1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:19,760 Welcome to the first installment of Enlightening Dialogues. 2 00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:23,840 My name is Gabriel Cavalli and I'm director of LITE, the Leeds Institute for Teaching 3 00:00:23,840 --> 00:00:31,200 Excellence. And in a world increasingly fast-pacing and with 30-second videos and soundbites and 4 00:00:31,200 --> 00:00:36,480 everyone on the screen, the idea of Enlightening Dialogues is to provide some deeper insights 5 00:00:36,480 --> 00:00:41,600 and reflections emerging from just having a chat and let the magic emerge. 6 00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:48,560 Enlightening Dialogues, I like a pun, and what a first installment I'm delighted to have here 7 00:00:48,560 --> 00:00:55,120 are outstanding guests. So I will ask them to introduce themselves and briefly tell us 8 00:00:55,120 --> 00:01:00,800 what you may think are properties about yourselves for today. So Margaret, who are you? 9 00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:09,760 What a confronting first question. Who am I? My name is Margaret Bearman. I'm a research 10 00:01:09,760 --> 00:01:15,360 professor at the Centre for Research and Assessment in Digital Learning, CRADLE, at Deakin University 11 00:01:15,360 --> 00:01:22,000 in Melbourne, Australia. And I guess I research what it says on the tin, assessment and digital 12 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:28,560 learning. I have particular interests in feedback, generative AI, and I think we're going to be 13 00:01:28,560 --> 00:01:40,000 discussing about what sustains changes in educational practice. Brilliant. And we also have Jeff. 14 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:46,240 Jeff, who are you? So did I hear you say that we have to be enlightening and the conversation 15 00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:51,200 is supposed to generate magic? Could we set a bar a little bit lower? No pressure. No pressure 16 00:01:51,200 --> 00:01:56,800 whatsoever. So I'm Jeff Grabill. I'm the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Student Education at the 17 00:01:56,800 --> 00:02:03,760 University of Leeds and spent most of my career in US higher education, 20 years in particular, 18 00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:10,320 at Michigan State University, where I was a researcher of rhetoric and digital communication, 19 00:02:10,320 --> 00:02:16,080 which I think comes and will come back to in terms of design arts and also in the provost office 20 00:02:16,080 --> 00:02:22,640 developed and led an educational innovation function within the institution to try to 21 00:02:23,280 --> 00:02:27,600 to move that institution around some some difficult corners with regard to what education 22 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:33,600 might need to look like in the early to mid 21st century. So a little bit about who I am, 23 00:02:33,600 --> 00:02:41,520 nothing magical in that particular introduction, but hopefully useful. And last but not least, 24 00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:47,760 Robert, who are you? So my name is Robert Averies. I'm a research and impact officer at the Leeds 25 00:02:47,760 --> 00:02:52,880 Institute for Teaching Excellence, where I support development and impact of wide range of pedagogic 26 00:02:52,880 --> 00:02:58,160 research projects. I have a teaching and educational leadership background in international 27 00:02:58,160 --> 00:03:03,920 adult education. And this is where I saw my assumptions about teaching and learning and its 28 00:03:03,920 --> 00:03:09,120 wider purpose continually challenged. And that taught me the value of applying a reflective lens, 29 00:03:09,120 --> 00:03:14,240 whether that's in an academic sense or more in my day to day work. And as Maxine Green put it, 30 00:03:14,240 --> 00:03:18,800 asking yourself, what are we as educators trying to bring into being? And I hope that kind of 31 00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:24,720 perspective will lend itself out to this discussion and I can provide some useful reflective insights 32 00:03:24,720 --> 00:03:30,800 for our listeners. So Robert is one of the multiple deep thinkers at light, and he's here 33 00:03:30,800 --> 00:03:37,200 to bring a feature of enlightening dialogues that we call Tell Me What You See, or in this case, 34 00:03:37,200 --> 00:03:44,000 Tell Me What You Hear. A bit like tearing down the fourth wall and bring every so often for the sake 35 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:48,640 of our audience, a different perspective. And it's not about agreeing or disagreeing with the 36 00:03:48,640 --> 00:03:55,760 dialogue itself between here, Margaret and Jeff, but to remind us what does what we hear sound like? 37 00:03:55,760 --> 00:04:00,720 Is there some other reading, interpretation or connection to anything else that our audience may 38 00:04:00,720 --> 00:04:06,800 find inspiration from? And it doesn't even have to be within the subject of the conversation. It can 39 00:04:06,800 --> 00:04:13,840 simply be, it reminds me of a book or a film by whomever. We already got a Maxine Green reference, 40 00:04:13,840 --> 00:04:21,280 which is absolutely phenomenal. Yeah, no, you've earned your keep already. So are we ready? Sure. 41 00:04:21,280 --> 00:04:29,280 Okay, so let me start with Margaret. What really caught LITE's attention in your work, Margaret, 42 00:04:29,280 --> 00:04:36,800 which is impressive and in the depth and breadth of it, but particularly was your work in sustainability 43 00:04:36,800 --> 00:04:43,680 of teaching and learning innovations in higher education. So what attracted you to this topic? 44 00:04:43,680 --> 00:04:53,680 I've had a very long standing interest in what makes things stick. I mean, we spend a lot of time 45 00:04:53,680 --> 00:05:00,080 in education and I think probably everyone in this room and maybe everyone listening, given it's magic 46 00:05:00,080 --> 00:05:08,640 and all that kind of gear, has been involved in a very beloved educational piece of work 47 00:05:08,640 --> 00:05:15,280 that you put your heart and soul into and then you blinked and it was gone. It dissipated and all 48 00:05:15,280 --> 00:05:22,400 this love and care and in fact you might even say the impact that it was having just evaporated. 49 00:05:24,160 --> 00:05:29,680 To give a very simple example, the very first project I was involved in when I was in my very 50 00:05:29,680 --> 00:05:38,880 early 20s, and this dates me so strongly, I was hired as my first RA role to do a multimedia package 51 00:05:38,880 --> 00:05:48,000 on HIV AIDS and this was at a time before a cyclone. So it was actually a package about 52 00:05:49,200 --> 00:05:58,560 really managing social conditions, stigma, what could not be done in a very terrible time and by 53 00:05:58,560 --> 00:06:02,160 the time I'd finished the package I was very proud of it. It was a wonderful piece of work, 54 00:06:02,720 --> 00:06:07,520 the drug regime had happened and of course that was fabulous, nothing better. And if you want to 55 00:06:07,520 --> 00:06:12,240 see your work go up in a piece of smoke that is the best way to do it because it really shifted 56 00:06:12,240 --> 00:06:19,600 everything but it was really the first thing I ever did was a striking reminder of how innovation 57 00:06:20,640 --> 00:06:28,080 has time and place and moment and what is it, where should we invest, how do we sustain things 58 00:06:28,080 --> 00:06:32,560 forward and when is it time sometimes to let things go and say they've done their job. 59 00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:41,600 That's fantastic way of setting us off. Jeff, in your case you have a keen interest and expertise 60 00:06:41,600 --> 00:06:46,000 in designing student experiences, how did you end up in that area? 61 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:49,680 Yeah that's a good question, I sometimes don't know how I ended up in that area. 62 00:06:49,680 --> 00:06:57,200 Maybe just a brief little kind of academic history, I mean Margaret used a rhetorical term in terms of 63 00:06:57,200 --> 00:07:03,200 talking about time and place, that's the rhetorical concept of Kairos which is a very powerful concept 64 00:07:03,920 --> 00:07:09,760 that I'm happy to go on and on about but won't but that's my disciplinary background which is 65 00:07:10,720 --> 00:07:18,320 a field of study and practice largely North American I think in its current form. 66 00:07:18,320 --> 00:07:27,360 It's a design art and rhetoric is I think usefully understood in a colloquial way as 67 00:07:27,360 --> 00:07:33,760 the art of changing the world through language and to do that you have to design rhetorical 68 00:07:33,760 --> 00:07:38,480 interventions, communications, engagements with people around who they are, where they are and 69 00:07:38,480 --> 00:07:45,440 what they need. So it's a design art and so I've pulled that through my career. I don't think 70 00:07:45,440 --> 00:07:50,720 anybody in a school of design would own me or maybe might own rhetoric as a discipline that 71 00:07:50,720 --> 00:07:57,840 belongs in a school of design but we own ourselves in that space and my field certainly in terms of 72 00:07:57,840 --> 00:08:05,360 its 20th century representation in the U.S. has been braided with educational work. So 73 00:08:06,400 --> 00:08:12,960 literacy crises in particular tend to drive educational change and innovation at the school 74 00:08:12,960 --> 00:08:17,040 level and at the university level and that's the case with my particular world which was focused 75 00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:23,760 on writing in particular. So the crisis of bringing people to universities who didn't 76 00:08:23,760 --> 00:08:29,760 belong in universities previously so the successive waves in U.S. higher education of 77 00:08:29,760 --> 00:08:34,800 being more accessible to beginning with the GI Bill and soldiers returning from the Second World 78 00:08:34,800 --> 00:08:41,600 War and having access to higher education these are the great unwashed and so I use that term with 79 00:08:41,600 --> 00:08:47,440 great irony but it did drive changes in general education and the way in which we think about 80 00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:53,200 writing and maths in particular as something that is required of every university person. 