6.1 Cinematic Bricolage in Ripples
The previous chapters explained that the methodology used in cinematic bricolage (CB) is underpinned by the epistemology of a circular interconnectedness and an interdependence of multimple systems involved in the production of knowledge. This characteristic is evidenced through the mapping across disparate domains, connecting various qualities and intermeshing divergent activities. They were presented in such circular dynamics as representation
meaning-making, emotioning
reasoning, human
computer
logic, database
narrative and stimulus
response. Being drawn together within the process of knowing, they form a larger dynamic system, the context of the learning task; that is, ripplework that is activated within delineated boundaries.
The delineation of the boundaries does not mean that the ripplework has been isolated from the entirety of existence. Instead, it refers to the surroundings of the phenomenon that have been abstracted for the purpose of producing a specific body of knowledge.
This signifies the location within ‘the biotic web of the natural world, the social web of human life, the epistemological web of knowledge production and the civic web of the political domain’ (Kincheloe 2008a, p. 85). Kincheloe refers to such a complex contextual structure as ‘a living cosmos’ (p. 85). He argues that bricolage is a suitable research methodology for accommodating and conducting research within such complexity. According to Kincheloe, ‘bricolage is a multimethodological form of research that uses a variety of research methods and theoretical constructs to examine a phenomenon’ (p. 8).
The theoretical paradigm that represents the foundation for CB argues ‘for a unified theory’ where multiple theoretical ‘dimensions fit together and are synergistic in their interrelationship’ (p. 7). CB is oriented along the lines of Kincheloe’s (2008a) conceptualisation of critical-constructivist theory that focuses on critical pedagogy. Inside the parameters of critical pedagogy, the CB system of knowledge production is particularly concerned with a developing the individual’s struggle to maintain autonomy within the conditions of a dominating ideology that ‘coercively manipulate citizens to adopt oppressive meaning’ (Kincheloe 2008b, p. 55). In understanding how individuals relate to the larger structure of a social domain, constructivist theory is rooted in the science of biology. In this regard, CB adopts a systemic view of life that postulates the autonomy of individuals within a circularly connected universe.
The living cosmos is made up of complex of historical, sociocultural and individual interactions. In CB, this complexity can be seen as the interdependence of the inner processes of mind; that is, the social and physical environments as well as the tools and systems of production with which reality is represented and comprehended. The acknowledgement of such an awareness is a response to the zeitgeist (spirit of the age) ‘of the early twenty-first century [which] is being shaped by a profound change of paradigms, characterised by a shift of metaphors from the world as a machine to the world as a network’ (Capra and Luisi 2014, p. 12).
With this in mind, the study of an individual’s activity involves considering the knower’s situatedness within the meshwork of historical, cultural and social systems. An individual’s activity is dependent on a personal intentionality that to a great degree is itself a context-dependent phenomenon. In other words, an individual’s system of interactions with the environment is nested within a larger universal system that is in turn part of a cosmic system, and so on; it is a series of interactions that ripple both ways. Delineating a specific human activity in a systemic web of reality resembles an outline of an area on a tapestry that includes interwoven threads going in many different directions with a complexity conditional to the overall pattern.
Imagine I want to analyse the particular area of the tapestry, and to this end, I pull out the threads one after another to examine them in separation. What I will end up with is a set of threads in my hands and a hole in the tapestry in the place I wanted to investigate. Thus, what I was planning to examine has disappeared.
Systemic thinking is contextual, which is the opposite of analytical thinking. Analysis means taking something apart in order to understand it; systems thinking means putting it into the context of a larger whole. (Capra and Luisi 2014, p. 66)
Thus, in adopting systemic thinking, ‘bricoleur s move from parts to the whole […] looking for interconnections that shape all the parts’ (Kincheloe 2004, p. 91). Bricoleurs ‘redefine and reinterpret the object of the study’ (p. 92) by incorporating a multitude of diverse methodologies and techniques. Confronting the power of mono-logical thinking, their work resembles the creation of found-object sculptures. By doing so, bricoleurs invite us to look at familiar models of organisations with the use of unexpectedly disparate parts that result in new forms of knowledge congruent to their individual understanding. They establish connections between bits and pieces, making new conceptual constructions and interpreting the pattern of their organisation in a way that can be considered atypical compared to the accepted norm. ‘The multilogical nature of the bricolage draws upon perspectivism, positing that every description of the world is an interpretation and there are always new interpretations to encounter’ (Kincheloe, p. 93). In other words, the knowledge that is produced by bricoleurs is tentative, depending on a constantly changing ‘interplay of two opposite tendencies: an integrative tendency to function as part of a larger whole, and a self-assertive, or self-organising tendency to preserve individual autonomy’ (Capra and Luisi 2014, p. 64).
