So I realized, over reading week, I have been lying to my students.
I have been telling them this is a new unit. Which it is.
But I have also been telling them I haven’t done this before, which isn’t really the case.
It’s really just a collection of lots of previous ideas and approaches collected into one space.
Before we go any further, maybe I should explain what I’m selling. This blog series is about a unit on sustainable design that is delivered in a non-standard way. It contains 5 formative assessments, all of which had 100% engagement, and some amazing outcomes (we will get to that later). There are very few lectures (I was aiming for zero). It uses authentic projects, a few books, and a reflective assessment which focuses on the learning that has occurred during the unit. In other words, it is not just a new unit, it is the new way of doing units. I hope by exploring different aspects you can see how this approach is both grounded in the scholarship of teaching and learning and also can see it as a case study for your own units.
The plan for the series looks like this:
1. The design of the unit content.
2. The design of the assessment.
3. In the classroom.
4. Pedagogy, andragogy, heutagogy, academagogy, in fact – all of the gogy’s.
5. “Teaching” regenerative design.
6. Reflections and lessons learnt.
Before I finish, I wanted to share with you a conversation I had recently with my son, who is studying at another institution and has a lecturer called Gavin. For context, back in 2015 I gave a ‘Best of Bristol’ lecture where I used children’s books (including the classic Not Now Bernard) to get across my ideas on engineering, creativity and the climate emergency[1].
This comical conversation made me reflect on the transient nature of my teaching. How what I teach and the way I teach is constantly changing. In part it reflects my own current life stage. In 2015 I had just left the reading picture books to my children part of my life behind, having greatly enjoyed it for a decade, and maybe reading the books to 600 people was my last hurrah. But I think it also reflects my desire to iterate and be playful in the way I approach designing teaching and learning. And maybe that is the thread that runs through this series, it is about creating opportunity to be playful. About iteration and the importance of reflection. To not get stuck delivering the same thing over and over again in the same way because it is efficient, but to have fun, take chances and see what happens.
This sounds exciting, James. I’m really looking forward to it. (Having just this term delivered a new unit where I tried to be a bit ‘radical’, I’m keen to learn about ideas for pushing its design further next year.)
Love the idea of “creating opportunity to be playful”. We certainly need more of those! Thanks for this blog James.
Can’t wait to hear what happens! Especially what the formative assessments are – is this full on problem based learning?