A WHOLE CAMPUS APPROACH TO CREATIVITY

Based on an event held at the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning

A recent conference, held at the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning, brought together academics from across the University to debate and discuss Open Space Learning (OSL). The conference, The Ecology of a Whole Campus Approach to Creativity, focussed on how open space learning can benefit students and teachers alike and showcased some of the resources available. A video of a talk from the event is now available for you to watch below.

A written article seems ill-suited to discussing Open-Space Learning (OSL) and the associated Ecology of a Whole Campus Approach to Creativity conference, held at the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning (IATL) in June 2011. Talking, thinking and experiencing open-space teaching and learning, over a period of time, is what I imagine is required to fully understand what this OSL project led by Professor Jonothan Neelands, has been, and continues to be, about.

That is not to say this article is redundant. It offers a whistle-stop tour of the other places and spaces which can be visited to find out more:

A good starting point is the OSL website which offers videos of the plenary and short-paper sessions from the recent conference, where students, academics and practitioners involved in the various OSL projects came together to share their experiences.

...Open-space learning is (put simply) 'learning' taking place in 'open spaces'...

The introduction to the site offers a useful overview, setting out the basics: open-space learning is (put simply) 'learning' taking place in 'open spaces' (such as a drama studio, but also any room that is free from furniture where teachers and learners can move around); it is most easily understood as 'workshop' based learning where a facilitator engages with participants; a key difference to other models of learning is that the focus is on participants becoming their own 'producers' of knowledge, taking the emphasis off the teacher-as-expert.

But, fittingly, we don’t just hear what the experts think. A report on the project draws on feedback from students who experienced OSL teaching and events and from the ‘lead learners’ who collaborated with academics to record and evaluate the work. Students across the academic disciplines responded equally well to OSL: there was no discernable difference between the responses from students in Chemistry and those from students in Philosophy, for instance. OSL workshops helped teach even difficult academic content (complex texts in Philosophy; abstract concepts in Mathematics) in a new and engaging way; and the embodied practice of OSL helped to develop transferable skills which are useful for future employment for example in ‘Real World Chemistry’ and Critical Issues in Law and Management). 90 per cent of students questioned who had experienced OSL would recommend it to other students and over 60 per cent allowed that it provides a distinctive way of understanding their academic subject.

A key feature of the OSL project has been the development of a student ensemble which, through weekly theatre laboratory sessions, created an engine room for OSL’s student-centred workshops and then shared its embodied pedagogy across the University. At the recent Showcase on Teaching and Learning, held at The Teaching Grid, several members of this year's Ensemble shared what they have gained by regular participation in OSL workshops.

As evidenced in the title of the one-day conference, this work looks to benefit the university as a whole. The most obvious way in which the university has been impacted is through the creation (and recreation in each session) of new types of space that are available for use by all. At Millburn House (where the conference was held) there is the CAPITAL Studio and the CAPITAL Rehearsal Room; on the Westwood campus, the Avon Drama Studio, The Reinvention Centre and the Dance Studio; and on central campus The Teaching Grid, The Learning Grid and the Wolfson Research Exchange.

These spaces are not anything in themselves of course - when unoccupied they can seem like empty boxes, almost the opposite of traditional images of universities (libraries overflowing with books, students streaming out of exam halls) - but they are fundamental to OSL practice which explores and experiments with the collaborative learning done in them.

They are also spaces that bring people together in a way that cannot be recreated virtually by an internet connection or a phone line which makes me wonder whether, in the future, it will be these spaces (like precious libraries containing rare books were in the past) that will play a significant role in drawing students and academics together to live, work and study in a particular place.

The growing body of people who have become skilled facilitators and experienced participants, including the OSL team members Jonathan Heron, Nick Monk, Rob O’Toole and Barry Sheils, alters the university too. Student Ensemble members contributed to the work of other OSL practitioners as they delivered a variety of teaching interventions. Naturally they have become a source of insight into OSL themselves; an essential part of the educational process that takes others from understanding OSL theory to getting a sense of the practice – completing one sort of circle.

That’s not the only circle to be considered. During the final session of the Whole Ecology Campus Approach to Creativity conference, speakers and audience members came together in a circle of chairs to hear some final thoughts and reflections. It was a time to hear what OSL meant to the practitioners - with their students and institutions - how it impacted their work, their life and their learning.

It became clear that OSL is an essentially dynamic approach as demanding of its practitioners as it is of students. The spaces and activities that foster co-creation of knowledge, reflection, and collaboration don't allow the facilitator to step back. The facilitator too is bound up and implicated in the process. It is an approach that requires effort and new ways of thinking about learning and it is a practice that becomes absolutely central to the way they teach.

It became clear that OSL is an essentially dynamic approach as demanding of its practitioners as it is of students.

OSL suddenly became about so much more than its simple components. Forty minutes of thoughtful discussion, encompassed the Cartesian mind/body distinction, democracy, the concepts of transformation, progress and time, the importance of ‘liminal’ spaces, what we mean by 'virtualness'. More specifically it focused on the importance of play in learning, the concept of the ‘right to fail’ in learning, the role of assessment in Higher Education, the use of technology to support reflective learning, the needs of learners now, what employers are looking for in graduates...(the list goes on). Those closing remarks demonstrated that OSL methodology and practice should be discussed and integrated into the core values of the University, and that the discussions begun that day needed to continue into the future.

The complexity of the OSL project is disguised by the simple description of a name. And it is this complexity that makes it impossible to convey in an article. For those that want to find out more there is a book that describes the first stages of the OSL project. Although the funding from the Higher Education Academy’s National Teaching Fellowship Scheme has now ended, OSL will continue as one of the innovative pedagogies supported by the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning.

Writing this article, and drawing out a particular narrative served a purpose, but it is impossible not to feel that it is a poor substitute for us all to get on our feet in an open space to explore these ideas together…

• Image Credit - Wei Jean Cheah

By Amy McLeod