Doing it Differently

(return to School of Co-creativity)

HEAD / HEART / HAND / HUMOUR

• Whereas conventional universities used to assume that knowledge is stored in the brain, our pedagogy will acknowledge the importance of the ancient brainstem, which connects to the whole endocrine system. For this reason we have re-calibrated our learning approach in a way that reconciles 'Head-oriented' ways of learning with other ways of knowing at the 'Hand, 'Heart' and 'Humour'. These names are not meant to describe specific scientific approaches. They are just a handy reminder that 'thinking' is not just an isolated brain activity. It is augmented and supported by endeavours that may also be 'hands-on', emotional, sensory, playful and gregarious.

• Our holistic approach values individual differences between learners as an asset to effective teamwork. We therefore created a fourfold model that reconciles head, hand, heart and humour. The 'Hand' con stands for tacit ways of knowing that include sensing, and the haptic skills of doing and making. The 'Heart' icon represents emotional intelligence that may be experienced as conscience, feelings of shame or pride, empathy and 'gut feeling'. Importantly, we will also encourage 'Humour' because co-creativity can be stressful and is often aided by some levity and the kind of playfulness that can sometimes lead to unexpected innovation. Moreover, humour as a way to embrace failure when we take a chance on a creative hunch.

The SELF System

• Our SELF is a simple mapping tool that helps learners to navigate their situation or predicament. It helps learners to manage their predicament and options in a creative and potentially entrepreneurial way. It can enable them to create options and opportunities that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. When used honestly and creatively it can diminish the importance of individual assessment by tutors because it enables the learner to map a realistic professional context that may include an external 'reader' (e.g. 'potential client). We developed this simple framework in 1992 and have proved its worth in several countries. It makes plagiarism futile and hard to hide.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

• One reason why we do not encourage the use of generative AI systems is because many universities have allowed themselves to become hostages in an arms race between the artificial learning simulators and the gadgets designed to detect their use. In any case, AI systems cannot think or feel in the human sense. The have no imagination, heart, limbs, or soul, therefore your conscience cannot be converted into a LLM (Large Language Model). (see AI versus Ecological Wisdom).

ChatGPT versus Gradescope

ADAPTABILITY

• We applaud the growing appreciation of neurodiversity's importance for co-creative teams. While the Newtonian logic of ‘scholastic rigour’ may sound convincing in speeches to funding councils it is a dubious metaphor when applied to creative learning and research.

CHILDLIKE GENIUS

• Unlike the Enlightenment's exceptionalist idea of 'genius' as an individual man with a dazzling and exceptional intellect, NASA defined it in a way that resembles the playful and co-creative abilities of a five year old child.

CO-CREATIVITY

• Koestler's term 'bisociation' challenges the mythology of genius as an isolated and exceptional source of innovation. Instead he emphasised the combinatorial nature of all creative thinking (Koestler, 1961). His method begins when we try to force several seemingly incompatible frames of thought together. This can produce a creative leap that may surprise all. If all creativity is combinatorial (rather than summative or aggregative) they are always co-located. This means that 'creative acts' might equally well derive from different regions of one brain, or from different individuals within a group (see our article on Languaging Co-creation.

HUMAN SCALE THINKING

• The scale of teaching has grown from the Ancient Greek pedagogies of 1:1 teaching into the monolithic institutions of the 21st century. The factory-style methods of the 19th (?) century, led to the managerial processes (ranking & grading / syllabus repetition /standards of fairness / quality-assurance). Driven also by the recent implementation of an unfair fee system, these managerial imperatives now eclipse the need for curiosity and learning for its own sake. While the human mind can conceptualize more than 4 simultaneous social relations (Dunbar, ) we are poor at applying this to more complex situations. Four is a ‘sweet spot’, in cognitive (Fuller, 1949) and mnemonic terms (Cowan, 2001) because our brains 'chunk' information in fours and because quartets imply twice the number of relations than trios, and six times more relations that a duet.

LEARNING BY DOING

• The idea of integrating /embedding intended learning experiences within useful tasks is not new (e.g. apprenticeship schemes). As Ivan Illich put it, "Most learning is not the result of instruction. It is rather the result of unhampered participation in a meaningful setting. " (Ivan Illich - De-Schooling Society)

META-METHODOLOGY

• We will apply our own relevant metadesign tools (c.f. Wood, 2024) that were conceived as a generalised superset of design thinking and a creative framework for re-scoping design.

OPTIMISING ACHIEVEMENT

• Training oneself to generate ‘luckier’ internal narratives in order to become 'luckier' (Wiseman, 2003).

PRESENCE

• The growing use of screen-based technologies appears to have narrowed our attentiveness to the immediate locality. We therefore aim to develop sensory awareness and responsiveness to what is around us.

RESPONSIBLE CITIZENSHIP

• We will encourage learners to become more aware of their thoughts, sensations and feelings and to see and feel their relevance and impact on their immediate locality. We would also encourage them to imagine themselves as co-creative and empathetic agents within the universe as a whole.

RESPONSIBLE EDUCATION

• We envisage our School of Co-Creation as working as a fractal similar to responsible citizenship as described above - i.e. with the University comprising a de-centralised network of tiny, micro-local schools.

SYNERGISTIC REASONING

• The mathematics of synergy in preference to summative reasoning and aggregation

TEAM LEARNING APPROACH

• We find the 'lone genius' (Enlightenment) myth to be unhelpful as it reduce the effectiveness of good teamwork. Rather than focusing on individual performance we will develop a co-creative team learning approach in which team members learn to develop reciprocal support for their respective passions and interests. We will use Hellinger’s Constellation workshops as a diagnostic and team development method.

WISDOM REDEFINED

• We will continue to re-define the concept of Wisdom as a perpetual task. Our current definition acknowledges the role of ignorance within a whole system that includes non-human forms of life. Learners are invited to integrating and harnessing diverse ways of thinking. Used in conjunction with the Self Evaluated Learning Framework it should help individual learners to developing their metacognitive sense of themselves. It will mean encouraging learners to apply critical skills of reasoning to their lived experiences and ethical views. (c.f. Wood, 2024, AI v. Ecological Wisdom).