94756 Living Learning Lab
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Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.
Credit points: 6 cp
Result type: Grade, no marks
Requisite(s): 94750 Transdisciplinary Learning for Change OR 94754 Transdisciplinary Interventions and Initiatives: Beyond Impact
These requisites may not apply to students in certain courses.
There are course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.
Description
How and why might a contemporary problem benefit from a transdisciplinary learning and research approach, and for what deeper purpose?
This subject operates as a living lab in its response to emerging problems using a transdisciplinary learning approach. Participants connect with live projects that researchers from across the university, practitioners from different sectors and/or diverse communities are currently addressing at a local level. Working with these interconnected teams, participants are challenged to understand the complex problem and those most impacted, to deal with rapid response timeframes, dynamic conditions and resource constraints, amongst other complexities as they become known. The Living Learning Lab provides a creative, safe space for professional learning, collaboration, novel thinking and experimentation to generate viable proposals for collective action and practice more widely.
Subject learning objectives (SLOs)
Upon successful completion of this subject students should be able to:
| 1. | Critically examine and test the value of transdisciplinary proposals or initiatives for different stakeholder-learners |
|---|---|
| 2. | Trial transdisciplinary learning environments that promote collective experimentation, generativity and reflexivity |
| 3. | Describe, synthesise and model collective learning situations and critically appraise them from philosophical and theoretical perspectives |
| 4. | Use principled approaches for designing and developing transdisciplinary initiatives, taking into account their moral and cultural dimensions including indigenous worldviews |
| 5. | Be reflexive when making educational decisions and advocate for engaging ethically with the values of particular groups, communities, organisations or cultures |
Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)
This subject contributes specifically to the development of the following course intended learning outcomes:
- Imagine, design and trial transdisciplinary learning environments that promote collective experimentation, generativity and reflexivity (1.2)
- Critically examine, test, analyse and appreciate the value of transdisciplinary initiatives for different stakeholder-learners, whether at a societal, organisational, community or individual level (1.3)
- Describe, synthesise and model collective learning situations using various inquiry methods and critically appraising them from different philosophical and theoretical perspectives (2.2)
- Use principled approaches for designing and developing transdisciplinary initiatives, taking into account their moral and cultural dimensions including indigenous knowledge (3.2)
- Make educational decisions that advocate for engaging ethically and sensitively to the values of particular groups, communities, organisations or cultures and promoting agency (3.3)
Teaching and learning strategies
Collective learning approaches
In the lab subject, participants are immersed in a complex professional learning / educational challenge – a live project – that cuts across sectors and stakeholders as they work together with external partners and academic researchers to generate new insights and initiatives for action, while also considering the relevance of those developments to their own professional contexts and networks. Learning therefore is highly collaborative and personalised, where participants benefit from interactions with other professionals and also contribute their knowledge, experience and curiosity to the collective’s learning. In the process, participants extend their professional networks and future opportunities for transdisciplinary learning.
Self-paced and face-to-face online learning
Learning in the online lab environment is inquiry-driven, creative and rigorous, where novel ideas and possibilities are imagined, generated and tested on value. The lab therefore involves active learning with professional colleagues, academic researchers and external partners – as well as engagement with cutting ideas in different fields – and provides ongoing opportunities for feedback and “feedforward” from a range of different perspectives and disciplines. The lab space opens up two weeks prior to the official commencement of the subject enabling introductory exploration of ideas and assessments, as well as developing a study plan. Week 1 begins with a face-to-face online seminar and Week 2 with an introductory workshop, leading into self-paced collective asynchronous learning experiences that run over the next three weeks and enabling participants to engage deeply with key ideas and practices from different disciplines, professions and cultures in tackling the living lab’s challenge. Then in Weeks 5-9, participants are immersed in face-to-face online workshops on Zoom and collaborative applications to work with their peers, academics and external partners and trial ideas in operation within particular situations. In Week 10, the subject ends with a closing presentation session and networking opportunity to celebrate achievements as well as explore openings that have emerged for future action, inquiry and collaboration.
Professional practice integration
Participants undertake activities collaboratively within the lab collective, whether during the self-paced session or intensive workshops, that are tuned to their professional requirements and interests. Subsequently, the experiences and insights generated within the lab’s collaborative environment provide, for example, rich data and material to interpret, analyse and think with and that subsequently form the basis for individually assessed tasks. In particular, these assessment tasks entail participants considering the emerging possibilities and implications for their own practice, professional context and aspirations.
Assessment
Assessment task 1: Initiative pitch
| Objective(s): | This task addresses the following subject learning objectives: 1 and 2 This assessment task contributes to the development of course intended learning outcome(s): 1.2 and 1.3 |
|---|---|
| Type: | Presentation |
| Groupwork: | Group, individually assessed |
| Weight: | 30% |
Assessment task 2: Collective action: Initiatives and insights from the field
| Objective(s): | This task addresses the following subject learning objectives: 3 and 4 This assessment task contributes to the development of course intended learning outcome(s): 2.2 and 3.2 |
|---|---|
| Type: | Report |
| Groupwork: | Group, group assessed |
| Weight: | 30% |
Assessment task 3: Notes from the Lab: A reflexive exploration
| Objective(s): | This task addresses the following subject learning objectives: 5 This assessment task contributes to the development of course intended learning outcome(s): 3.3 |
|---|---|
| Type: | Reflection |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 40% |
Minimum requirements
Students must make a reasonable attempt to meet the expectations outlined for each assessment task and achieve an overall pass grade in order to pass this subject.