of media to present and reflect on the educational design

Design part of an ICT-based educational

design

The course ”Design: theories, methods

& practices”& 3 core learning goals

1. Be innovative towards

technological and educational tendencies

Innovative use of media to present and reflect on the educational design

Design part of an ICT-based educational

design

The course ”Design: theories, methods

& practices”& 3 core learning goals

1. Be innovative towards

technological and educational tendencies

Innovative use of media to present and reflect on the educational design

Design part of an ICT-based educational

design

• Digital competencies

• Design thinking

• Collaborative inquiry

• Digital literacy

• Design ability

• Hacker confidence

• Youtube channels & videos

• Twitter

• Maker spaces• FabLabs

• 3D printers• Makey Makey• Digital

fabrics

The course ”Design: theories, methods

& practices”& 3 core learning goals

1. Be innovative towards

technological and educational tendencies

Innovative use of media to present and reflect on the educational design

2. Design part of an ICT-based

educational design

• Digital competencies

• Design thinking

• Collaborative inquiry

• Digital literacy

• Design ability

• Hacker confidence

• Youtube channels & videos

• Twitter

• Maker spaces• FabLabs

• 3D printers• Makey Makey• Digital

fabrics

The course ”Design: theories, methods

& practices”& 3 core learning goals

1. Be innovative towards

technological and educational tendencies

3. Innovative use of media to present and

reflect on the educational design

2. Design part of an ICT-based

educational design

• Digital competencies

• Design thinking

• Collaborative inquiry

• Digital literacy

• Design ability

• Hacker confidence

• Youtube channels & videos

• Twitter

• Maker spaces• FabLabs

• 3D printers• Makey Makey• Digital

fabrics

Crossing boundaries

We need new ways of conceptually speaking from the interior of students interactions and experiences by evoking and embracing

• Students criss-crossing domains to own pathways – not just growing or progressing?

Crossing boundaries

We need new ways of conceptually speaking from the interior of students interactions and experiences by evoking and embracing

• Students criss-crossing domains to own pathways – not just growing or progressing?

• Activities as being in bloom or becoming beached?

• Contexts as mattering or maddening?

Making students matterRather than requiring of students that they grow – according to plan – and find their voice – which is to say an accademically acceptable voice – that we as teachers or educational designers can accept as ‘students found voice’ – it is our concept and understanding of ‘voice’ that needs to grow and find our students.

In order for them

• to matter

• to take matter into their own hands

Making students matterRather than requiring of students that they grow – according to plan – and find their voice – which is to say an accademically acceptable voice – that we as teachers or educational designers can accept as ‘students found voice’ – it is our concept and understanding of ‘voice’ that needs to grow and find our students.

In order for them

• to matter

• to take matter into their own hands

• to take mattering into their own hands

Networked studentsWe need new tools - like the metaphor of the jelly – for thinking about and conceptually evoking the nerve of learning practices where students are equally networking and being networked

External shapers

1. students shaping themselves by networking others

2. students being shaped by being networked

Internal movers

3. students moving themselves by networking others

4. students being moved by being networked

Networked studentsWe need new tools - like the metaphor of the jelly – for thinking about and conceptually evoking the nerve of learning practices where students are equally networking and being networked

External shapers

1. students shaping themselves by networking others

2. students being shaped by being networked

Internal movers

3. students moving themselves by networking others

4. students being moved by being networked

Weirdness in HE

Weird learning

• No guarantees of growth, or that HE leads anywhere, charm/allure

• Skills only partially perfected, premature ideas, half-formed thoughts

Weird teaching

• Acknowledge, handle and act on idiosyncratic and ”troublesome” knowledge

• Pedagogy of doubt: constantly critical evaluation of your own capacity

Weird thinking

• Is it possible to think learning detached from ideals of progression and growth?

• Reconsider implicit connection between ”virtue” and learning

The limits of JellyNew hierarchy

• Giving priviledge to certain learning and thinking styles

• Sacrificing one segment of students on the behalf of others

Warning – Obscurity ahead!

• Trying too hard? – poeticized and artificial construction

• The jelly as master trope risks assimilating other relevant tropes

Potentials of jelly

A jelly vocabulary• Giving voice to educational run-ups, flawed ideas, blind alleys

The jelly as a trope for networked learning• Makes possible learning without progression and ennoblement

Gelatinous pedagogy• Enables us to perceive, understand and support mongrel

learning

Jellified organisation• Invites to rethinking assessment and strategies for supporting

students