Adaptive educational environments as creative spaces

Abstract

This paper integrates theoretical perspectives and practical insights to offer a conceptualization of adaptive educational environments as creative spaces for fostering certain intellectual abilities associated with creativity, notably transference and synthesis in cross‐disciplinary situations. When educational environments are modeled as systems, mechanisms that maintain stability or lead to change in the system can be described. Educational systems in stasis may be good for promoting some kinds of learning, but not so good for promoting intellectual abilities associated with creativity. It is proposed that designed interventions may change the system so that it is more conducive to certain outcomes. Such designed interventions may involve the use of facilitating technologies and pedagogies that change situational and social dynamics. The potential of digital tools in this context is considered. Examples of designed interventions are drawn from work on ‘Playful Triggers’ and ‘eccentric objects and odd experiences’ and independently‐derived theoretical constructs are used to account for the creative outcomes of interventions. While outlining intentions for future research, the paper highlights some educational challenges of conceptualizing adaptive environments as creative spaces and their implications for practice.

Acknowledgements

The Pea Project and ‘A surrealist encounter’ were developed and experimented with by Daria Loi with Dr Peter Burrows (RMIT University, Australia). The 2005–2006 workshops utilizing Playful Triggers were conducted by Daria Loi and kindly organized by The Centre for Customer Strategy and hosted by Swinburne University (Australia). The work of Patrick Dillon was undertaken partly in connection with the ‘Beyond the broadband blackboard: digital technologies and learner voice’ seminar series (http://www.nestafuturelab.org/research/personalisation.htm) and was part‐sponsored by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency and National Endowment for Science, Technology and Arts Futurelab, UK, and a University of Exeter Research Grant.