Emporium of Dangerous Ideas

And so the finale to the 'festival' arrived with the Emporium of Dangerous Ideas. This event was about sharing the initial discoveries of the festival and an opportunity for merchants to persuade participants with their dangerous ideas.

David Cameron introduced the event and reminded participants that this was an opportunity to challenge ourselves, and our way of  regarding education. 

Karen Lawson gave an overview of the festival achievements so far 30 events, almost half delivered by partner orgnaisations. over 1000 people attending from Thurso to Ayr and 3 college regions deliver events as part of their merger strategy.  Karen also gave an overview of some of the major themes arising from festival events so far:

1. Without Walls: both metaphorical and physical walls that constrain how we provide learning opportunities.  This could be outdoor learning, gaming and also the walls we create that restrict our thinking and ability to be creative in practice.
2. The focus on employability and essential skills - should we now be focussing on the skills young people need to be employers, to be able to create, innovate and manage  their lives.
3. The need for youth work skills training for all teachers and lecturers - how to engage with young people and keep the passion for young people's potential alive.
4. What success and failure mean, and an assessment system and assessment criteria that limit learning.
5. Our own personal and professional power to take risks, try out new ideas - not waiting for permission, but also the type of leadership that builds on peoples capacity to innovate.

 Gillian Hunt from  City of Edinburgh Council and Diarmuid McAuliffe for UWS gave overviews of their events and why they had become involved in the festival.  Gillian talked openly about the taboo subject of touching children and the interest that the event had created, while Diarnuid discussed the intervention of walking, drawing and extending sites of learning as necessary to counteract learning in isolation and in silos.

We had two rounds of dynamic trading from a very mixed group of merchants (see Merchant's Guide) and photos who persuaded and exchanged ideas for dangerous dollars.

The winners from the Merchants were Sense over Sectarinism, Rownbank Environment Education
and Angus College.

One of the highlights of this year's festival was A Walk On the Wildside and Creative leaders for the walk, Paul Gorman gave a challenging account of what was dangerous about the walk and challenged us as participants to think differently and creatively., while Matthew Sowerby shared  his first attempts at making a film about the walk  - See Walk On the Wildside  blog for further Information.

The finale to the day at the Emporium came with the auction of dangerous ideas:

1.    I'm no doing nothin for nothin - student volunteers. 39/42 volunteered. If you perform so well doing something for nothing imagine how good you'll be when you're paid

2.    People can get stuck in their old ways - put into action in self-directed support

3.    Ideas go - platform for your ideas and place to ask for resources. Can put ideas in by categories, use a map.  Could be a collaborative process. Flexible tool.

4.    F... the Timetable Friday (FTTF)- children enter primary as the most excited and creative beings. By time they leave school/college we've kicked that out if them. We're still preparing children for the 18th century.  Trust lecturers, don't give schedule, give time and space.

5.    Inter generational change - we're headed for an inter generational conflict. Middle generation hold the power - it should be the young and old who make the decisions together, take the risks.

6.    College? - free app called strava (?)  Record a journey as you're on it. Physical and internal journey.

7.    Imagination gyms - a workout for the mind. Look for innovation and enterprise but we don't work our imagination to enable us to do it.  15 minute workouts built in to the curriculum.

8.    Pilot your own spaceship - you've got to believe in young people for them to believe in themselves. Imagine and pilot the spaceship. Imagine outside of the ordinary. A spaceship designed for what you are about. Creative skills, imagination.   

9.    Coursemaster - we currently have hugely difficult system to get people into college. Like ticketmaster

10. Gardening - invite retired people to work with children on allotments. Young and old.

11. The answer to good experiences - he has the answer but he needs the dollars to reveal it.

The winners were FTTF and using the Strava App. 

The Emporium was an excellent event for rounding off what had been a dynamic festival, where not only had there been plenty of ideas generated, but also a willingness and energy for putting ideas into practice.

Thinking Dangerously in Teacher Education: Walking, Drawing and Extending Sites for Learning

What do you think Prof Tim Ingold was describing here? He was our keynote at the Thinking Dangerously in Teacher Education seminar at UWS on Tuesday 18th June 2013. Only those who could not attend this packed out event need respond.

'Without Walls' - An Outdoor Game in Kilmarnock

This morning, Kilmarnock College hosted an outdoor experience for staff from Kilmarnock, James Watt and Ayr colleges, as a way to bring staff together ahead of the upcoming merger into the new Ayrshire College.

We worked with Thom Scullion, a game designer from Glasgow, to create a playful experience to take place in the scenic Dean Country Park. We created 6 teams, each with a mix of staff from the three colleges. The teams were racing to creatively document the park using iPads, receiving instructions by text message from Thom.