6.2 Circularity of Self-Organisation
Cinematic bricolage circularities are the energy ripples that initiate and drive the processes of knowledge acquisition. Functionality of the CB’s circularities is seen as the ‘choreographic flow’ responsible for the distribution of the material elements, bricoles, and organisation of new patterns within the process of knowing.
As the direction of the energy flow is circular, the process of knowing can be compared to a ripplework. Each ripple signifies an event, a mental grasp that has emerged from the circularities’ interactions. Here, we are shifting from the McLuhan’s concept of the mind-cinema as linear processing to envisioning mind motion-pictures as a ripplework . In this context, an individual ripple within the mind-ripplework assumes the quality of an individual ‘frame’ within the mind-cinema.
[…] a study of the messages and the communication facilities which belong to it […] messages between man and machines, between machines and man […] It is a purpose of Cybernetics to develop a language and techniques that will enable us indeed to attack the problem of control and communication in general but also to find the proper repertory of ideas and technique to classify their particular manifestations under certain concepts. (p. 16)
CB is a methodology that attempts to develop a repertory of a multimodal system of communication, i.e., a system of ideas and techniques for the production and transmission of knowledge based on a circuity between the human
computer
logic enmeshment.
The circularity of the recurring feedback loops , described by Wiener as ‘the property of being able to adjust future conduct by past performance’ (p. 32).
Continuous dissipative motion reaching out into a state far from equilibrium until a self-organisation occurs, congruent with the environment.
Jean Piaget (1950) saw the process of self-organisation as cognitive equilibration
achieved through the feedback loops between
assimilation
accommodation
. Assimilation, according to Piaget, is the absorption of new information into existing cognitive patterns—mental schemata. Accommodation is the agreement achieved between the individual and environment ‘by simply modify[ing] the assimilatory cycle’ (p. 8). The equilibration between assimilation
accommodation occurs through ‘a circular reaction’ (p. 111), which brings about the modifications in existing mental schemata as well as in environment.
Cognitive equilibration is achieved by taking new information into existing mental schemata and modifying it through a ‘circular reaction’ to adapt to and modify the environment.
Autopoiesis —self-organisation of the organism within the structurally determined boundary of its own making. It is a mechanism ‘that makes living beings autonomous systems’ (Maturana and Varela 1998, p. 48).
Striving for equilibrium with the environment, a living organism undergoes continuous structural changes. An individual’s mind is thus a chronicle of the previous interactions with the environment into which every new change occurs only within the parameters of the existing makeup.
6.3 Developing the Ripplework
In this section, the CB circularities, are conceptualised as ripples drawn together into a ripplework of learning. As Wiener (1988) writes: ‘We are but whirlpools in a river of ever-flowing water. We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves’ (p. 96). The ripplework is complex schemata with circularities nested within circularities, with ripples appearing, expanding, altering in coherence with the dynamics of the whole and starting the same oscillation again and again.
Visualising this synergy leads to new questions > Which circularity is nested within which? > Which one is blending with which? > Which one is overlapping which? And > where do the ripples come from? Could Vygotsky’s (2012 [1934]) concept of a thought as ‘a cloud […] shedding a shower of words’ be added to the visualisation of the ripplework? Then again—where does the cloud come from? If this idea is integrated in such a way that the thoughts are compared to the drops falling in the ripplework creating ripples, then what is the relationship between the ‘drops’ or abstract ideas and the physicality of their embodiment?
As discussed earlier, databases—photos, audio/video fragments, movements and texts—are the material elements that are organised in accordance with media affordances and in a sequential processing corresponding with human logic, individual predispositions, and cultural/social tendencies. In examining the circularity of representing > meaning-making, the digital page of CB can be conceptualised as an interface in which the projection of the circularity becomes evident; that is, material. Hayles (2005) defines materiality as: ‘an emergent property created through dynamic interactions between physical characteristics and signifying strategies. Materiality thus marks a junction between physical reality and human intention’ (loc. 64).
