Montage, DaDa and the Dalek: The Game of Meaning in Higher Education

Abstract

This paper argues for visual playfulness in Higher Education learning and teaching practice. We offer a case study example of how we, the authors of this paper, have incorporated creativity into our teaching - the Facilitating Student Learning module, the first module in the Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. We outline how we used ‘visualising to learn’ and what learning resulted from our visualisation practices. With our staff learners, we found that visual play gave them the freedom to experiment, to question and to progress; important in these supercomplex, uncertain times. Our desire was not to ‘fix’ or train academic staff, but to give them the space and tools to become liberatory professionals on their own terms and in their own ways so they can support their students to also become academic without losing themselves in the process. We propose that what is needed are methods and methodologies that enable learners - staff and students - to evolve and transform as they co-construct their knowledge in ludic ways. We incorporate images of the representations that our participants have made of themselves, of their students and of Higher Education systems to illustrate the challenges and possibilities of visual learning - and of creative staff development practice in general - and invite the reader to engage dialogically with them also to see what meanings they might make of them.