In the classroom - what are we all doing here? Being seriously playful?

We now have different lifestyles that are part of our higher education.  Busier, mobile, remote, what sometimes is called hybrid. 

Students seem to be pensive in the picture, busy, and so am I as an educator. 

No doubt, social media (ever present, even in students' laptops!) has invaded our lifestryles and classrooms.  For the last few years, I get increasingly worried when I notice students checking their mobile phones, or typing fast in their laptops or tablets/  Something is going on!

What are we all doing here?

As an educator, I try to relate the exercise to concepts already explained in lectures. Some questions come and go when I check on students. It seems we all learn, or try to, whilst paying attention to our lives outside the classroom.

The technologies are supposed to help us remember, practice, get feedback, personalise. They are supposed to be the true complement of hybrid learning. Online access to material, simulations, presentations, exercises, case studies, discussions. All of these learning resources are there.

In many cases, instead, these technologies are allowing us to escape the interaction, the conversation, the reflection. They are allowing us to escape the classroom.

Like Edgar Morin (2016) says, part of the problem is that we have fragmented knowledge into disciplines. We have severed connections between knowledge, experience and learning. We need to rediscover such connections.

In one of my books (2020), I made an attempt to do so by bringing the idea that it is possible, within and outside the classroom, to play and be serious, to let our best selves come to the fore and help us be creative.  In the class, there are opportunities to be seriously playful.  

The results were unexpected. In one session, some students took videos of me playing the flute to create an association between music and numeracy. In another (an examination), others complained when the more 'serious' display (a graphic of a linear equation) did not show. I remember panicking at the time and solving the problem as fast as I could.  Some serious students said that this should not have happened.  And they were right.  Only that I felt as if I was in the wrong place trying to nurture my creativity and theirs.  

This las experience also taught me that there is still a long way to become seriously playful in management education.  Many university administrators operate too inflexibly and pass the blame to others, without considering that perhaps they are also part of the problems that emerge.   Luckily, the classroom still is a space to create, but we need to be there in body and soul to fully do so.  


After this and other experiences, I have changed focus (I also stopeed teaching and leading on big courses - 400 students and over!). I have designed exercises and assessments that aim to be more interactive, and I try my best to check the display of information.   

I have also ventured outside the classroom.  I also ask students to go around campus and observe situations, talk to venue managers or other 'customers', so that they also ask questions.

So, going back to the question

So, to the question of: "What are we all doing here?", I can only answer that we are simply here and there. We should try to be here, not try to achieve too much when we play with creativity, and be aware that social media (the gateway to the 'there' ) is also a member of our classes. 

We need to manage our technologies carefully, so that not all the attention to the here goes away.  And we need to find the appropriate spaces to be seriously playful with creativity  

References

Córdoba-Pachón, J.R. (2020). Creativity in Management Education: A Systemic Rediscovery. London: Palgrave McMillan. Have a look at the spirit of play and seriousness, and the experiences chapters.

Morin, E. (2016). Enseñar a vivir. Manifiesto para cambiar la educación. Barcelona: Paidos. A well explained vision for systemic education.

Somebody's food - paper published! - Some tips

 We finally did it!

Our project work has been published in an article for the Journal of the Operational Research Society.  It has been a great learning experience to have organised and led this process.  If I can offer some tips to authors who want to get their work published after a research project, they will be:

1) Draft whatever you can and send it.  Looking back, the very first draft version of the paper does not resemble much of the final one.  Yes, we included some diagrams at the beginning (we wanted to show some data), but even they were very preliminary versions.  We put the first draft out there and asked for feedback from co-authors (not every one contributed in the same way).  We started the process as a new stage after the project funding ended.  And asked for help, which we got in unexpected ways.  

2) Try to use the help you get in the ways it comes.  Some co-authors were good at refining the writing of ideas and adding their own.  Others were too specialised.  I had to find a way of accommodating their contributions.  I also had to adapt my schedule to theirs.   And wait patiently.  One of the co-authors wrote only a few paragraphs but they were unique in the way that they helped us position the paper in the current literature and discussions.  Another used the language of her discipline (not systems thinking).  So we had to find ways to translate contributions.  Often, we mean very similar things.  

3) Make decisions.  As much as I waited patiently for contributions, I had to shape the content of the article to what I thought was important and to meet deadlines!  Gradually, the scope of what could be changed had to be reduced and some contributions were reduced or lefr for the next paper.  Reviewers assume that there is consensus among co-authors.  So should you as lead author.  

4) Involve practitioners.  We had a project group with practitioners, so we asked for their feedback.  Like academics, they are very busy people and moved onto other projects if not their day to day job (which is not to write papers!).  They said though that the main benefit of their involvement was not the paper but the learning that came with it.  This and other insights (they have helped disseminate the paper in their networks, and they have praised it with their peers in front of me!) are definitely worth considering.  

5).  Enjoy and use it! The paper was published online a few months ago.  Am still over the moon with it!  I keep talking to people about it and it has brought me other possibilities for future research.  Whilst I decide what to do next, am contacting people who I think can benefit from knowing about it.  Not a big network in terms of numbers.  

Sadly, I have to fight back the urge to think of the next paper in a better ranked journal.  Luckily I have got busy with other commitments, but hey, I keep looking at this paper.  I am hope the joy lasts for longer ! 

Somebody's food - lessons learned for project work

Our project "somebody's food" has come to an end.  And there are very interesting learning lessons to take forward.  

It was a great experience to be working with other academics and practitioner.  At some point during the project, we had to stop and reflect about our own goals to be pursued.  Also because myself as a PI was trying to move forward without much success.

Coming from different disciplines (engineering and management) and backgrounds (media, technology venturing), it transpired that our goals were about a) ensuring successful adoption of a technology  (anaerobic digestion) whilst also b) making sure people were going to use it.   And c) supporting our university campus managers who needed to meet specific targets (i.e. reducing single plastic use or food waste).  

Some of these goals were not explicit at the beginning of the project.  They gradually emerged.  And had to be managed.  One element that helped in this regard was to design a future campus vision, where all these goals could coexist.  And so we did, following a suggestion from our industry partner.  We included a slightly different goal instead of implementing anaerobic digestion: composting, its supporting processes and behaviours.  In preparing the vision, it also helped that we had an implicit common ground that became more prominent:  The circular economy or CE.  This is a kind of paradigm that suggests transforming business practices to eliminate if not reuse waste emerging from them.  

At this point in time, we have shared our vision with several campus managers.  There is a wealth of activity to meet waste reduction targets and generate awareness about waste.  We keep updating our vision to consider new possibilities and also the feedback received.