In CB, human intention is initially evidenced through the origination of an attractor
—a starting point of the learning task. When the attractor is established and the process of gathering, manipulating and organising data takes place, a mind-cinema is set in motion. General observations of mind-cinema show that its content becomes noticeable not only through ‘the shower of words’, but also through a ripplework of fragmented images and sensations that are framed in the clusters of visceral vibrancy. By ‘grasping’ these frames with the logic of metaphorical representation, the knower makes them visible, audible and perceivable, material, through the interface of a digital device. Referring to Hayles’ quote above, it can be recognised that working with database elements and affordances of digital media, relates to the physical side of the process. While engaging with ‘signifying strategies’—constructing semiotic configurations—to articulate meaning is a category of human intention. The computer interface, therefore, can be conceptualised as a junction between human
computer logic enmeshment where the simulation of the mind-cinema takes place through the construction of meaning. This discussion parallels with Vygotsky’s (2012 [1934]) statement that: ‘Precisely because thought does not have its automatic counterpart in words, the transition from thought to words leads through meaning’ (loc. 346). Converted into CB terminology, it can be said that because mind-cinema does not have its automatic counterpart in material representation, the transition from mind-cinema to material representation leads through construction of meaning.
6.4 Epistemology of the Ripplework
Mark Johnson (2007) refers to the mirror-neuron phenomena, which ‘suggest that understanding is a form of simulation’ (p. 161). Observed in primate species, mirror-neurons are sensorimotor neurons that ‘selectively discharge both during the execution of actions and during the observation of the same action’ (Decety and Stevens 2009, p. 8), as if the observer observes their own actions.
[…] a medium of realising the absent and significant […]. The healthy imagination deals not with the unreal, but with the mental realisation of what is suggested. Its exercise is not a flight onto the purely fanciful and ideal, but a method of expanding and filling in what is real. (loc. 8733)
The most striking feature of an autopoietic system is that it pulls itself up by its own bootstraps and becomes distinct from its environment through its own dynamics, in such a way that both things are inseparable.
Living beings are characterised by their autopoietic organisation. They differ from each other in their structure, but they are alike in their organisation. (pp. 46–47)
This dialectical principle of the autopoietic system, that is, structural determinism—structural boundary or operational framework within which an individual change takes place, and structural coupling, which is the recurrent congruent changes between the individual and the surrounding systems (natural/historical/cultural/social) as a result of their continuous interactions—is an underlying tenet of the epistemological approach to knowledge-production taken in CB. This can be signified as: autopoiesis =
structural determinism
structural coupling
. The structure of the environment does not implement but rather triggers the changes within autonomous cognitive schemata of the individual knower. The cognitive growth is brought about by activating the individually determined mind-cinema through sampling from natural/social databases and coupling-remixing the data with free-range personal representations. In CB, cognitive representations correspond with the concept of a mental grasps—clusters of visual, olfactory, auditory, tactile, gustatory, kinaesthetic, and so on, compositional values.
The process of representing
meaning-making is envisioned as a dynamic ripplework that is stimulated by the interactions of the elements from heterogeneous resources. The ripples are the feedback circularities produced by the interplay between mental imagery
factual information; imagined constructs
empirical data; implicit knowledge
cultural signs, logical processing
computer affordances and so on. As ripples clash and overlap, they form new configurations. In such a dynamic motion, for example, a certain fact read in an article carried by one ripple can ‘intersect’ an olfactory feature of a particular mental grasp carried by another ripple and the whole cluster of experiences associated with a particular life event can be pulled to the surface of the rippling mind-cinema in a new configuration, delivering a new signification.
In embracing the complexity of autopoiesis, that is,
structural determinism
structural coupling
within the ripplework, we examine Prigogine’s circularity between
fluctuation
function. According to Boulton et al. (2015), Prigogine saw the fluctuation
function relationship as two segments of perpetual self-organisation. Function is the property determined by the underlying internal dynamics of an individual organism.
Fluctuation
manifests itself in the surroundings’ continuous ‘variations, events and chances’ (p. 68). Prigogine’s concept of self-organisation closely relates to Maturana and Varela’s autopoiesis. Both concepts articulate predisposed individual structures that determine the functionality and character of the interactions of an individual organism within the medium of its existence. Both concepts connect self-making and self-organising processes to these interactions.
