Towards �Compassionate �Learning Design
A/Prof Daniela Gachago
WITS T&L Conference, 20th of September 2022
How are you feeling today?
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Presentation outline
Short intro on LD
Problems with LD
Move to more critical LD practices/approaches
From empathy to compassion
Introduction of our model on CLD
Grainne Connole on learning design
…..a methodology for enabling teachers/designers to make more informed decisions in how they go about designing learning activities and interventions, which is pedagogically informed and makes effective use of appropriate resources and technologies…[making] designs more explicit and shareable” (2013, p. 7-8)
design thinking models
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Lots of unease with current ID/LD models
Design is not linear
Design is messy
Design has to consider context
What about the designer?
Brene Brown, Atlas of the Heart, p. 123
Iris Marion Young, 1997 - questions ability to put ourselves in somebody else’s shoes…
Asymmetrical reciprocity: ….in an encounter of difference, there cannot be symmetrical reciprocity, based on different personal experiences and histories and the fact that we are socially differently positioned in life: “Each participant in a communication situation is distinguished by particular history and social position that makes their relations asymmetrical” (1997, p. 341). This social position can be defined by sex, race, age or culture.
―... [a] respectful stance of wonder toward other people is one of openness across, awaiting new insight about their needs, interests, perceptions, or values. Wonder also means to see one's own position, assumptions, perspective as strange, because it has been put in relation to others (p. 358, my emphasis).
Robin DeRosa (2022)
And unlike decontextualized and standardized checklists or rubrics, critical instructional design seeks to situate course design in time and space, encouraging faculty to think of their specific students and their needs, their specific institutions and their missions, and the specific political and social contexts that surround their courses each time they teach them.
What about the designer?
If we believe that learning design is deeply relational and based on affective dimensions, such as care and compassion, the agents involved in design become a centre of attention. We do believe that for equity based learning design we need to think about our positionality and how it affects our design decisions (Mehta & Gleason 2021; Akama & Light, 2020).
Hodgkinson-Williams’ et al TEDDIE model
If we believe design thinking is the right tool to use to redesign products, systems, and institutions to be more equitable, then we must redesign the design thinking process, mindsets and tools themselves to ensure they mitigate for the causes of inequity —
the prejudices of the human designers in the process, both their explicit and implicit personal biases, and the power of mostly invisible status quo systems of oppression... �
(EquityXDesign, 2016)
equityXdesign
What are some words you associate with compassion?
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‘Compassion is a cultivated feeling about emotion. It is a place where how we feel, how we think, and how we act come together. In other words, compassion is a cultivated practice, not an isolated, rational judgement about the world.’ (Curtin, 2014, loc. 1101)
‘[compassion] goes beyond the feeling-for or feeling-with an individual and moves towards understanding the social and political structures of our society. This then is much more than ‘putting oneself in the other’s shoes’, but assumes responsibility for one’s own role in somebody else’s story. It creates urgency for practice, for action.’ (Segal, 2007)
Com/passion
Where did it start?
Daniela Gachago, Maha Bali and Nicola Pallitt
Gachago, Bali & Pallitt (2022): Compassionate learning design. In Jhangiani, S., J. Quinn & M.Burtis (Eds.). Toward a Critical Instructional Design. PressBooks.
1 PARTICIPATION:
The desire to increase level of participation of learners
2 JUSTICE:
An understanding of power and history and how that affects our ability to participate: our positionality and intersectionality and how they influence our critical pedagogy
3 CARE:
A recognition of importance of affect and how that impacts on learning: humanising, care and trauma-informed pedagogies
-> PRAXIS:
The aforementioned dimensions resulting in a commitment to act, to take responsibility and move towards more socially just learning design
From designing with empathy to co-designing with compassion based on Wehipeihana (2013)
Some questions to consider
Student as partners
“Co-creation of the curriculum [is a] process of student engagement that encourages students and staff members to become partners, each with a voice and a stake in curriculum development” (Lubicz-Nawrocka, 2017)
From designing with empathy to co-designing with compassion based on Wehipeihana (2013)
Justice:
An understanding of power and history and how that affects our ability to participate: our positionality and intersectionality and how they influence our (critical) pedagogy
What is social justice?
