Learning, Transforming, Technique II, Programme


We have now finalised the programme for Learning, Transforming, Technique II.

This event is free to attend (including accommodation and food) thanks to a generous grant from Awards for All.

There are a few spaces available for ‘punters’ to attend, so if you are interested in taking part please contact us to reserve a space by 28 March 2016.

We can’t wait!

Last year’s event was a fantastic success, and the sessions we’ve got lined up promise to inspire and transform how we learn and share ideas with each other.

Learning, Transforming, Technique II, 8-11 April 2016, Melin Dolwion

Friday 8 April – 5pm onwards

Gather at Melin Dolwion for food and informal discussions

Saturday 9 April 2016

8.30-9.30 Breakfast

9.30-11 Drawing With or Without Passion – Eva Megias

We will take a seat in a circle and start discussing what is drawing, what is passion and no passion?

After we will work in pairs: one will draw, the other will encourage the other with passion. And vice versa. Second round. Someone will draw. The partner will not feel passionate. And vice versa.

The person who identifies as least passionate about drawing in the group will make a final drawing with the whole group giving passionate commentaries to that person.

After that we will make an exhibition and discuss what happened.

11-11.30 Tea break

11.30-1pm Happy Accidents – Group mind, stories and film – Emma Thatcher

Together we will simply plan, film, edit and view our own film.

The group will write down some basic elements of a story, then these ideas will be chosen at random for us to film.

Without the pressure of choosing the ‘idea’, we will all be able to explore our own creativity as part of the group mind.

1-2pm Lunch

2-3.30pm – Supporting Differentiation in the Learning Environment – Richard Thomas and Arthur Turner

Diagnostic tools can be used to categorise our learners, but do we really ‘attend’ to the needs of different learners often enough, even if we have the results of such surveys? Studies reveal disappointing ‘recall levels’ of human beings subjected to some approaches to teaching (Whitmore, 2009).

There are many other reasons why learners are ‘different’ such as culture, attention span, cognitive abilities and well-balanced workshops and facilitation techniques recognise this (Nelson, 2010). People’s perceptions are different and therefore understanding is different.

As facilitators of the learning episode, we should provide a connecting link between the learner and the learning outcome; by building a metaphorical ‘bridge’ that the learner can navigate to reach the purpose of the session.

So how can we ‘appeal’ to the needs of different learners, to accelerate the learning of everyone attending the learning session? The role of the facilitator is to release the potential in every learner, which will be different for each one; it is the progress that those individuals make that matters.

3.30-5pm Live Looping Music – Experimental Workshop – Steve Moyes

Live looping is a method of creating music, using technology to record sounds and play them back as loops, in real time. The loops can then be played over, added to, and manipulated in various ways.

I have been making music using live looping for many years and am a qualified and experienced music workshop facilitator, but have only once before led a looping workshop. Although that workshop was largely successful, it ended up being as much a demonstration as a workshop. I would like to explore different ways of encouraging people new to the art form to take part, in fun, creative ways.

The session would be open to musicians and non-musicians alike. One of the things I find most inspiring about live looping is that rather complex, exciting music can be created, using very simple means. Small sounds can be looped and added to, to make something that sounds like (and is) music, without the original sounds being necessarily musical. I envisage the group creating collaborative loops, that can be added to by all, regardless of ability, or music-making experience. The session would be genuinely experimental, as I would be trying out completely new methods.

I propose a two hour workshop for up to 12 participants. Musicians could bring their own instruments to use, but this would be entirely optional. I can provide all necessary equipment. Open to all ages and levels of experience.

5-6pm Proud Fool – Kym Winstanley

I write and perform stand-up comedy using my own life experience as raw material. My workshop will provide an opportunity to work individually within a supportive group. We will explore telling our stories in different ways to how we might usually and reveal otherwise unseen sides of ourselves. No previous comedy experience necessary.

6pm-7.30pm Feast

7.30pm End of Day Evaluation 1 – Maggie Nicols

A time at the end of each day to share and reflect upon what we have experienced and how it has affected us. What have we learned? How do we feel? Can we integrate these techniques into our daily lives and make a difference individually and collectively?