For the purposes of a theoretical identification of the individual’s perceptual and functional architecture, the term mental grasp -schemata is adapted into CB. It is also used to step away from a biological science vocabulary and to give to it a more holistic connotation. The mental grasp-schemata visualise a complex mental architecture consisting of the individual mental grasps nested within a schema, which is nested within a larger overlapping schema, and so on. Mental grasp-schemata have a material ‘wiring’ in the sense that their processes arise from individually specific ‘arrangements in the material order of the brain’ (Edelman and Tononi 2013, p. 218). The thoughts, ideas and sensory ripplework of mind, although physically located and can be materially stimulated, constitute a category of non-material properties (p. 219).
In CB, the term self-design is used in association with autopoiesis and self-organisation. Again, the reason behind the replacement is the intention to articulate not only biological relationships between an individual organism and its environment, but also to emphasise the role of an individual knower’s agency. The term self-design changes the focus of the learning process. It is no longer the gain of certain sets of competencies and skills that are often forgotten as soon as a passing grade has been attained. The goal of learning with CB is to understand yourself, to discover special abilities within yourself and to design and develop strategies that allow the individual to use them effectively both to adapt to the immediate circumstances and to initiate, influence and participate in the realisation of necessary changes within the natural/social/cultural matrix of existence towards improvement. With a set of competencies that facilitate students’ adjustments to circumstances and the capacity to change existing conditions to those more favourable to the community at large, students are equipped with life-savvy repertories.
As established, we have mental grasp-schemata that are an individual’s, one-of-a-kind, complex cognitive wiring, organised from momentary mental grasps and that govern a person’s perception and behaviour. We also have a self-design system facilitating a transitory change that occurs in existing grasps schemata as a result of participating in a self-managed learning task.
The changes and inventions within the existing grasps schemata occur within the ripplework is found in the state of constant fluctuation. A further aspect taken from Prigogine’s concept of fluctuation into CB with an emphasis on the role of chance. Prigogine (1997) writes: ‘Chance , or probability, is no longer a convenient way of accepting ignorance, but rather part of a new, extended rationality’ (p. 155). This is parallel to what Arthur Koestler (1989) identifies as ‘the collision of incompatible matrices’ as the ‘chance observation – like the fall of Newton’s apple’ (p. 92). The ability to recognise the potential brought by the chance outside of a planned course of action can initiate innovation and foster resilience in the face of messiness, diversity and unpredictability of circumstances.
6.5 Adaptation with Cinematic Bricolage
Mental grasp -schemata are autonomous systems of existing mental grasps that determine the knower’s idiosyncratic perception, reasoning and function. Mental grasp-schemata are in a constant process of self-design and become more complex and sophisticated through continuous modifications and additions of new ones. However, as a fundamental structure, the schemata retain ‘their individual personality’.
Examining mental grasp-schemata through Piaget’s (1950) concept of adaptation, we can say that mental grasp-schemata indicate the ‘superior organisation of cognitive’ systems (p. 8). It is ‘the most plastic and at the same time the most durable structural equilibrium of behaviour’ (p. 9). Piaget suggests that intelligence is adaptation, while adaptation ‘must be described as an equilibrium between the action of the organism on the environment and vice versa’ (p. 8).
Striving for equilibrium within the dynamic matrix of rippling circularities, mental grasp-schemata, absorb the totality of the field into their existing patterns. This process, as discussed earlier, is associated with Piaget’s notion of assimilation. The next segment in the process of adaptation is accommodation. According to Piaget, accommodation is simply a modification of the assimilatory cycle.
The process of mental adaptation has a circular feedback character. Every subsequent movement is executed and followed by the results of the previous (p. 111). The absorption of new information or situation into the existing patterns of perception and behaviour generates a necessity for their modification. As Piaget states, ‘the pressure of circumstances always leads, not to a passive submission to them, but to simple modification of the action affecting them’ (p. 9).
[…] the process of getting to know new things. These new things can be a consequence of learning about (experience, facts, theories or perspectives, for instance) and learning how to (do certain things, behave in particular circumstances or think in certain ways, for instance). (p. 198)
Framing the above concepts to integrate them into learning with CB , it could be said that: learning occurs through the process of adaptation , in which the knower designs a new experiential situation for themselves by gathering new data with new media tools, by acquiring new skills of how to organise, analyse, remix and represent new constructions of meaning, by engaging themselves into a methodology of recurring feedback loops of interrelations between heterogeneous categories, resources and social interrelations. In responding to the pressure of new circumstances and working with new tools and methods, the learner develops new ways of thinking and experiencing, therefore modifying their existing mental patterns, ways of behaviour and re-designing themselves.