81 00:08:55,200 --> 00:08:59,920 That particular kind of teaching problem, how do you help people learn how to write 82 00:08:59,920 --> 00:09:04,240 who may not see themselves as writers who might have much writing experience. 83 00:09:04,240 --> 00:09:09,840 You combine those two things, my discipline, my field, my world and me as an individual. 84 00:09:09,840 --> 00:09:15,280 My entire career has been marked by working at the level of design and also thinking very carefully 85 00:09:15,280 --> 00:09:22,560 about teaching a broad spectrum of university students and so that gets me to a place where 86 00:09:23,120 --> 00:09:30,400 a university president or a provost looks at people like me and in my case people me and saying we 87 00:09:30,400 --> 00:09:36,080 need to do some innovative work around education and you're one of the people at this particular 88 00:09:36,080 --> 00:09:41,600 institution your colleagues more broadly are the people who tend to think about educational 89 00:09:41,600 --> 00:09:47,440 innovation in a broad and accessible and thoughtful way. Will you be willing to do some work? So I get 90 00:09:47,440 --> 00:09:54,640 to that space not really by choice but by doing the work if you will for a long period of time 91 00:09:54,640 --> 00:10:01,360 and being identified by a senior leader who says I have a job for you will you do the job and 92 00:10:01,360 --> 00:10:07,360 I'm just too stupid to stay to say no to those opportunities. Can I ask a question? Absolutely. 93 00:10:07,360 --> 00:10:14,160 What do you enjoy about it? What do I enjoy about the job? Yeah so joy is the right word. I find the 94 00:10:14,160 --> 00:10:18,960 work that that I've done at Leeds which has been exceptionally difficult and the work that I did 95 00:10:19,520 --> 00:10:25,200 particularly the last five six years at Michigan State which is also very difficult I found I 96 00:10:25,200 --> 00:10:30,480 I derived a great deal of joy in that work in this and then because we were doing something 97 00:10:30,480 --> 00:10:37,600 that mattered we were we the work was consequential which is why it was difficult and I got very 98 00:10:37,600 --> 00:10:44,400 interested over the last 10 years of my career in in doing good things at scale and the problems 99 00:10:44,400 --> 00:10:47,840 we have problems of sustainability we have problems at scale and they do intersect in particular 100 00:10:47,840 --> 00:10:54,320 sorts of ways and I knew I knew what I could do with a classroom of 20 students and I knew what 101 00:10:54,320 --> 00:11:02,080 my program could do with a cohort of 150 but at 50,000 scale or planetary scale if we really want 102 00:11:02,080 --> 00:11:08,080 to be crazy about how we think about educational innovation. Magical. Magical right the problems 103 00:11:08,080 --> 00:11:15,360 of scale are scale introduces new problems and so I've got I find those kinds of intellectual 104 00:11:15,360 --> 00:11:22,240 challenges and I have found my leadership roles intellectual work not management work. I sort of 105 00:11:22,240 --> 00:11:29,360 coil at being called a senior manager in the UK. I'm an intellectual I think and I try to bring that 106 00:11:29,360 --> 00:11:34,320 that to my work and to the work that my colleague we're trying to we're trying to untie some really 107 00:11:34,320 --> 00:11:40,320 meaningful intellectual knots and that's fun and when you're trying to do it with an explicit 108 00:11:40,320 --> 00:11:44,880 interest in working with people and with the idea that you're gonna if we untie this knot their lives 109 00:11:44,880 --> 00:11:53,440 will be better that's joyful. What a lovely answer. Oh thank you. So I suppose that actually looking at those 110 00:11:53,440 --> 00:11:58,560 perspectives I mean the obvious is trying to intersect them and and and as opposed to challenge 111 00:11:58,560 --> 00:12:04,880 particularly from a perspective of what light is working towards it really takes me nicely to 112 00:12:04,880 --> 00:12:13,120 can we in this space design for sustainability and if so you know what does that mean and 113 00:12:13,120 --> 00:12:20,800 how do we go about it? Well you so I'm gonna kick it to Margaret because I read your paper on this 114 00:12:20,800 --> 00:12:30,720 and and and I'm let's yeah we have the expert. Oh no expert is strong interested we have the 115 00:12:30,720 --> 00:12:37,360 interested. I think that one of my and and and I think it's interesting to hear you talk about 116 00:12:37,360 --> 00:12:43,520 the sorts of interventions you can make because I am I I do a lot of naturalistic on the ground 117 00:12:43,520 --> 00:12:48,240 work I do it in health care I do it in higher education and one of the things that's really 118 00:12:48,240 --> 00:12:56,960 striking about it is how difficult sustained change is and for a whole host of reasons we often 119 00:12:56,960 --> 00:13:02,960 a lot of the innovation work and I'm doing what do you call them here? Air quotes. Air quotes I'd say 120 00:13:02,960 --> 00:13:10,000 bunny ears but that sounds very childish. The innovation work is often tied to technology you 121 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:15,040 know chat GPT is a great example there's a new technology an iphone it comes and a lot of the 122 00:13:15,040 --> 00:13:19,760 work on innovation change is this idea that you plonk the innovation in front of you 123 00:13:20,880 --> 00:13:27,280 often a piece of technology and it will naturally stay it will stick because it's a thing but in 124 00:13:27,280 --> 00:13:33,840 education what we're actually talking about is the way people do things and there's some work 125 00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:40,560 Neil Selwyn is probably the best known person who talks about this that that says that often when we 126 00:13:40,560 --> 00:13:48,240 bring in a new device or a new thing our practices don't change so we really just start channeling 127 00:13:48,240 --> 00:13:55,360 the things we've already done through the new devices that we have so what does bring sustained 128 00:13:55,360 --> 00:14:01,760 change? It's unclear I'm going to be really brutally honest we know there's some things that matter 129 00:14:01,760 --> 00:14:08,800 we know that what I'm just going to call roughly going with the grain matters so you need to be 130 00:14:08,800 --> 00:14:14,880 in alignment with what everyone's thinking and this is based on research and also on other 131 00:14:14,880 --> 00:14:22,000 people's research also a bit of my own work that you know that going with the flow of people is 132 00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:28,160 really important if you have a particular way of thinking and doing to come head strong against it 133 00:14:29,360 --> 00:14:33,520 you're not going to be salmon swimming upstream you're going to be carp swimming upstream it's 134 00:14:33,520 --> 00:14:39,680 not going to happen you're going to come back down. We know that leadership matters intellectual 135 00:14:39,680 --> 00:14:46,560 leadership even if we say and that whole idea of governance supporting we know that 136 00:14:46,560 --> 00:14:53,600 strange things like money help but not as much as you might think time seems to be more important 137 00:14:53,600 --> 00:14:58,400 than money there's some weird equation between the two and it's not it's not one-to-one 138 00:14:59,920 --> 00:15:07,840 we know that people matter in in higher ed we know that educators matter the collegiate teams matter 139 00:15:07,840 --> 00:15:13,040 collaboration matters and we know that students matter so to go back to that very early which I 140 00:15:13,040 --> 00:15:18,960 hope stays in this podcast introduction about magic there does seem to be a piece of magic 141 00:15:18,960 --> 00:15:23,760 where you can run two things that look pretty similar side by side and one of them will stick 142 00:15:23,760 --> 00:15:29,520 and one of them won't and we have some clues as to why that happens but I don't know if you can say 143 00:15:29,520 --> 00:15:36,800 what actually causes that magic and I can say for a lot of times that it's not evidence we know a 144 00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:43,760 lot about what best best practice good practice what we ought to be doing is I mean think of all 145 00:15:43,760 --> 00:15:50,880 the things you ought to be doing are you doing well maybe not so much how's that your membership 146 00:15:50,880 --> 00:15:56,720 going that kind of thing we know so knowing what something should be or what you aspire to is not 147 00:15:56,720 --> 00:16:01,920 the same as doing it so