Keynote Speakers

Keynote Speakers & Abstracts

Inspiration, exploration, and imagination: Cognitive processes for artistic creativity

Takeshi Okada

Takeshi Okada

University of Tokyo, Japan

[email protected]

Abstract: Drawing on examples from my work on artistic creativity, I will describe cognitive processes of art-making and artistic expression. Specifically, I will focus on: 1) inspiration, 2) exploration, and 3) embodied imagination. Firstly, artistic inspiration is being stimulated and motivated to participate in artistic creation by something in the environment (especially by others’ works). I will discuss how people become inspired artistically, and I will also describe learning supports that can enhance inspiration. Secondly, exploration is a process of searching for new patterns when making or learning art. This includes process modification, which is how artists can change their art-making process, and exploratory practice, which is a process of trying new patterns when practicing new skills in art creation. I will discuss how artists make new artworks and generate new art techniques through process modification and exploratory practice. I will also discuss how such explorations facilitate creativity. Thirdly, embodied imagination is a process of imagination based on bodily action and perception. I will show how creativity increases through embodied imagination. Finally, drawing on findings from all three areas, I will describe our ongoing research to develop and test interventions and approaches to support artistic creativity in educational settings.

The Learning Sciences as a Utopian Field and Method

Kris Gutierrez

Kris Gutiérrez

University of California, Berkeley

[email protected]

Abstract: This paper presents an aspirational argument about the affordance of a utopian approach to the Learning Sciences, both in terms of how we will conceptualize our field, as well as the methods, sensibilities and commitments we bring to empirical work on learning. It is an argument about approaches to studying learning that seek to advance methods of inquiry organized around imagining what is “not yet,” that is, the proleptic property of learning that brings “the end into the beginning”—what Cole (1996) has termed the “cultural mechanism “that brings the past into the present” (p. 183). Using social design-based experiments as an example of a utopian approach to the Learning Sciences, the paper will elaborate why as a field the Learning Sciences should view “human flourishing in [the context]] of possible futures ((Levitas, 2013, p. xi) as a central tenet of learning in the design for utopian outcomes. Within this view, outcomes are not fixed but instead are better understood as moving horizons of possibility in which we design our experiences as a community to become/design for a utopian field and method.

Advancing scientific reasoning and argumentation in medical education and teacher education: High time for computer-supported collaborative learning

Abstract: In academic professions, people are expected to make decisions and solve problems alone and in collaboration with others, employing professional expertise and different kinds of technology. They should be able to engage effectively in epistemic activities and refer to them when justifying their decisions and actions. Scientific reasoning and argumentation are therefore considered important goals of many academic study programs that are closely linked to academic professions. In this talk I will outline a conceptual framework for investigating and advancing scientific reasoning and argumentation in higher education. The framework links the idea of approximations-of-practice with adaptive scaffolding, collaborative argumentation and simulation-based learning. The research programs of the doctoral school REASON and the research unit COSIMA have been addressing, among others, the following questions in both teacher education and medical education: Which knowledge and skills are required for scientific reasoning and argumentation? What are facilitating conditions of scientific reasoning and argumentation in medical education and in teacher education, and more specifically, what are the effects of different types of adaptive scaffolding? How can CSCL scenarios be designed and effectively employed to advance scientific reasoning and argumentation? To what extent and in which ways are scientific reasoning and argumentation domain-specific vs. valid across different domains? Studies in these research programs address, for example, the conditions and processes under which teacher students reason together successfully about learning difficulties of (virtual) pupils; the design and the effects of adaptive scaffolding for learning to diagnose collaboratively in medicine; or the comparison of effects of adaptive feedback for computer-supported groups of teacher students and groups of medical students who collaboratively write diagnostic argumentations. The talk concludes with a plea for the great potential for educational innovation that CSCL and learning sciences research hold for medical education, teacher education, and probably other academic fields with close links to academic professions. CSCL has a lot to offer but also a lot to learn.