6.6 Feedback Loops
I realised that circular thinking did not endanger the soundness of my mind but that it expanded my understanding. The decision, in particular, to proceed from my own experience and not from an external reality can have a profoundly liberating and comforting effect. The experiences we make are no longer doubted, no longer denigrated as unreal or illusory; they are no longer a problem, they no longer produce emotional conflicts; they are simply accepted for what they are. (Maturana, loc. 1045)
In the same way as thinking, formal learning is traditionally conceptualised as sequential development along a planned path. CB moves away from the linearity of knowledge making. When engaging in multimodality, ‘a disruption of linearity and a non-conventional narrative ordering and time were perceived in the multimodal narrative itself’ (Monte MÓr 2015, loc. 4607). The guiding principle in composing and experiencing digital spaces with cinematic writing, as discussed earlier, is a unified montage, a gestalt , which is the experience of ‘the totality of the field’. As Piaget (2003 [1950]) sees it, ‘embracing subject and objects, and the dynamics of the field’ (p. 5).
Cinematic writing (writing with images, sounds and movements) as well as CB (the production of knowledge drawing on eclectic resources and constructing meaning with a DIY approach) draw a clear distinction between the linearity of direction and linearity of time. This distinction addresses the complexity of mental grasps, a sequential progression of mental grasp-schemata development, and a step by step narrative reconstruction, remixing and re-bricolagging meaning. Putting it differently, in terms of time, the process is sequential. The direction, however, is not a linear path, but a multitude of dynamic overlapping ripples. This was touched on earlier in relation to the creative software production layers and subsequently in relation to the mental grasps. The mental grasp becomes more complex with each new step of the process as it absorbs the totality of the field. The principle of proceeding sequentially is retained but the direction of the progress is bent. If we must provide a blueprint of the process of knowledge construction with CB, we must move from two-dimensional, topographic to topological representations where the properties of space are deformed by bending, stretching and overlapping.
In such fluctuations, messiness and diversity, it is natural to seek stability and apply a structure over the rippling complexity. Such a framework is found in Berry’s (2004) adoption of the concept of a multi-systemic view. This is an appropriation of Lorenz’s (1963) ‘butterfly effect’ of Instabilities and Chaos in Nonlinear Dynamic Systems, as interpreted by Capra and Luisi (2014, p. 114). It is explained as a joking claim ‘that a butterfly stirring the air today in Beijing can cause a storm in New York next month’ (p. 113). The serious intent of this is that ‘a simple set of non-linear equations can generate enormously complex behaviour’ (p. 114). The progression is shown here as oscillations of increasing amplitude around the points.
Berry’s (2004) adaptation of this effect is formed around a point of entry text (POET) (p. 113), which is the object or idea under investigation and around which the investigation is carried out. In CB, it is identified as an attractor-bricole, which is the initial concept of the research. A bricoleur , according to Berry, ‘threads’ around the relevant areas of the defined concept in feedback loops with increasing amplitude. This results in the increased complexity of the initial concept and changes the text within the POET with ‘each rethreading enhancing the texture of the knowledge produced’ (p. 111). From Berry’s description of this method, it could be called ‘threading through the landscape’ (p. 111). With each loop, the thread becomes larger, expanding the exploratory area and bringing more and more data to the starting point of the pattern, thus increasing its complexity. Newly acquired data is synthesised with the existing data. The next threading is based on the insight gained through the previous cycles. Capra and Luisi (2014) describe such feedback loops as ‘self-balancing’ and ‘self-amplifying’ (p. 91).
Visualisation of gathering and processing data with the Ripples model
The adaptation of Berry’s (2004) process of gathering and processing the data with the Ripples model.
An attractor is placed ‘at the centre’ of the knowledge-production activity. The circular lines represent the manifold of the sequential activity of the knower – his/her ‘rippling’ around the attractor. The process is perceived as linear in terms of the time dimension, but circular in terms of the directions and the overlapping of the routes. These include: a) recording data with mobile devices from the natural, sociocultural environments; b) gathering data from Internet resources and print material; c) recording these processes with self-reflective cinematic writing; and d) analysing feedback received from peers, teachers, friends on social media, community members and so on. The bricoles – video, audio and image data – are the ligaments that connect and direct the rippling movements.