Social justice is a concept that requires the organisation of social arrangements that make it possible for everyone to participate equally in society. Fraser (2005) considers social justice as ‘participatory parity’ economically, culturally and politically.
“
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https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Social_Justice_Pride_Flag.png
Where have you seen these?
Care
A recognition of importance of affect and how that impacts on learning: humanising, care and trauma-informed pedagogies
Is care always good care?
Joan Tronto: Ethics of Care
Where have you seen these?
‘We define compassion within the context of learning design along four dimensions: a desire to create more participative spaces, a recognition of power and positionality and how this affects our ability to participate and finally a centreing of care and affect in the learning process. These three dimensions should then lead to a fourth dimension: the commitment to act towards more socially just learning design approaches, what we term praxis leaning on Paulo Freire’s work, who argues that we need both "reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it" (1970, p. 51).’ (Gachago, Bali & Pallitt, in press).
Praxis
Praxis as a central concept in Freire’s liberation theory
Paulo Freire defines praxis in Pedagogy of the Oppressed as "reflection and action directed at the structures to be transformed."
Through praxis, oppressed people can acquire a critical awareness of their own condition, and, with teacher-students and students-teachers, struggle for liberation.
Praxis constitutes the means of gaining critical distance from one’s world of action to engage in reflection geared towards transformative action
Co-creative Learning Design process
Importance of multiple voices
That diversity of people that made up the group. And that you had both academics and people in in in corporates and in NPOs. That gave me a different perspective on some of the concepts that I thought I was familiar with. Just getting a different understanding or lens on on on these concepts and hearing it from people who are practically applying these in in their day-to-day work or activities, so that for me was quite valuable and I enjoyed that.
Importance of ceding power
And you know, we keep learning from everyone and I think that's been the beauty of this course. Never in a way did we sort of feel as the lecturers and coming to the space feeling like like we are the expert. […] we really sort of tried to listen to and take the lead from everybody else.
Importance of modelling vulnerability
… I must commend you [course facilitators] … for modelling that to the class to show that it's something that that everyone can face head on - being vulnerable, being able to reflect even on your own experiences, for instance, where you you have experienced unconscious bias, right? That cannot be an easy container to create and and be part of and also facilitate for students, but I think students will come out the other end being much more authentic people and much more capable in navigating spaces that requires one to be authentic and also be open for other people to share their own [vulnerability]
Importance of recognising positionality
I was challenged in some of the discussions, especially when we were discussing different personas and applying a thinking in relation to those personas, it was a somewhat triggering process, which I eventually got to enjoy, but at the beginning it was somewhat uncomfortable because it took me back to those challenging times I had at at university. That was, as one of the personas almost reflected my reality back then and and, and I think that the the benefit out of that is that the process was not so much only in me contributing, but it was also in me learning as part of that that that design process.
Importance of making the invisible visible
It was very interesting. It was with two white women and I sensed I needed to step in and there was a bit of this white privilege or white bias coming up. And I I thought like now I had to say something, but it was also, you know, taken very graciously. So I think there was space to kind of challenge certain [assumptions] … Or at least respond to when people said something that I thought we could unpack a bit more, you know? So I did feel there was some sort of trust to say things that in other spaces might not be possible, might feel uncomfortable, especially with people that … You know, it's not like we had created trust or we had worked with each other before. It was really … we were thrown into this space online, you know, for a very short period of time. But somehow it worked to be able to speak. And I will, I mean, for me it was about the small groups and and and breaking up groups and putting them in many different smaller groups all the time.
