Designing educational method “learning otherwise” to re-imagine tomorrow through the arts and sciences
Rotterdam Arts & Sciences Lab (RASL) is a unique collaboration between Erasmus University Rotterdam, Codarts, and Willem de Kooning Academy, lies at the intersection of science and art degrees. This innovative education lab asked us to develop a new method for their minor ´Re-imagining Tomorrow through the Arts & Sciences´. The method we developed enables students to re-imagine tomorrow in a radical way, by re-considering and re-making the ways in which we learn and approach a particular issue. The students use the method to design an ‘experiment’ in which their participants experience ‘learning otherwise’. We guide their process through different sessions which we facilitated in 2021, 2022 and 2023. By combining scientific, embodied, and visual knowledges, students engage in critical and creative thinking, reframing complex societal issues.
A compositional approach to Learning Otherwise
The method we developed is inspired by elements of ‘composing’ (Latour, 2010) and ‘composting’ (Haraway, 2015), combined with the futures literacy framework of ‘reveal, reframe, & rethink’. We call this method “a compositional approach to re-imagining learning" and consists of three to four workshops in which students first compost and then (re)-compose concepts.
Participating students come from a wide variety of studies such as composition, jazz vocals, graphic, audiovisual and spatial design, arts and culture studies, political science, psychology, industrial design, medicine, and computer sciences. Through engagement with practices of re-imagining tomorrow, we situate the minor in a broader societal context of ecological devastation and historically shaped injustices. This demands the imagining and enacting of alternative futures.
In our workshops the students work on designing an experiment. In teams they create a 1.5-hour immersive learning experience with the aim to introduce participants to learn differently about their matter of concern, departing from the question:
how might we (re)-imagine collaborative learning for tomorrow?
Throughout these workshops students will actively explore alternatives of learning (,) together. They evaluate how we currently learn – and with that consider the limits of the existing educational frameworks before we move on to setting new conditions to frame their design. In this design process the students are encouraged to deconstruct and reconstruct elements of learning, cross the boundaries of arts, sciences, (pop-)culture and personal experience to create a new blend that informs the foundation of their intended learning experience.
Through a variety of activities, students will go on a journey that moves from abstract to concrete, asking them to be daring and intentional when they iterate on their composition.
