The Global Scientific Dialogue course at the Far Eastern Federal University, which I co-designed with Russian colleagues last year, is running for a second year. I was happy with how it went last year, but this year it seems better. I must admit that on returning to this transdisciplinary mix of stuff (art, science, technology, intersubjectivity, machine learning, etc), I had a few worries about whether I was deceiving myself that any of this was any good – particularly as this year, we are running it with nearly 500 students. But after getting back into it, and particularly after talking to the teachers, I was reassured that there was something really good in it, which was of special benefit to teachers and students across the management and economics school in the university.
Although the course is about trying to provide a broader perspective on the rapid changes in the world of work for our students (particularly, this year, with a focus on machine learning), I think this is really as much a course for teachers: it demands and gets great team teaching. Last year we recruited and trained 30 teachers from the school, and 20 helped us run the course. This year we recruited and trained another 17. But it was so much easier because last years’ teachers have become experts: from being a very small team trying to encourage innovative teaching practice (basically me and a couple of Russian colleagues), it has been transformed into a movement of more than 20 teachers all pulling in the same direction. Their internal communication has been conducted through WhatsApp, and this year, the level of cooperation and coordination has been superb. It’s really wonderful. Eventually, they may not need me any more – but that’s as it should be!
Technologically, it’s very simple. There is video to keep things coordinated so many teachers can conduct similar activities in small groups together, there is comparative judgement to keep the students thinking and submitting their thoughts, and patchwork text to provide flexibility in assessment. We tried as hard as we could to get away from rigid learning outcomes. We ended up with a compromise.
Ok. So it really works (although much could be refined). Why?
I gave a presentation to the senior academic board of the faculty last week. I explained that I see the course as a cybernetic intervention, inspired by Beer’s work on syntegration. But only inspired. Really, I think the interventions of the course all contribute to an uncertain environment for teachers and students (syntegration does this too). The uncertainty means that they cannot rely on their pre-existing categories for dealing with the world (existing within what Beer calls the “meta-system”), and must find ways of reconfiguring their meta-system, expressing their uncertainty, which they do through dialogue. Importantly, this helps to level the positioning between teachers and students.
I’m fairly happy with that as an explanation: the evidence fits the model. But I think there’s something more. I’m wondering if the course’s structure over its two weeks is also important.
The structure is highly varied. It begins with a “big lecture” from me. I was never that comfortable with this but its an administrative requirement, and the room we do it in is enormous and echoey. So I start by getting them all to sing, and I introduce the idea of multiple description through examining the sound frequencies in a single sound (“A single sound is made of many frequencies. A single concept is produced by many strands of dialogue, etc…”). It’s great having a spectrum analyser providing real-time feedback and intellectual challenge!
Thinking about it, the singing is a “chorus” - does all this have the structure of ancient Greek drama?
I try not to talk for too long before getting them to turn their chairs round and play a game. We play Mary Flannagan’s "Grow-a-game", asking the students to invent a new game that addresses a global challenge (inequality, homelessness, global warming, etc) by changing the rules of a game they already know.
There is much argument and debate in the groups. A kind of “Agon” (bear with me….)
We get the students to make a short video of their game, which we play to everyone. This is a presentation of ideas and themes, maybe a “Parados?”
More talk follows (chorus), followed by games (agon 2).
Then students go to separate groups and talk about different topics. These topics too have a similar structure, except the “chorus” is usually a video that sets the scene (could be a “prologue”). Then there is more activity (agon 3), and a presentation of their ideas ("stasimon"?)
In the middle of the course, we have a “feast”: a gathering of experts where all 500 students are free to wander around and talk to interesting people. I told the students to think of it as a “party”. It wasn’t quite a party, but had a great atmosphere for everyone.
At the end of the course, the students parade their work. We end with a final procession ("exodus"?).
Maybe I’m being overly grand, but the thing has a structure, and I can’t help feeling that the structure has a deeper significance which may relate to ancient drama and ritual - although things may be in an unconventional order in comparison to Euripides.
What was the point of ancient drama and ritual? It must have had a function in producing coherence of experience among the group of spectators. That is exactly what we are trying to do with Global Scientific Dialogue. Why is so much formal learning incoherent? Because it doesn’t have any clear structure: it’s just one thing after another. There’s no dramatic thrust. This may explain why some talk about the "accelerated academy" (like this: http://accelerated.academy/). I don't buy it - "acceleration" is the feeling one gets when things start to run out of control. The real problem is that things just don't make sense. Our traditional ways of operating in education are out of control.
The connection must be made between the message that is given, how it is given, the structure of proceedings, and the role of time. So what is the connection?
We can think of a message as a distinction. When we draw a distinction we immediately create uncertainty: what is inside and what is outside the distinction? The internal uncertainty must be managed and balanced with external uncertainty. In order to manage the external uncertainty, the invention of time is necessary. It's only by creating past, present and future that the essential contingency of a distinction can be maintained.
With the creation of past, present and future, the relationship between diachronic structure and synchronic structure becomes an important element in the coherence of the whole: exactly in the way that music operates. Could it be shown that the moments of the dramatic ritual are necessary to maintain coherence? Well, these elements like “agon”, “parados”, “feast”, “chorus” rotate around in different configurations. They are discrete moments produced by dialogue. Each is characterised by a different form of pattern or "redundancy". I suspect these are different ways of saying the same thing - or maybe different ways of saying "nothing". What is the switch from one “nothing” to the next “nothing”?