I will use simple, safe, creative exercises which enhance confidence in our insights and which nurture fearless freedom of expression.

We are all infinitely wise in our different rhythms together.

Sunday 10 April 2016

8.30-9.30 Breakfast

9.30-11 Alex Wardrop – Pedagogy in Postcards

“In the beginning, in principle, was the post, and I will never get over it. But in the end I know it, I become aware of it as of our death sentence: it was composed, according to all possible codes and genres and languages, as a declaration of love”. Jacques Derrida, The Post-Card, 29.

In this hour and a half session we will explore how postcards can help us understand, and develop techniques of learning as a process of transmission which is both a collective and deeply personal act.

We will think pedagogy with postcards – small carriers of words and images, addresses, memories, feelings, information, dates, a little out of date, working across times and spaces, in our hands, out of our hands, intimate and distant, private sentiment shared and posted.

We will each make postcards which touch upon and tell of our intimate pedagogical dreams (or nightmares). We will walk down to the post-box and post them to a particular person – real or fictitious, dead or not yet alive, human, animal, mineral or institutional. The performance of posting our pedagogical postcards will be documented by photographs and sound recordings. We will close the session reflecting on how the process may have transformed our learning techniques.

Through discussion and collage, this session will explore a range of ideas relating to learning, technique and transformation, including technologies, emotions, politics, temporality and distance.

11.00-12.30pm Collective Improvisation of Stop Motion Animation – Agnes Hay

This workshop would introduce and practice stop motion animated film (video) making.

We would make a very simple story with independently moving small objects. Participants may bring an object to act or we find one around the place (about hand sized like pen, mug, hat handkerchief …). These object will move ‘by themselves’ on a table and they may appear disappear and change too. As animation is an out of time situation the participant may discuss every step (unlike at real life improvisation). One suggests what her/his object would like to do and the others may accept, reject and moreover decide their objects’ reaction to it. Even if it is not discussed there is plenty of time to consider and make decision.

The end result will be a short minimalist movie of fast moving object and their relationships. If there is interest by the participants we may edit and put sound to it in a separate session. Finally we may put it on youtube or use on shows.

12.30-1.30pm Lunch

1.30-3pm Forest – Portia Winters

We will begin in the forest, playing with calls, the plaintive calls and responses in music, the birdsong calls, animal calls and human calls, and kulning, which is the Swedish sheppardesses herding song. We will let the voice travel far and wide in the forest acoustic.

We will play song games. We will make our own calls through the trees. We will find circles and space and create a surround-sound experience with our voices.

We will do a listening walk back to the kitchen.

3.3.30pm Break

3.30-5.30pm Autobiography and collective production in the rewriting of personal stories – Morgane Conti and Fiona Ranford

The most effective way to create a conductive learning environment in a setting where participants’ background and abilities vary, is to make use of their differences as a resource for learning. At the same time, it is key to provide room for individual reflection, but also the opportunity to engage with others, so as to push those reflections further. With these aims in mind we want to propose a workshop on autobiography and the sharing and rewriting of personal narratives. The workshop will run over the course of three days and involve elements of writing, group reading and discussion. We will also explore the re-telling of autobiography through image theatre, and compare what can be learnt through the refraction of another’s story through our own writing and images.

The purpose of the workshop is not to assess or improve writing skills but to use people’s life experiences as raw material to encourage learning about themselves and others. Firstly, autobiographical writing acknowledges everyone’s experience are a source of knowledge. Secondly, it stimulates learning because it incites participants to reflect on their experience from a critical distance. In thinking ourselves through writing we exert control over our image, stimulating confidence and assertiveness. Then, by asking participants to rewrite each other’s stories we hope to make apparent the active role we take as editors representing other people’s lives. Finally, and more importantly, we want to foster an environment where relinquishing control over one’s story can be experienced positively. Hearing our stories as told by other people will help us reflect on how knowledge is created collectively, from passing on information, and building on it, by working together.

5.30–6.30 Maggie Evaluation 2

End!

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