We had a brilliant sunny day for our game, and it was great seeing everyone having fun and getting to know new people. The teams responded very creatively to their mission, and bravely experimented with what the iPads could do, creating images, sounds and videos, with some bolder players creating combinations of all three!

After the game was complete, we headed back to the college and used peer marking to determine our winners. In the spirit of the event, we even used our iPads for our evaluation, and are looking forward to going through the players' feedback, however they chose to record it.

Our main aim for today was to explore how we can work without walls, both physically and metaphorically. We are really happy with how the day went, and what was even better was to hear staff members' own ideas of how they could implement similar models for their colleagues and students.

So at the end of it, maybe our dangerous idea is that we can work and learn by allowing ourselves to be playful - and if it's a sunny day in Scotland, even better!

Lesley, Greg, Kenny and Thom

Celebrating Failure and Success in Fort William

As the finale to the Walk On the Wild Side the participants of the walk fed back on what they had learned from their 5 day experience on the West Highland Way. They shared stories about success and failure and what that meant to them within the context of educational assessment.  If success meant completing all of the walk, then several people failed, but, if it meant overcoming obstacles and challenges, supporting others, reflecting on their learning and developing ideas for education than there was an abundance of successes.  The walkers will produce their own reflections and learning from the walk, but all felt it had been an extremely worthwhile experience and one they wouldn't forget.  There was a sense that they had been invested in as individuals in way previously not experienced, and the photographs to follow will tell their own story.

Outward Bound gave a fantastic overview of  Carol Dweck's work on mindsets and demonstrated how they had used this extensively in their work.  It was great to link up  through Skype with UWS and their own event as part of the Festival - Thinking Dangerously in Teacher Education, and share some of the findings from the Walk.   Without a doubt the walkers will keep on walking, and we already thinking about what next's year's walk will look like - surely an indication of success.

June 18th- Mindfulness At College : How Can This Enhance Learning and Teaching ?

Lyndsay Lunan  from City of Glasgow  College facilitated a fabulous session on Mindfulness.  The session could have been filled twice over with college staff .They came from a range of teaching areas including Construction, Leisure and Recreation, Hospitality, Business and Administration and Social Sciences. Embedding mindfulness practices into the learning process could be seen as a dangerous idea and slightly subversive as value in our culture is attached to ‘doing’ and being busy . However the evidence  would suggest that it could be dangerous not to practice daily mindfulness based stress reduction  strategies and embed these into our daily lives !

This half day experiential workshop offered a basic introduction to mindfulness and its application in the learning environment. Lyndsay interspersed mindfulness exercises with information giving in a seamless way . She gave practical examples of how mindfulness tools can be applied to everyday college life to enhance the learning and teaching experience for both staff and students.The only criticism was that the session was too short and the morning flew in. I definitely shifted from being mindless to more mindful as the morning progressed  and I think everyone else did . Long may that last ! Everyone is keen to keep the mindfulness conversation going next session so watch this space !

Breakfast in the Botanics

An early morning breakfast of free and local foods was a great way for myself and sixty others to start their day at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. I began my breakfast with a coffee and a sausage sandwich (thanks to Pepper Pig  previously of Gorgie City Farm) before being introduced to some of their chickens (not on the menu) who were making their debut the following day at the Highland Show .  I then moved onto the buckwheat blinis with creme fraiche, chrysanthemum petals and chive flowers and washed it down with nettle tea.

In between the munching, gardening and foraging experts were on hand to show us how to gather and grow food in the city .The focus was on organic and sustainable techniques from permaculture to living walls. In addition we were provided with a variety of recipes to try out for ourselves so be warned!

Sandy MacLean, College Development Network

17th June -Teaching Communication Units : Flashflood Meeting of Minds

Communication lecturers from across Scotland came together to share their 'dangerous' ideas ! The focus was specifically on the teaching of Communication Units at both Core Skills and HN levels. It was recognised that 'dangerous' was a subjective concept and a teaching approach might feel  'dangerous' or risky to one lecturer but not another or with one group of students and not another .

The event focused on the following themes :

• Engaging and fun ways to teach reading, writing, listening and talking
• Digital teaching - what's fun and accessible
• What differentiates teaching approaches/methodology in Commuication Units at Core Skills and HN levels
• Integrating Communication Units with ICT Units
• Going paperless with assessment and feedback evidence

There were brief presentations by members of the network on each of these themes . This acted as a stimulus for small group discussions and the generation of ideas which were fed back into the larger group in very creative and innovative ways as evidenced by the photos.

Practitoners were energetic,enthusiastic and highly motivated . The College Development Network will collate all ideas and the resources generated and disseminate to both those who attended the event and the wider Network.