there's a whole lot of conditions and then finally to add on to all of 148 00:16:01,920 --> 00:16:10,240 that there's a really well established pattern of human behaviour to return to what is familiar 149 00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:17,280 and what is known and we we revert to it it's a very human thing to do and that drives a lot of 150 00:16:17,280 --> 00:16:23,920 things so even though people can start off with really good intention and really good desire 151 00:16:24,960 --> 00:16:30,480 you can end up doing what you've already done and um yeah referring back to that your membership 152 00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:36,160 again you can see how that how that works in in human behaviour all the time I don't know if those 153 00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:41,680 things are a problem I mean if it was all simple then where would be the intellectual challenge 154 00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:49,280 where would be the fun we'd be turning out a bunch of very effective clones yeah I mean I think that 155 00:16:49,280 --> 00:16:53,840 that's a brilliant description to be honest with you of of not just your work and the insights from 156 00:16:53,840 --> 00:16:57,920 your work but but at least my understanding of what the literature more broadly looks like and 157 00:16:57,920 --> 00:17:04,480 what I what I hear you describing really exceptionally well is is a system that in which 158 00:17:04,480 --> 00:17:10,560 the sum is very much greater than its its its parts right so all of those elements you can change 159 00:17:10,560 --> 00:17:15,840 any one of them and get one of them right or three of them right but they interact with the other 160 00:17:15,840 --> 00:17:22,560 elements of the system I think in my experience that you talked about the grain and I think you 161 00:17:22,560 --> 00:17:29,280 get change that's conceived that's possibly sustainable when you change the grain and to 162 00:17:29,280 --> 00:17:34,960 play with that metaphor changing the grain of anything is really hard and I think that that 163 00:17:34,960 --> 00:17:42,400 does explain substantially why change initial change is exceptionally challenging in education 164 00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:49,040 and sustained change is even even more challenging I wonder though so I don't know can I ask Mark so 165 00:17:49,040 --> 00:17:56,240 I don't expect you have a definitive answer but I wonder what you think about this kind of a question 166 00:17:56,240 --> 00:18:03,120 is the initial change harder or easier than sustaining the change easier you think so 167 00:18:03,120 --> 00:18:11,200 definitely yeah I don't know because it's it's it's the one that's off we know a lot about it 168 00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:18,400 we know how to do it and we can force change we can force it right and that's the change it 169 00:18:18,400 --> 00:18:25,280 doesn't stick yeah I mean that's why I think it's easier okay before I bring in Robert actually I 170 00:18:25,280 --> 00:18:31,920 have tell me what I hear because this reminds me of last year at the LEED student education 171 00:18:31,920 --> 00:18:36,560 conference we had Paul Ashwin from Lancaster and he was actually talking about that 172 00:18:38,720 --> 00:18:45,440 there's a it's a different practice to research for innovation and then to be the one who 173 00:18:45,440 --> 00:18:53,680 receives it and applies it and that it's I think it he posed as a part of the problem that actually 174 00:18:54,320 --> 00:18:59,280 people are in different businesses when you're actually you know creating initial change to 175 00:19:00,320 --> 00:19:08,320 when this is actually passed on Robert are you ready to come in I suppose I've been thinking 176 00:19:08,320 --> 00:19:13,440 about your discussion in relation to my role and the people I work with and like I like fellows 177 00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:21,520 and colleagues especially the work we're trying to do now which is provide a better platform for 178 00:19:21,520 --> 00:19:28,320 light fellows to evidence examples of impact everyone comes into I'd like to think a light 179 00:19:28,320 --> 00:19:32,240 fellowship because they want to make a change they want the experience they want to develop 180 00:19:32,240 --> 00:19:36,480 and that's the kind of change but they also want to change an aspect of student education that 181 00:19:36,480 --> 00:19:43,600 maybe they've noticed needs changing and that's a that's messy that's complicated and it's contested 182 00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:49,040 there's no one right or wrong answer and that's not a reason as you said not to do something in 183 00:19:49,040 --> 00:19:55,440 fact that's exciting and also having read your paper around the concept of sustainable innovation 184 00:19:55,440 --> 00:20:02,480 it's a kind of oxymoron you know there's change but also there's stability and it's given me a 185 00:20:02,480 --> 00:20:07,360 whole load of questions not necessarily answers but questions around how we can support that and how 186 00:20:07,360 --> 00:20:16,880 we can provide that platform in the long term with people that we work with and yeah thank you 187 00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:23,280 Margaret just one thing as I was actually bringing in this idea that people might be in different 188 00:20:23,280 --> 00:20:30,240 practices were you frowning were you were clearly being very reflective is there's something that 189 00:20:30,240 --> 00:20:36,880 you want to bring it bring it on that is my thinking face oh that's brilliant it gets me 190 00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:43,440 into trouble all the time I once had a had a had a colleague who turned around snapped around to me 191 00:20:43,440 --> 00:20:49,200 in the corridor and said Margaret is something wrong it's like you look so angry oh no it's my 192 00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:54,480 thinking face on again I can't even remember what I was thinking I do that's all right very pensive 193 00:20:54,480 --> 00:21:01,200 when I think I think you're supposed to it wouldn't be better though to look a little bit more 194 00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:10,480 I mean you know open and reflective rather than grumpy but the one thing that actually and and 195 00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:16,880 somehow you alluded to this already but um because in your scoping review Margaret you talk about 196 00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:23,520 sustainability of teaching innovations defined in terms of social practices associated with education 197 00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:30,320 which actually you know sounds like a very messy definition of change in terms of like how do you 198 00:21:30,320 --> 00:21:39,680 define it and in concrete terms um so and therefore is that an implication for is there an implication 199 00:21:39,680 --> 00:21:50,480 for design when when when when what you aspire to reach might be less well defined I'm going to try 200 00:21:50,480 --> 00:21:56,720 I'm going to try and link social practice to design because I think they're really tightly coupled 201 00:21:58,400 --> 00:22:03,200 I think design is part of social practice we do it all the time I mean I'm talking to a design 202 00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:10,400 expert but let me please indulge my my musings on design that are not as well informed um I think 203 00:22:10,400 --> 00:22:14,240 it's part of a social practice I think we do it all the time I think we do a lot of design work 204 00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:20,800 all the time and I think we um don't think I believe that it's beneficial to think about what 205 00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:26,000 we do in education almost all the time as a form of design because that's what's open to us as 206 00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:33,200 teachers it's to um you know drawing from Peter Goodyear's work it's to set up the spaces the 207 00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:40,240 social interaction um if you like the the the epistemic idea the ideas the content and bring 208 00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:48,160 them together and then we don't do the learning we have done the teaching the design and the 209 00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:54,320 students inhabit what we have what we have set up for them and sometimes they and mostly they do 210 00:22:54,320 --> 00:22:59,920 their thing that is quite different from what we necessarily intend and he calls that um learn time 211 00:22:59,920 --> 00:23:08,080 and design time so in that world social practices the social practice of being a teacher is about 212 00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:16,320 design there isn't really a separation what I think is interesting though is that how what drives 213 00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:22,160 that design what drives people designing instinct and their social practices what's available to 214 00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:25,680 them I mean we think of ourselves as being intellectuals but at the same time we're kind 215 00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:30,240 of there's that craft element