Learners reconceptualising education: widening participation through creative engagement?

Abstract

Engaging imaginatively with how education is manifested is necessary for providers both in higher education and in preceding contexts and phases. Fostering dispositions for creativity in dynamic engagement and the consideration of pedagogy, curriculum, inclusion, policy and the management of change, requires innovative provision to span school, home, work and higher education learning. Reporting on Aspire Pilot, a National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts‐funded initiative at The Open University, which sought to foster creativity of 11–18 year olds in considering future learning systems, this paper offers the beginning of a theoretical frame for considering learning, learners and systems in the Knowledge Age prioritising learner agency. Discussing findings, the paper explores implications for approaches facilitating widening participation in higher education.

Keywords:

• schome
• vision
• learner voice
• learner agency
• provocations

Acknowledgements

Our thanks to all the project participants for their willingness to explore and extend known intellectual, practical and virtual boundaries. The project was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA).

Notes

1. A provocation in the context of this project was seen as a creative prompt (activity, technique, approach) which would stimulate other people to think more creatively about visions for schome.

2. We use grounded here to mean that the visions needed to be focused on meeting real needs for an education system and feasible in practice.

3. External consultants were freelance professionals versed in creative ways of working and facilitating young people and their teachers, using techniques dominantly, but not solely, drawn from the arts and mentoring fields.

4. Funded by QCA, SWGate and The Open University, details at CREATE Research Cluster: http://www.education.ex.ac.uk/projects.php?id=92