I'm thinking that this brings Peter Rowlands’s idea from physics of mass, space, time and charge all dancing around each other in a cyclic group is useful. I strongly suspect there is some deep contact between the nature of the universe and the structure of the moments of experience. We could go much deeper.
But whatever theoretical construct we might indulge in, Global Scientific Dialogue has presented a phenomenon which demands a better explanation than “everyone seems to like it!”.
Although the course is about trying to provide a broader perspective on the rapid changes in the world of work for our students (particularly, this year, with a focus on machine learning), I think this is really as much a course for teachers: it demands and gets great team teaching. Last year we recruited and trained 30 teachers from the school, and 20 helped us run the course. This year we recruited and trained another 17. But it was so much easier because last years’ teachers have become experts: from being a very small team trying to encourage innovative teaching practice (basically me and a couple of Russian colleagues), it has been transformed into a movement of more than 20 teachers all pulling in the same direction. Their internal communication has been conducted through WhatsApp, and this year, the level of cooperation and coordination has been superb. It’s really wonderful. Eventually, they may not need me any more – but that’s as it should be!
Technologically, it’s very simple. There is video to keep things coordinated so many teachers can conduct similar activities in small groups together, there is comparative judgement to keep the students thinking and submitting their thoughts, and patchwork text to provide flexibility in assessment. We tried as hard as we could to get away from rigid learning outcomes. We ended up with a compromise.
Ok. So it really works (although much could be refined). Why?
I gave a presentation to the senior academic board of the faculty last week. I explained that I see the course as a cybernetic intervention, inspired by Beer’s work on syntegration. But only inspired. Really, I think the interventions of the course all contribute to an uncertain environment for teachers and students (syntegration does this too). The uncertainty means that they cannot rely on their pre-existing categories for dealing with the world (existing within what Beer calls the “meta-system”), and must find ways of reconfiguring their meta-system, expressing their uncertainty, which they do through dialogue. Importantly, this helps to level the positioning between teachers and students.
I’m fairly happy with that as an explanation: the evidence fits the model. But I think there’s something more. I’m wondering if the course’s structure over its two weeks is also important.
The structure is highly varied. It begins with a “big lecture” from me. I was never that comfortable with this but its an administrative requirement, and the room we do it in is enormous and echoey. So I start by getting them all to sing, and I introduce the idea of multiple description through examining the sound frequencies in a single sound (“A single sound is made of many frequencies. A single concept is produced by many strands of dialogue, etc…”). It’s great having a spectrum analyser providing real-time feedback and intellectual challenge!
Thinking about it, the singing is a “chorus” - does all this have the structure of ancient Greek drama?
I try not to talk for too long before getting them to turn their chairs round and play a game. We play Mary Flannagan’s "Grow-a-game", asking the students to invent a new game that addresses a global challenge (inequality, homelessness, global warming, etc) by changing the rules of a game they already know.
There is much argument and debate in the groups. A kind of “Agon” (bear with me….)
We get the students to make a short video of their game, which we play to everyone. This is a presentation of ideas and themes, maybe a “Parados?”
More talk follows (chorus), followed by games (agon 2).
Then students go to separate groups and talk about different topics. These topics too have a similar structure, except the “chorus” is usually a video that sets the scene (could be a “prologue”). Then there is more activity (agon 3), and a presentation of their ideas ("stasimon"?)
In the middle of the course, we have a “feast”: a gathering of experts where all 500 students are free to wander around and talk to interesting people. I told the students to think of it as a “party”. It wasn’t quite a party, but had a great atmosphere for everyone.
At the end of the course, the students parade their work. We end with a final procession ("exodus"?).
Maybe I’m being overly grand, but the thing has a structure, and I can’t help feeling that the structure has a deeper significance which may relate to ancient drama and ritual - although things may be in an unconventional order in comparison to Euripides.
What was the point of ancient drama and ritual? It must have had a function in producing coherence of experience among the group of spectators. That is exactly what we are trying to do with Global Scientific Dialogue. Why is so much formal learning incoherent? Because it doesn’t have any clear structure: it’s just one thing after another. There’s no dramatic thrust. This may explain why some talk about the "accelerated academy" (like this: http://accelerated.academy/). I don't buy it - "acceleration" is the feeling one gets when things start to run out of control. The real problem is that things just don't make sense. Our traditional ways of operating in education are out of control.
The connection must be made between the message that is given, how it is given, the structure of proceedings, and the role of time. So what is the connection?
We can think of a message as a distinction. When we draw a distinction we immediately create uncertainty: what is inside and what is outside the distinction? The internal uncertainty must be managed and balanced with external uncertainty. In order to manage the external uncertainty, the invention of time is necessary. It's only by creating past, present and future that the essential contingency of a distinction can be maintained.
With the creation of past, present and future, the relationship between diachronic structure and synchronic structure becomes an important element in the coherence of the whole: exactly in the way that music operates. Could it be shown that the moments of the dramatic ritual are necessary to maintain coherence? Well, these elements like “agon”, “parados”, “feast”, “chorus” rotate around in different configurations. They are discrete moments produced by dialogue. Each is characterised by a different form of pattern or "redundancy". I suspect these are different ways of saying the same thing - or maybe different ways of saying "nothing". What is the switch from one “nothing” to the next “nothing”?
I'm thinking that this brings Peter Rowlands’s idea from physics of mass, space, time and charge all dancing around each other in a cyclic group is useful. I strongly suspect there is some deep contact between the nature of the universe and the structure of the moments of experience. We could go much deeper.
But whatever theoretical construct we might indulge in, Global Scientific Dialogue has presented a phenomenon which demands a better explanation than “everyone seems to like it!”.
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