of design you know like we're like potters working with clay you have 216 00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:37,840 a you have the familiar um equipment models modes um you know your clay you know your students 217 00:23:37,840 --> 00:23:44,240 and um again there are a whole range of practices built up about it so for me the reason I like to 218 00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:51,600 focus on it and I don't think it's in any way contradictory to design is it's not um although 219 00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:58,080 there are material elements it is not the materiality in and of itself it's like the 220 00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:05,280 innovation isn't some kind of product that descends like my long-lost HIVS package that 221 00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:10,880 actually was a product but mostly the innovation is something in in higher education that's ongoing 222 00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:18,640 that we keep doing it's not the one-off does that answer the question I'm not sure if answers 223 00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:24,800 the same question but actually I think is really productive so yeah no thanks very much 224 00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:30,880 I know it's really insightful I liked it I mean can I complicate the picture I'm looking at uh 225 00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:38,160 at uh uh Jeff both from the point of view of um the role that you inhabit right now 226 00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:43,440 uh at the University of Leeds but also your background and uh we've had some prior discussions 227 00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:51,520 on uh Derek Bokken higher expectations and uh uh writing from the U.S. in terms of um essentially 228 00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:57,200 educational reforms of change and sustainability are at the heart of that and and there's a lot 229 00:24:57,200 --> 00:25:04,320 there about different types of the institution and I think that maybe the conversation has 230 00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:10,320 made a bit of an assumption that there's an average teacher an average institution you know 231 00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:17,040 what what what happens and and when we complicate the picture and actually there's different 232 00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:23,600 different motivations different values and and different constraints as well and yeah I want to 233 00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:27,440 I want to I'll probably come back to design because I thought your I thought your answer was excellent 234 00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:32,560 actually because I think design is a kind of social practice but it also is embedded in lots of social 235 00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:38,080 practices and and it and I think I thought you had a an appropriately democratic and participatory 236 00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:43,520 notion of who designers are we all design and anytime we're moving from uh trying to move 237 00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:49,920 ourselves or others uh from the current state to a new state that's a classic design setup isn't it 238 00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:54,880 but I'll respond to the to the to the Derek Bokk work I mean we're talking about this on the walk 239 00:25:54,880 --> 00:26:00,320 over I mean he's a particular kind of I don't want to be more broad than this so I'll let me 240 00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:04,400 let me Americanize he's a particular kind of American higher educational intellectual 241 00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:11,280 who thinks a little bit about higher education as a thing and but what he's a Harvard he talked so 242 00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:15,360 his sense of the world and what higher education is like is a little bit more particular than maybe 243 00:26:15,360 --> 00:26:23,520 he lets on um and so higher education as a system is is is very diverse in different kinds of 244 00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:27,920 academics different kinds of students different kinds of institutional positioning so his insights 245 00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:34,720 about about a higher education and why we don't provide an educational experience which aligns 246 00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:40,240 with what we know to be the best way to do it is I still think they're useful insights and and more 247 00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:44,800 broadly I mean in the book that we were talking about he identifies three impediments and you know 248 00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:49,600 one of them is what he calls the low quality of of educational research in higher education which 249 00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:55,360 we can argue about um whether that's whether whether we the quality of the education is good 250 00:26:55,360 --> 00:27:00,320 and the quality of the evidence is good I think we have a lot of evidence I mean the problem in 251 00:27:00,320 --> 00:27:05,840 higher education or in education more broadly isn't that we don't know what to do the the the 252 00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:12,480 sticky bit is why we don't do it in a more systemic way so I think I think we we know what works and 253 00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:16,960 so I think we have plenty of evidence for it where and you mentioned this a little bit earlier 254 00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:22,560 where in my personal experience and this is tells us a lot about higher education where where people 255 00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:29,440 sometimes get hung up is they'll say well you know that may have worked in physics but it doesn't 256 00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:36,080 work in psychology and most of that is nonsense so can you show me some evidence of how this works 257 00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:41,840 in psychology sometimes that's just a delaying tactic to get to it so quality of the work quality 258 00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:46,880 of the evidence but I think and we can argue about whether those are real impediments to to 259 00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:51,200 change or not I think that they are brought up as impediments to change the the issue here I 260 00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:56,800 identify is which is interesting to me is the unwillingness of leadership in higher education 261 00:27:56,800 --> 00:28:02,080 to devote the time and energy and resources to educational transformation so and I think that 262 00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:08,160 that's real I think in my personal experience of higher education executive leadership 263 00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:13,600 around educational innovation and change has been poor it's not where now I've spent my entire 264 00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:18,640 career at research universities so different types of experiences different kinds of institutions 265 00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:23,680 different investment patterns a different story about about what that looks like so those are 266 00:28:23,680 --> 00:28:29,280 those are the impediments that that Bach talks about and and one of the things that certainly 267 00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:36,480 in the work at Michigan State that that we took we took to be true in our experience was that it 268 00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:42,320 there wasn't a question about what to do pedagogically or curricularly we had lots of ideas about what to do 269 00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:46,560 we we had a pretty good understanding and we thought that the people we worked with had a pretty 270 00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:53,760 good understanding of what to do educationally and why I think most people were aligned about 271 00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:57,920 you know who's going to argue against a better student experience or better learning outcomes or 272 00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:03,120 or closing opportunity gaps or minoritized so nobody's going to argue explicitly against that 273 00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:09,280 nobody's going to argue explicitly against that in public and so those are though we could get 274 00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:16,000 people aligned on the why as well how was hard how do we how do we change how do we structure 275 00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:21,200 change processes which are inclusive and participatory have enough pace and agility to 276 00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:25,680 them that we can start to see some benefits sooner rather than later that don't