Session 1.5
Beyond All Discipline
Clive Holtham 1, Monica Biagioli 2, Allan Owens 3, Abdelfattah Abusrour 4, Osvaldo Garcia 5
1 City, University of London, UK; 2 London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, UK; 3 University of Chester, UK; 4 Alrowwad Cultural and Arts Society, Bethlehem, Palestine; 5 CIGAR , International Center for Reflexive Action, Chile
Areas of focus: TD learning for transformation
Personal transformation and development
Navigating neutrality, activism, and emancipation
Motivation and purpose of the work
Our work collectively has been driven by the limitations of university education in preparing learners holistically to promote societies and enterprises which are:
just,
sustainable,
civic
STEM and disciplinary excellence are essential, but are not enough. Eurocentric forms of production of knowledge are not enough. Educating individuals is essential, but it is not enough.
We draw on a body of our work covering more than two decades which has emphasised:
Transdisciplinarity, if not indisciplinarity
Interweaving ontologies from both the global North and global South
Developing radical educational methods that serve society as well as individuals and institutions, and which also support the transformations needed in institutions, teachers and learners.
Conceptual approach
The fully transdisciplinary EU Erasmus Project “Beyond Text” (2016-19) produced a significant body of research and educational innovation, with a particularly important input from the Palestinian partner. There was an emphasis on art-based pedagogies in the teaching of any subject, and on indisciplinarity (a concept from art history) enabling needed disruptive change.
Since then, we are building on an impressive approach “CLEHES” (Garcia, 2018), developed in Chile, which also challenges conventional disciplinary and conventional pedagogic approaches to personal and organisational change.
Methods used
The educational innovation and transdisciplinary perspectives of the co-authors have been published in books, journals and conferences relating to art & design, education, management and cybernetics. This proposal is, however, the first to weave the work of all five co-authors into an integrated collective story wholly related to transdisciplinarity, with case studies primarily from three projects:
Beyond Text (a wide palette of largely art & design-based learning methods, applicable to education and research in any discipline internationally)
RIHPLA (long-running engineering leadership module in Chile built wholly on CLEHES)
Curriculum 22 (Reform project deploying CLEHES and Beyond Text approaches to decolonising a UK business school curriculum, 2020-)
Main results
The work of all authors has pointed to the feasibility of transforming education internationally through transdisciplinary collaboration and delivery. Alumni of these programmes particularly report on the career-long benefit of non-conventional approaches. Their experiences also point to the barriers faced by educational innovators, particularly in universities, and the ITD 21 contribution will address both opportunities and barriers.
Conclusions
We believe pre-crafted contributions allow more leeway to showcase such innovations and encourage colleagues to consider them. They also allow the values and experiences of the authors around just, sustainable and civic approaches to be communicated expressively. We propose:
Short Video Presentation, which will emphasise the voices of participants combined with fragments of the radical methods in use on three continents; non-English language voices will have English sub-titles.
References
Beyond Text (2019) https://beyondtext.weebly.com/
García De la Cerda, Osvaldo; Humphreys, Patrick and Saavedra Ulloa, María Soledad (2018) Enactive management: a nurturing technology enabling fresh decision making to cope with conflict situations. Futures, 103. pp. 84-93.
Activating breakthroughs: An online transdisciplinary career development program
Faye Miller
Human Constellation, Australia
How can TD concepts contribute to personal transformation and development?
There has been an increasing demand for online career development programs for people in transdisciplinary careers. Online career programs can contribute to personal transformation empowering both young people and experienced professionals making career and life transitions. This presentation will define and give examples of emerging transdisciplinary career pathways and the nature of transitions people have been experiencing, particularly in post-pandemic times. A new transdisciplinary career development program Activating Breakthroughs will be presented, featuring a narrative therapy approach blending online coaching and counselling techniques to activate broader transdisciplinary skill sets.
Recent research (Ji et al, 2021) has shown that online counselling programs are more effective in assisting people experiencing anxiety to retrain their brains to think positively and overcome inhibitions related to their negative thoughts, fears and self-doubt. Reducing this anxiety is also a key outcome of online career development programs and services, using constructivist approaches such as narrative theory as a tool to do this while tailoring sessions to specific individual or organisational needs.
This online program is based on the need for people to build and strengthen their self-concept, self-confidence and self-reliance, all of which underpin leadership, entrepreneurialism, wellbeing and resilience in navigating and managing non-traditional emerging transdisciplinary career paths. Narrative theory is about creating awareness of various meanings and patterns through life storytelling (Reid, 2015), which is also a vital first step towards facilitating transdisciplinary work (Miller, 2020).
Individual narrative counselling sessions are based on guiding people to craft their career stories which help them understand their personal values and professional identities and how they might align with their current and future career issues or goals. The career development practitioner facilitates and summarises the storytelling, reflecting the client’s own words and collaboratively identifying potential patterns and themes.
Looking at how the client can move forward on a task or project that is important to them and their communities, they can engage in a series of regular coaching sessions using the GROW technique – talking through their goals, realities, opportunities and wrap-up with action steps – while making decisions informed by their new understanding of themselves, their evolving professional identity and values. Following the completion of their project, they can engage in informed reflection of the experience, considering transdisciplinary mindsets and skillsets towards sustaining long-term collaborations:
Reflexivity through journaling habits;
Fusion skills blending human and machine learning;
Informed learning - how information from many different sources can contribute to personal change and creativity; and
How their resilience and mental health has been experienced during the coached project, tracking any changes towards their desired transition or adjustment.
References
Ji, J. L., Baee, S., Zhang, D., Calicho-Mamani, C. P., Meyer, M. J., Funk, D. & Teachman, B. A. (2021). Multi-session online interpretation bias training for anxiety in a community sample. Behaviour Research and Therapy.
Miller, F. (2020). Producing shared understanding for digital and social innovation: Bridging divides with transdisciplinary information experience concepts and methods. Palgrave Macmillan/Springer.
Reid, H. (2015). Introduction to career counselling & coaching. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.