6.7 Ripplework Example
Imagine that as a science class of twenty-five students, we join the Birds in Backyards programme advertised by the Australian Museum online (https://australianmuseum.net.au/birds-in-backyards). Depending on the year level and the curriculum objectives, a teacher designs the unit with stated goals and establishes dates, feedback guidelines and clearly stated outcomes.
The Ripples approach suggests a ripplework structure of ratio: 1
5
25
multi. This means that students work as individuals but also in a group of four or five students. They also present their work to, and receive feedback from, other groups in the class. They engage in online chats, messaging and emailing, which provide them with feedback from outside the classroom.
As this project involves an aspect of locality, it may be logical to organise the students who live close to each other in the same groups. Individually, or as a group, they gather photo/video/audio data about the birds in the area they live in with their mobile tools—phones or tablets. They organise the data in their individual digital bricolages using the cinematic writing method. They write about their primary observations, gather information and facts from the Internet and interview people living in the neighbourhood about their observations of bird behaviour.
The individual bricolages are then presented to a small group where the facts, opinions and visual/audio/motion data are discussed, the collective projects are established and the roles for their execution between group members are negotiated. The students choose an attractor-bricole, which can be an object, a photo, an idea, a quote, a principle, a sound, a movement, a symbol and so on. It should be something that bridges the goals of the learning task with students’ individual predispositions and abilities and that is suitable for a small group. For example, talking to their neighbours, some students learn that sulphur-crested cockatoos cause serious damage to timber-made houses. As a group, they decide to address the issue. Their attractor-bricole can be a photo of the neighbour showing the damage. The students can pose the question: Why do the cockatoos do that? The group decides to learn about these particular parrots’ behaviours and see if there is any environmentally friendly solution to this problem. In mapping out their plan of action, they may agree to ‘thread’ around such areas of investigation as: whether the cockatoos cause damage more often in the colder months of the year due to a lack of food; or whether the birds are somehow distressed and trying to communicate a certain message. Students can explore how intelligent the birds are or how well they are disposed to training and if this could help solve the problem. The future loops of threading will depend on the insights that have been gained as a result of the performed threading.
Other groups of students may discover that the birds often die when they are entangled in the nets people use to protect fruits in their gardens. Yet other students may be interested in the technicality of the birds’ flight or their communication with each other, or how they build nests and take care of their chicks. There may be students who are fascinated by the birds’ anatomy and life habits that inspire them to use biomimicry for some innovative ideas. The individual interests and skills of the participants serve as a barometer in choosing the direction for the collective project. The outcome can be a group video, website, animation, installation, 3-D model construction, display, statistical chart, research diagram, musical performance of birdsong, and so on. As a group, students present their outcomes to the class, or if possible, to a larger community including their parents.
Students work on the project by looping among their individual bricolages, group/class discussions and practical engagements. Using cinematic writing, they organise their personal thoughts and make meaning through textual, visual, audio and kinetic representations. They discuss relevant issues on social media, learn how to approach and ask questions of experts, and become involved with the groups working on the same topic on the website from which the project was initiated. They make observational sketches, listen to the birds’ singing, experiment with sounds and observe the birds’ behaviour.
Circularity is the core of our mutual co-existence on planet Earth. We live in a circular flow of systemic interconnectedness and mutual interdependency. This is of course obscured by the prevailing predominant western paradigm of cause and effect, linear and dualistic thinking that is based on separation. (loc. 163)
The circularity of the Ripples model is a device to help individuals reconnect with their natural, sociocultural environments. It is also the device of reconnected individual learning where cinematic writing allows the students to engage themselves in metacognitive activity bringing to the surface something about themselves they may have not even known before. They realise how the use of their personal abilities can benefit them in fostering individual competencies and skills and applying them in collaboration with others.
6.8 Role of the Teacher in the Ripples Pedagogy
To understand the nature of the Ripples pedagogy, we examine the remix of three principles. The starting point is taken from John Dewey’s (2015) idea of not teaching things ‘labelled’ as certain disciplines, but facilitating learning conditions through which ‘pupils arrive at a knowledge of some fundamental principles by understanding them’ through their familiar practices (loc. 4994).