get us into three 277 00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:30,400 year planning cycles and three year pilots after which everybody's exhausted and the first time 278 00:29:30,400 --> 00:29:34,720 you do something it may not work particularly well but you've spent three years on this and 279 00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:40,080 you've spent a lot of money and you're exhausted and so you're not going to do it again and one 280 00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:45,600 of the things that we discovered is if we could get people to do something twice that usually was 281 00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:50,480 enough activation energy for them to continue with the work towards a sustainability pathway so I'm 282 00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:56,400 trying to pull back towards sustainability doing something twice was our little magical it wasn't 283 00:29:56,400 --> 00:30:01,440 always true but it was our little magical shorthand for so I'm just trying to pull together 284 00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:09,120 that those impediments to change with why design became an important mechanism for thinking very 285 00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:15,920 carefully about how as a I think how is a hard problem and bridging a little bit in terms of 286 00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:20,400 of how we tried to build sustainability into our into the work we did at Michigan State and we're 287 00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:25,920 doing trying to do the same thing here at Leeds in terms of leveraging design to move a little bit 288 00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:31,600 more iteratively and a little bit more quickly through change cycles so that we could make our 289 00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:38,640 mistakes more quickly at a lower cost and get people to do something twice on on that pathway 290 00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:42,960 towards sustainable changes in their own practice there's a lot going on there I don't know whether 291 00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:48,320 so Margaret maybe neither neither you nor I are responding responding particularly well 292 00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:51,760 to give those questions but no but that's particularly the magic is emerging oh 293 00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:58,240 is that's absolutely we have magic emerging um so I'd like to take up that notion of time 294 00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:03,200 because it was something I didn't mention with sustainability but it is one of the big questions 295 00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:08,640 we don't talk enough about time my boss Dave Bowda and this is another thing I've worked 296 00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:13,520 with North Americans and they they don't like the term boss it sends shivers down their spine but 297 00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:20,960 it's it's okay in Australia it's affectionate um um Dave says that um you know you never evaluate 298 00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:25,920 something on the first run because it's never never at its at at its go and in fact even the 299 00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:33,680 second run can be a bit bodgy I like that there is something about um letting things bed down 300 00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:39,440 letting them take the time that they need um in terms of sustaining and also in terms of I think 301 00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:44,400 you mentioned effort something I really notice is when you bring in change in higher ed and you know 302 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:49,520 just this is not particularly research this is just me having been around the block people really 303 00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:55,200 kill themselves in that first iteration they they split blood and tears and they really 304 00:31:56,000 --> 00:32:00,640 because people really do care in this industry they really put themselves into it and then they 305 00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:06,800 are exhausted and we often don't let people reap the benefit of their exhaustion of that work with 306 00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:11,120 something oh no you've got to do something else and something new rather than just holding back 307 00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:17,520 letting them um live with the the successes or sometimes the failures that have happened 308 00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:24,080 without constantly asking them for more um and there's something else about rhythm there 309 00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:31,440 rhythm I use the word rhythm all the time and it's unusual um people accuse me of moving too fast 310 00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:36,320 and that I'm really interested in pace but I'm mostly interested in rhythm yeah rhythm matters 311 00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:41,360 absolutely and if you yeah so I won't go I could but I won't go on so keep going sorry no no no 312 00:32:41,360 --> 00:32:45,520 I want you to go now now you're talking about rhythm I mean particularly with the change work 313 00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:52,640 that we did at leads we we did move fast we did start very fast and and part of that was overcoming 314 00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:59,680 inertia particularly at the scale at which we were working and so I did start fast um but it's but 315 00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:06,000 after that I was really trying to get people into a rhythm and that was even that was challenging 316 00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:16,080 too because there was no history here and I think this place is not unusual of educational change 317 00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:21,520 or innovation work having a kind of rhythm over time I think you're on to some time really does 318 00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:28,640 matter and kairos the the magical concept is a time concept right um it's just not a chrono 319 00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:33,600 there's there's there's chronos right which is chronological time and there's kairos which is 320 00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:39,360 episodic time right and both time both time concepts really matter absolutely but but I told 321 00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:43,920 you I could go on but but but really quickly we're trying to get and we're still we're still 322 00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:48,960 struggling with that to be honest with you a couple of years into the program of keeping people in a 323 00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:55,840 rhythm of work which if we get it right doesn't overwhelm them they can do other things in their 324 00:33:55,840 --> 00:34:02,000 lives um but they also can't put their educational innovation work on the shelf for eight months 325 00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:07,040 because once you do that you know you're fundamentally restarting the project um does that 326 00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:12,480 make sense absolutely in this um okay so it's just going I just I'm just thinking as you're talking 327 00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:18,960 about one I think Deakin runs in trimesters not in semesters we have three equally spaced teaching 328 00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:25,360 terms and it's a bit I mean they're good reasons to do that and they're student reasons to do that 329 00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:32,240 but it's very punishing on staff it's super punishing and you start to realise how much you 330 00:34:32,240 --> 00:34:38,320 know you talked about kairos how much the heartbeat of the universities around those semester times 331 00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:47,360 you know it's assessment time it's you know it's um first day of term it's now we're midway through 332 00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:54,560 and we run on that on that um known rhythm and you know for we just had the glory of 333 00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:58,400 particularly in Australia which works over summer you know the glory of the break 334 00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:04,320 where nothing happens you know the one time a year and we we do feed off these in terms of 335 00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:09,920 going with the grain a grain that perhaps we I don't know if we can change it but it's so 336 00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:14,400 embedded in what we do and yet I think we don't think about it enough we don't think about it in 337 00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:21,200 terms of funding we don't think about it in terms of cycles of work when you do educational