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The University of Warwick explores new ways of teaching and learning with the ‘Dark Would’

The Dark WouldThe Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning (IATL) at the University of Warwick has created the ‘The Dark Would’ a collaborative project facilitating new ways of teaching and learning.

It is a physical installation that challenges traditional forms of teaching and learning. It’s designed to harness the benefits of corporal learning, through a less familiar learning experience for students, creating new opportunities for exploration of ideas, both physically and intellectually.

The project has developed new pedagogies and teaching spaces which are informed by an awareness of the relationship between form and content in teaching, interrogating how learning environments shape the learning experience - and vice versa.

‘The Dark Would’ allows disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary teaching, thinking, and learning. It offers students a space in which they have the intellectual and physical freedom to challenge, reimagine, and recreate the world around them through transformative learning experiences.

In doing this, creative spaces such as ‘The Dark Would’ deconstruct and reshape accepted and traditional hierarchies of power in the classroom, enabling students to create, develop, and share knowledge. This new approach fosters an approach to teaching and learning which crosses disciplinary boundaries in order to equip students with the ability to deal with uncertainty, complexity, and a changing world both within and beyond their university lives.

Member of staff at the University of Warwick said,

“The Dark Would has renewed my passion for teaching - or rather, exploring with students. My year of teacher training gave me a toolkit and a map covered in warnings. Such as, ‘Do not enter’, ‘Here be dragons’, ‘This way to level 7.’ Two days in The Dark Would gave me a backpack with survival essentials and a map covered in doodles.”

Yaw Okyere, 3rd year Student at Warwick Business School said,

“I found this session to be a very different way of learning. Prior to the session all my learning experiences had been very formal, consisting of lectures and labs. This session adopted an informal approach in a small group setting, which made it feel very intimate, and I was made to feel comfortable expressing my opinions and ideas. The session also allowed me to gain a new perspective of different ways of understanding concepts through participation, feel and touch.”

‘The Dark Would’ has been used in teaching on IATL’s interdisciplinary module ‘Applied Imagination’ as well as to enrich undergraduate and postgraduate Open Days at the University of Warwick.

It was presented at the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement conference in December 2014 and most recently ‘The Dark Would event’ was held at University of Warwick in May 2015.

Visitors to Warwick’s Festival of Imagination will be invited to explore ‘The Dark Would’ for themselves on 16 & 17 October 2015.

Student blog post written following her attendance at The Dark Would event in May 2015 -
http://storytelling4health.blogspot.co.uk/

Notes for editors:

Additional images are available:

The Dark Would 1

The Dark Would 2

The Dark Would 3

Alex Buxton
Communications Manager
Tel: 02476 150423
Mob: 07876 218166
a.buxton.1@warwick.ac.uk