user guide for educators
The conception of our online learning environment is informed by various pedagogical concepts and strategies, yet the foundation of our design focuses on a key framework proposed by The New London Group (NLG). A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures (1996) interprets a design-based perspective of pedagogy and curriculum; they put forward that “teachers and managers are seen as designers of learning processes and environments, not as bosses dictating what those in their charge should think and do” (p. 73). This learning space offers multiple entry points for various levels of participation - from passive observation, to light engagement, to immersive creative collaboration. The design of the space itself promotes independent exploration, rather than controlled learning. Utilizing NLG’s (1996) framework of multiliteracies, new media is incorporated into the space through what they describe as the “six design elements in the meaning making process...Linguistic Meaning, Visual Meaning, Audio Meaning, Gestural Meaning, Spatial Meaning and the Multimodal patterns of meaning that relate the first five modes of meaning to each other” (p. 65).
Diagram created from NLG’s description of the “six design elements in the meaning making process” (1996, p. 65).
This assortment of content is essential in promoting creativity by sharing what is possible in an arts-based learning environment. Furthermore, presenting a variety of mediums allows the learner to choose their mode(s) of participation based on their own unique skill set and prior knowledge.
In addition to multimodal considerations of new media use and integration, this design is also intentional of the affordances that facilitate and reflect cultural diversity and inclusion. NLG’s (1996) framework details the “four components of pedagogy…” (p. 65):
Situated Practice, which draws on the experience of meaning-making in lifeworlds, the public realm, and workplaces; Overt Instruction, through which students develop explicit metalanguage of Design; Critical Framing, which interprets the social context and purpose of Designs of meaning; and Transformed Practice, in which students, as meaning-makers, become Designers of social futures”
(p. 65).
Diagram created from NLG’s description of the “...four components of pedagogy...” (1996, p. 65). Additionally, the descriptions for each component are pulled from p. 65 of A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures (New London Group, 1996).
To address the notion of situated practice, this space promotes the sharing of learners’ unique perspectives and encourages various means of interaction amongst participants. Considering overt instruction, the instructors/curators should be intentional about what constraints they impose on the learning space; the aim is to provide guidance and understanding, yet to achieve balance by not imposing restrictive instruction on the participants. Well-designed instruction leads rather than obstructs creativity. This design will focus on specific themes within the realm of collecting and relational object intimacy. These themes will provide critical framing to focus participants’ learning by providing specific contexts to consider and reflect on. Through the use of the aforementioned components of pedagogy, learners will be able to publicize examples of transformed practice through multimodal creation and sharing of their own collections and objects, or through textual responses to others.
The role of the instructor/curator is to situate themselves as a learner and a designer and to remain in an iterative practice of observation, analysis, and implementation of new strategies for continual improvement and adaptability of the design. This is absolutely essential for this space to embody DIY culture and participatory pedagogy. Kafai and Pepler (2011) assert that the DIY (do-it-yourself) culture promotes learner agency: “As youth engage in DIY efforts, they are learning to read and write the world critically” (pp. 104-105). These sets of practices will guide learners to “[look] more closely than ordinarily at everyday objects (Hetland, Winner, Veenema, & Sheridan, 2007) and [deconstruct] both the parts of the text (at a literal level) and the meaning behind the text” (p. 105). This is the type of creative and critical practice that this learning space encourages through meaningful engagement with the content, while also motivating learners to shift from the passive role of observer to the active role of participant. As learners immerse in this participatory pedagogy and connected learning in an arts environment, they will acquire and hone participatory competencies that can be transferable to any context (Jenkins, 2009).