research 338 00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:25,680 I mean it's really difficult it's got to be collected within that term time pattern data if 339 00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:32,640 you're collecting data from students yet you know so many things conspire against it so I'm just 340 00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:40,400 sort of thinking more about what drives the rhythm of a university well nothing particularly thoughtful 341 00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:47,280 now I think I think I've thought about this a lot because it is the rhythm of the academic term 342 00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:53,680 right and it is I mean leads leads as academic rhythms are even stranger um that we have both 343 00:35:53,680 --> 00:36:00,160 terms and semesters at the same time it's incoherent and and we we it's not optimal for 344 00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:04,560 learning because we find ourselves in these these moments in which like right now students have come 345 00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:10,160 back to take assessments after a long break so they've had a bunch of teaching they've taken 346 00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:15,360 a long break and now we're going to come back and assess them well there's all sorts of cognitive 347 00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:21,600 reasons why this is a terrible idea um particularly depending on what they did during that time they 348 00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:24,960 might they might have consolidated during that time right it might have been a brilliant break 349 00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:30,800 but I don't think there's a whole lot of consolidation going on nothing about that that term is driven 350 00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:39,840 by habits and history and academic conferences and you know research it's not driven by it it's it's 351 00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:47,120 it's these institutions have have muscle memory and and what we also don't do a really good job 352 00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:53,200 of is pulling academics out of those normal rhythms and saying you know for a period of time we can 353 00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:57,280 afford for you to spend your time thinking and doing we do research sabbaticals we do this on 354 00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:04,000 the research side easily educationally we don't do it easily at all in fact we have real hard time 355 00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:11,200 doing that so I think we lack creativity and generosity with regard to thinking about academic 356 00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:15,840 time and educational work both on the student side and on the on the academic side it would 357 00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:23,440 be interesting to start over yeah design it we could design it you know and to be the naysay 358 00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:30,000 I once did a project on um assessment design and we went off and and as we were interviewing folk 359 00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:37,120 about the units that why they were doing assessment and how the assessment was changing I started to 360 00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:44,160 realize that there were units that people were coordinating that were older than anyone on the 361 00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:54,080 team so and those units had just gone on and accreted like like barnacles mollusks and so 362 00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:59,280 that assessment had become so stuck to them that it didn't matter what the teacher came in and did 363 00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:04,480 in fact that unit just had a life of its own it would it would continue onwards I don't know if 364 00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:10,080 I have a particular solution for that but I do know that what it sometimes means is the older the 365 00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:14,800 university the more traditional the university the more difficulty it has with that sort of change 366 00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:20,000 and those very young very it's like when you set up a new unit you can do anything you want with 367 00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:25,600 the you can be as free as a bird but there's something about tradition which I don't think 368 00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:29,840 we should break I think again it's very human we want to have those things but at the same time it 369 00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:35,360 does hold us back yeah makes us high bound no I think it's true I think in the UK the the the 370 00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:41,360 younger universities have a reputation for being much more dynamic uh and and malleable in a in a 371 00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:48,720 positive way less high bound and less tradition bound and more student-centric Robert tell me what 372 00:38:48,720 --> 00:38:55,680 you hear okay I have um maybe a micro level um idea the listeners might want to implement in their 373 00:38:55,680 --> 00:39:01,920 day-to-day work whether that's the university or elsewhere um which is I don't know if anyone my 374 00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:05,200 colleagues at LITE will have heard of this concept because it's something that I'm always banging 375 00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:10,480 on about um some of you may have and it's the Japanese concept of ikigai and you're nodding 376 00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:15,600 I'm nodding that's her pensive face that's my face saying I've nodded and now you're going to 377 00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:20,320 ask me to say what ikigai is my colleagues are thinking I was banging on about it yet again and 378 00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:26,880 it's it's just um it's a framework that helps you to do things that you find meaningful and purposeful 379 00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:31,600 and I think it's something that you can look at on a micro level i.e. yourself but also maybe 380 00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:36,640 embedded into design and student education in my opinion and that's combining something you love 381 00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:42,880 something you're good at something the world needs and the last one which is feels more 382 00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:48,400 instrumental but it's something you can be paid for which is why I say at last and maybe you know 383 00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:52,400 in relation to this conversation around design thinking about how some of these kind of principles 384 00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:58,080 can be you know thread that binds together aspects of design whether that's in a project 385 00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:04,720 you're involved in and a piece of work you're doing um a course or leading or a life a lifestyle 386 00:40:04,720 --> 00:40:10,400 a way of seeing life and a way of seeing work learning so maybe it wasn't so micro after all 387 00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:14,640 I had never I don't know this guy this is I have learned something this is a revelation to me this 388 00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:23,680 is I'm so glad I'm here yeah no I sorry I don't mean to go on that was great keep going okay um 389 00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:28,000 so it's something that I learned about during lockdown I think a lot of people were evaluating 390 00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:32,960 you know those sorts of wider questions and kind of when you talk about life the meaning of life 391 00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:38,400 I think it's defined meaning and that is such an important aspect of education we were talking 392 00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:45,440 about earlier Margaret and you're using some kind of I think concepts and terms of millennic 393 00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:51,280 philosophy earlier so that thing of the the t loss the purpose what are we trying to achieve 394 00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:56,240 why are we learning and stopping and constantly evaluating that I think these sorts of reflective 395 00:40:56,240 --> 00:41:03,840 practices that engage with your more profound maybe aspects of why you're doing what you're 396 00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:08,000 doing I think they're challenging but they're important I think I think we can embed them in 397 00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:14,000 our work I was actually reflecting on that thanks Robert on on on the back of um 398 00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:22,320 some