“Design is a living practice, not a done thing. It is a medium for building relationship between ourselves and those who will benefit from or be harmed by our design choices; and as such, design is iterative, a praxis—a process of doing, examining, reflecting, doing... and of never getting so set in our ways that we forget there are always new things to try”. (Morris, 2021)
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“Design is a living practice, not a done thing. It is a medium for building relationship between ourselves and those who will benefit from or be harmed by our design choices; and as such, design is iterative, a praxis—a process of doing, examining, reflecting, doing... and of never getting so set in our ways that we forget there are always new things to try”. (Morris, 2021)
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Thank you!
Maha Bali bali@aucegypt.edu @bali_maha
Daniela Gachago daniela.gachago@uct.ac.za @dgachago17
Nicola Pallitt n.pallitt@ru.ac.za @nicolapallitt
Our writings
References
Akama, Y., & Light, A. (2020). Readiness for contingency: punctuation, poise, and co-design. CoDesign, 16(1), 17–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/15710882.2020.1722177
Design Justice Network (2018). Design Justice Principles in Philanthropy Workshop: April 14th Report Back. https://designjustice.org/news-1/2021/philanthropy-workshop
EquityXDesign (2016). Racism and inequity are products of design. They can be redesigned. Medium. Retrieved March 29, 2022 from https://medium.com/equity-design/racism-and-inequity-are-products-of-design-they-can-be-redesigned-12188363cc6a.
Fraser, N. (2005). Reframing Justice in a globalized world. New Left Review, 36 (Nov/Dec). Retrieved March 29, 2022 from https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii36/articles/nancy-fraser-reframing-justice-in-a-globalizing-world
Gachago, D., Van Zyl, I. & Waghid, F. (2021). More than Delivery: Designing Blended Learning Spaces with and for Academic Staff. In Sosibo, L. & Ivala, E. (Eds.) Transforming Learning Spaces. Wilmington: Vernon Press, pp. 132-146.
Gravel, J. W., & Tucker-Smith, N. (2021). Cracks in the Foundation Personal Reflections on the Past and Future of the UDL Guidelines David Rose with contributions and review by. Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://www.cast.org/binaries/content/assets/common/news/cracks-foundation-whitepaper-20211029-a11y.pdf
Imad, M. (2021). Transcending Adversity: Trauma-Informed Educational Development, POD To Improve the Academy, Retrieved March 29, 2022 from https://quod.lib.umich.edu/t/tia/17063888.0039.301?view=text;rgn=main.
Imad, M (2020). Leveraging the Neuroscience of Now. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved March 29, 2022 from https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2020/06/03/seven-recommendations-helping-students-thrive-times-trauma
Mehta, R., & Gleason, B. (2021). Against empathy: moving beyond colonizing practices in educational technology. Educational Technology Research and Development, 69(1), 87–90. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09901-2
Morris, JM (2021). A Problem-Posing Learning Design. https://www.seanmichaelmorris.com/problem-posing-learning-design/
Noddings, N. (2012). The language of care ethics. Knowledge Quest 40 (5), pp. 52-56.
Pacansky-Brock, M. (2020). How and Why to Humanize your Online Course. Retrieved March 29, 2022 from https://brocansky.com/humanizing/infographic2
Roxå, T., & Mårtensson, K. (2017). Agency and structure in academic development practices: are we liberating academic teachers or are we part of a machinery supressing them? International Journal for Academic Development, 22(2), 95–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2016.1218883
Segal, E. (2007). Social Empathy: A Tool to Address the Contradiction of Working but Still Poor. Families in Society, 88 (3), pp. 333–37.
Tronto, J. C. (2015). Who cares?: how to reshape a democratic politics. Cornell University Press.
Wehipeihana, N. (2013). A vision for Indigenous evaluation. Keynote paper presented at the Australasian Evaluation Society Conference.
Whitchurch, C. (2008). Shifting identities and blurring boundaries: The emergence of third space professionals in UK higher education. Higher Education Quarterly, 62(4), 377–396. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2273.2008.00387.x
Slide themes
Combination of two slide themes from SlideCarnival