Reimagining Teacher Education through Design Thinking Principles: Curriculum in the Key of Life

Inspired by Arendt’s (2009) “task of renewing a common world” (p. 193), a team of ten instructors took on the challenge of reimagining a teacher preparation course entitled Curriculum II - Arts & Humanities. Through the dominant discourses of management, accountability and technique-driven preparation, the act of teaching is interpreted as a “service rendered” (Pinar, 2012, p. 36), measured “objectively” by demonstrable deliverables and pre-determined outcomes. Our team provoked these discourses by asserting that human beings are inherently attuned to deeper learning through wonderment, interpretation, ideation and experimentation (Whitehead, 1929). The principles of design thinking – a problem-based process which, through curiosity, empathy and interdisciplinary thinking, generates playful and collaborative creative experimentation – offered a space within which to open up deeper educational conversations with pre-service teachers. Invoking the metaphor of a choral performance, this series of miniature musical movements “in the key of life” express the challenging, enlivening and multivocal nature of curriculum and pedagogy enacted through Design Thinking principles. From contemplating the power of self-reflection and collective action, to meeting challenges and resistance with courage, to listening with heart to people and places, and to responding with joy and hope in the face of our place and circumstances, each individual movement gives voice to the echoes that linger long after the official coursework is complete. Together, these voices join together in a chorus of authentic and responsive curriculum renewal

Ecological Pedagogy in an Urban Prairiescape

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In Situ Conversation: Understanding Sense of Place through Socioecological Cartographies

With geological, anthropological, pedagogical, and linguistic analogies, this study reflects on socioecological notions of place and place-making as explored through conversations and cartographies about static and dynamic moments and journeys in a context of native biodiversity conservation within a remnant urban prairie in northwest Calgary, Canada. Through collaborative stewardship and place-based ecopedagogy, the local community and schools have come to know more about one another and the heritage of the landscape in this shared space. Using their own names, teachers, students, parents, scientists, artists, and neighbours who have engaged in school- and community-based environmental initiatives, such as grassland reclamation and interpretive signage, were interviewed using methods adapted from autobiography and currere. As a fellow participant in these projects, the researcher is place-literate and deeply embedded. Four themes emerged during analysis of emplaced s’entrevois conversations: context, approach, resolve, and transformation; each theme has a set of four alliterative subthemes. Context involves conversation, collaboration, community, and celebration. Approach derives from awareness, action, analogy, and attachment. Resolve – bringing into greater resolution or commitment – stems from reflect, remember, restore, and revision. Transformation is enacted through trust, tension, tenacity, and time. From these arose a CARTographic framework which was used to further examine the data. As well, tetrahedral constructs based on silicate mineralogy’s [SiO4]4- ion as a metaphor for in situ connectivity, were developed along with the CARTs to represent results, as well as organize this dissertation. Each participant’s data was sorted into one of twelve cartographies: multivoiced illustrative discussions of place and place-making. In presenting the data, each cartography was set in one of four refrains involved in developing a sense of place: stewardship, pedagogy, interrelationship, and heritage. One cartography was illuminated per refrain, and each included two narratives based on reflective conversations with one or more participants. Thus, socioecological cartography has evolved as a form of place-based portraiture. Encountering, elucidating, encouraging, and emplacing are connectivity processes leading to an understanding of self, others, and place. With an ethic of care inherent in these place-based engagements comes a development of sense of place and increased ecological mindedness