of the work that light isn't barking right now in terms of supporting people to to feel 399 00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:30,960 better aligned with the with them in their own inquiry in in in education better aligned with 400 00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:37,920 the with the institution and therefore possibly have more impact in in the renovation and so 401 00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:42,800 and there's an element and I think actually that that you know Japanese concept actually 402 00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:48,160 is quite nice how it brings all the different aspects together but I suppose in a way this is 403 00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:55,520 related to my question about are we assuming an average teaching practitioner and an average 404 00:41:55,520 --> 00:42:02,800 institution what's the role of academic freedom in all of this and and should we redefine it or even 405 00:42:03,440 --> 00:42:10,240 define it I mean I suppose it's part of actually this idea that we do a lot of things 406 00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:16,000 without design and without that we've just inherited you know like the timetables and the 407 00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:22,480 cycles and and the fact that we care about these things and maybe not others and and so how can we 408 00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:28,960 actually bring it all together in a in a meaningful way by rethinking what is academic freedom and 409 00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:34,640 how much to support people to while aligning themselves to what the world needs what the 410 00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:40,960 institution needs still have their own their own the things that motivates them and and therefore 411 00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:49,920 contribute better to to to student experiences at the end of the day okay I have a view I have views 412 00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:56,720 about many things but this is not a terribly um I I'm sort of thinking that you know academic 413 00:42:56,720 --> 00:43:04,000 freedom has a very particular meaning in Australia because it's kind of a protected right basically 414 00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:09,760 if you're going to have a view that might be counter to I don't know counter to something 415 00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:14,320 let's just call it that you have protected right I don't I don't I don't think that's what you mean 416 00:43:14,320 --> 00:43:20,240 I think you mean something else and what I what I and I'll go back to the design issue again 417 00:43:20,880 --> 00:43:25,440 what I sometimes think if you think about with Peter Goodyear and I was talking about setting 418 00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:31,360 up a design space for education you have you you put things into place and and then the students 419 00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:37,360 inhabit it and I think what you do when they inhabit it the best sorts of design give them 420 00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:44,720 the freedom to bring themselves to it so they bring their own unique ways of of doing of saying 421 00:43:44,720 --> 00:43:49,520 and they can see something of themselves in the space that you've built and I think that that's 422 00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:54,720 the same thing for teachers when teachers teach they need to bring something of themselves to it 423 00:43:54,720 --> 00:43:59,680 I don't think it's the same as academic freedom I do think that's essential and I think those two 424 00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:08,880 things maybe what people want is to know that they count as teachers their views and their beliefs 425 00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:17,040 and their ways of seeing a world really matter and I think that's something that can be given to 426 00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:22,480 to people but everyone has to work within constraints it's like um it's not like there's 427 00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:28,160 some unbridled outside of that sort of legally protected right for whatever reason I'm don't 428 00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:33,120 use them really some unbridled sort of academic freedom that we can just run around and do whatever 429 00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:39,760 it is we want we do work within a large body of constraints and I don't I think that I think that 430 00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:45,600 just reframing it as bringing yourself as an educator would probably do it for me. 431 00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:51,120 I think that makes sense I agree with you that particularly in higher education that concept of 432 00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:56,480 academic freedom is a is a tricky one and and often gets used as an excuse not to do things or 433 00:44:56,480 --> 00:45:01,200 an excuse to leave me alone and let me do whatever I want to do and that's that's not what academic 434 00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:07,840 freedom actually means in in terms of of of what you're talking about Margaret but you know 435 00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:16,000 constraints you know like the the sonnet like like the sonnet in in poetry it it forces some 436 00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:20,720 creativity right so constraints are resources for creativity and we I agree with you we do operate 437 00:45:20,720 --> 00:45:26,640 within within those constraints I think where we get into trouble is when we constrain and tighten 438 00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:33,600 down those constraints on teachers so much that they can't bring themselves their full selves 439 00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:41,840 their identities their creativity their intellectual passions that hurts them and it hurts education 440 00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:46,640 it hurts students and so and there's lots of I mean this is an interesting thing there's there 441 00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:51,600 are lots of education reform efforts and I'm thinking about the U.S. context now more specifically 442 00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:57,680 that were driven by by the angels I mean they were these were good ideas in their inception 443 00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:03,360 but the outcome of that was to tighten down the constraints on teachers so much that it it 444 00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:09,600 it killed the intellectual work and the passion of teaching and didn't that will never produce the 445 00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:14,960 kinds of outcomes that that we want so I'm a big believer in constraints actually as as a resource 446 00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:21,920 for thinking and creativity but there has to be I think there has to be the space to to create and 447 00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:28,880 to be fully human and there also has to be the obligation to do that right so the the responsibility 448 00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:36,320 of of the teacher in that space is to be creative and fully human that's that's the job and so I 449 00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:42,160 think I think that's an important part of the equation as well if if if we aren't willing to do 450 00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:45,840 if if we aren't willing to do that as teachers we're not doing it we're not doing the work that 451 00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:51,760 we need to do and we're not leveraging the gift that the constraint gives us and the opportunity 452 00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:57,760 gives us to be to be to be ourselves and these are at the heart of design right I mean at least 453 00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:04,160 from an engineering perspective what what else are user requirements if not constraints you know for 454 00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:12,800 for operating in certain scenarios yeah now I'm in in the design work that we we do here and 455 00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:18,080 certainly that we did at Michigan State we we were big on constraints we wanted them on the table 456 00:47:18,080 --> 00:47:25,200 they were they are resources for thinking and to ignore them I mean I actually think that the bad 457 00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:30,000 design bad learning design is when you put people in a room and say there are no constraints you 458 00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:36,640 have complete freedom in my experience people shut down that's hard to think without constraints 459 00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:41,600 and so I do think constraints are really a powerful resources for creativity 460 00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:49,520 no no disagreements from can I bring in another another you know analogy from from 461 00:47:50,080 --> 00:47:55,360 maybe designing an engineer perspective you know I'm originally a chemist but I worked in a 462 00:47:55,360 --> 00:48:01,760 in an engineering school and I had to at least be conversant with some of these concepts from 463 00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:08,640 from an engineering perspective and in relation to design and and there's an element that actually 464 00:48:08,640 --> 00:48:16,480 I hadn't you know noted as a scientist in terms of always looking for the answer or the optimization 465 00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:23,120 of absolutely everything well engineers work with this concept of good enough and so you you were 466 00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:29,760 talking earlier um Jeff about uh the role of executive leaders and leaders you know what 467 00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:37,040 so what happened with this good enough in a world of of rankings you know and and and and and the 468 00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:45,840 consequences of that kind of thing um for for designing great student experiences I don't want 469 00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:54,000 to answer that question I'll answer it go ahead um so I think that they're just two different worlds 470 00:48:54,000 --> 00:49:00,000 I mean we have to play for one of the better word the rankings game we are we exist in a society 471 00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:06,080 where rankings matter where they count and you know we can write um papers that might say we 472 00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:11,600 don't believe in rankings but yet they still they are if you like the constraints within the world 473 00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:18,560 in which we live and so we have to work with them but that doesn't mean that and it's kind of it's 474 00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:26,960 kind of like a world view difference so a ranking is a set amount it is a an answer that has a 475 00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:35,680 solution and that has a singular solution and for me in design work and the is about you know 476 00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:43,920 solutions there isn't um it's not just that it's good enough it's that it's good um that it's 477 00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:50,800 particular that it's in this right time and place that it's all those things and that that is um 478 00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:56,720 that that's just a different way of looking looking at the world and we have to play both 479 00:49:56,720 --> 00:50:03,280 games at once I think and I think due respect to management my uh funny years to use that 480 00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:07,680 childish term again coming into play I think that's the game that that that you're in some 481 00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:14,320 ways you're charged with yeah yeah no that's all right I mean it's that's a good answer I mean it 482 00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:20,080 it's a measure it gives us a measure and I don't have a problem with the measure uh as as but I 483 00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:25,360 have a problem with it as the only measure um and particularly some of the things that we get 484 00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:30,560 measured on educationally with regard to rankings don't have anything to do with education they have 485 00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:35,520 to do with important things like experience in the case of the NSS which is something that I think 486 00:50:35,520 --> 00:50:42,320 is really powerful a big believer in designing experiences um so we have to take those those 487 00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:48,800 issues seriously but not too seriously and I think the real trick for good leadership at higher 488 00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:54,160 education uh and I mean this at the board level as well as the executive level is to take them 489 00:50:54,160 --> 00:51:00,960 seriously but not too seriously I do believe in accountability and those measures and those rankings 490 00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:04,240 are one one of the ways to hold ourselves accountable for the outcomes of our work so 491 00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:09,680 no issues with them whatsoever but need to be a little bit thoughtful about what we measure and 492 00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:17,120 how we measure and how how much variation we we're willing to tolerate in the solution sets 493 00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:21,840 because it it isn't there isn't one thing that you can do to measure to move some of those measures 494 00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:27,360 it's we we live we live in a system and moving systems is exceptionally difficult to do it's 495 00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:34,000 where we started right we started with a description of that system uh which plays into sustaining 496 00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:38,240 change and some if you want to change them if you want to change a poor ranking measure you can have 497 00:51:38,240 --> 00:51:43,280 to change um which means you're going to have to move a system at some way shape or form to sustain 498 00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:49,920 it I suppose for me it's like you've got to be responsive but we shouldn't be reactive right and 499 00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:58,160 and I'm mindful of the time I'm I think the magic emerged so thanks very much for for uh um uh your 500 00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:04,880 contributions can I ask you to go around very briefly I mean one thing that all of you you know 501 00:52:04,880 --> 00:52:10,560 got us from from the conversation uh although probably we know what Jeff is going to say but 502 00:52:11,360 --> 00:52:18,320 for me is the the the the notion of of a narrative of of episodal time and and and presumably in 503 00:52:18,320 --> 00:52:24,560 connection also with narratives and stories as well Margaret um I think really similar I think 504 00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:36,160 really that sort of reattention to rhythm and and the role that it plays and yeah lots lots rattling 505 00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:40,960 around too difficult to capture in a couple of words thank you so what's this Japanese concept 506 00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:47,440 again say it for me again I can you spell it for me 507 00:52:47,440 --> 00:52:51,760 I may not be pronouncing it correctly yeah no that's all right I'm gonna be that that I that 508 00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:55,840 resonates with me and it's the it's the thing I'm gonna I'm gonna take it away and play with it 509 00:52:55,840 --> 00:53:01,040 but I think it is is it is a design arc it's also really countercultural in so many so many ways I 510 00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:07,120 mean I was having a conversation with a colleague about her wishes for her daughter um for her 511 00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:12,240 university experience and it was that she wanted her daughter to be to be happy and to thrive and 512 00:53:12,240 --> 00:53:18,080 and and I remember you know saying something very countercultural to my kids my kids said well no 513 00:53:18,080 --> 00:53:23,040 other parent is talking about this I wanted them to be happy and to do something that they loved 514 00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:28,160 and that had meaning to them that was my only expectation for their university education 515 00:53:28,720 --> 00:53:34,320 and I think that that is hopefully delightfully countercultural but but I think the the Japanese 516 00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:40,960 concept is gives a framework for how you get to an answer to what do I want out of my education or 517 00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:47,360 what do I want out of my program so obviously I'm I'm rambling now Gabriel it's all right this is a 518 00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:52,080 I learned something today that that I am going to continue to work with so thank you fantastic 519 00:53:52,080 --> 00:53:57,840 and Robert one thing that you take home I think it's this has confirmed many things in a really 520 00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:04,320 positive way that I've identified that are important and it's also given me energy to 521 00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:10,240 tackle some really complex but important challenges that we're facing we're working with and that's 522 00:54:10,240 --> 00:54:17,280 quite a broad answer but it's the best answer I've got brilliant thanks very much thanks everyone 523 00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:44,320 thanks for having us thank you