The second concept comes from Steve Wheeler’s (2013) description of the word pedagogy as having its roots in Ancient Greece and the word paid-agogus meaning literally ‘a leader of children’ (http://www.steve-wheeler.co.uk/2013/11/the-meaning-of-pedagogy.html).
The third principle is the idea of bricolage, where the creation of knowledge is achieved with the use of heterogeneous resources and tools that are at a bricoleur’s disposal, in a DIY manner and through the circularity of complex interactions reconnecting learning with the learner’s individual interests, abilities and their surrounding reality, thereby causing the learner’s self-design.
a sense of agency in the use of privatised means of knowledge-production;
the ability to plan future actions, collect, analyse, reconstruct data and formulate constructive feedbacks utilising multimodal communication;
the capacity to appropriate heterogeneous resources and take advantage of multimodal ways of producing knowledge;
the application of critical thinking to the processes of self-reflection and collaboration with others; and
a sense of responsibility for the natural/sociocultural environment;
creative approaches for adaptation, self-realisation and self-design in coherence with a critical evaluation of surrounding circumstances
In this context, the agency of the teacher becomes a shared property with the student. The teacher
student agency
becomes co-dependent and evolves through the process of their interactions. If the student is a knowledge maker, the teacher is a facilitator, a leader and evaluator of the soundness and effectiveness of the approaches taken, as well as the level of competency and validity of skills that are being developed. The teacher is engaged in a constant re-adjustment and negotiation of the scaffolding system they design for the learning task to up the ante but also ensures safe intellectual expansion in congruence with individual students’ abilities, inclinations and pace for learning. The teacher constantly monitors the individual and group progress, helping to establish and assess the stages and levels of instability. Being aware of the nature of feedback loops, where the process moves naturally far from equilibrium, the teacher, at the critical point of progression, is ready to assist students’ self-reorganisations by providing constructive feedback to guarantee positive attainment for the next stage of development.
The teacher is an attentive listener, observer and a counsellor who encourages group discussions and secures respectful and friendly collaboration. Borrowing from Kalantzis and Cope (2012), it can be said that: ‘In this way, curriculum becomes a negotiated process of co-design. It is a dialogue between teacher-expert and learner novice’ (p. 276).
A carefully crafted system of continuous formative feedback used at all levels and the key stages of learning projects is the primary condition for the successful attainment of learning outcomes. The focus of the feedback modelling should be based on the awareness of continuous looping from the assimilation of new knowledge into existing mental grasp-schemata, as one segment; and the accommodation of this new knowledge by transformation and expansion occurring within the mental grasp-schemata in congruity with new knowledge gained, as another segment. In this sense, it is good to remember that the main principle of bricolage construction is utilising what is at hand. This is an all-encompassing concept, relating not only to resources, tools and materials but also to individual interests, predispositions, innate abilities and students’ existing knowledge.
Building on what already exists, remixing and juxtaposing bricoles that have been dislocated from other existing contexts to create a new multimodal system of semiotics: this is what the Ripples model is about. Its goal is to reconnect what for certain historical, cultural or technological reasons was previously alienated. Therefore, the Ripples approach is the pedagogy of reconnection. Its goal is to reconnect writing with other modes of expression, knowing with the individual needs of the knower, teacher and learner, concrete and abstract, natural and digital, mind and body, learning and being.
6.9 Convergence Points
This chapter continued the discussion of the Ripples model mechanism represented as various material and conceptual circularities. The previous chapters conceptualised this mechanism as a more or less stable circular organisation between the mind-cinema and its representation, which results in the construction of new knowledge. This chapter invites us into the world of complexity, where it is suggested that circular relationships be seen as unstable ripples fluctuating in the messiness of reality. The ripples’ propensities to move, overlap and expand were compared to the mental grasps through which such processes of cybernetics as feedback loops, functions of the organism, fluctuating communication between the organism and environment, disequilibrium, and the organism’s self-regulation at the critical point of instability were signified. The ripples-mental grasps were also used to embody a systemic view of the principles of autopoiesis, structural determinism and structural coupling between systems.
In translating cybernetic and system-view patterns into the symbolic language of the Ripples model, the following associations were established. The ripplework refers to a niche within the environment that includes the object of investigation within the totality of other systemic interactions and that is abstracted for the purpose of knowledge production. The object and the niche exist in dynamic fluctuation, which engenders contingency. This kind of learning environment facilitates the development of resilience and the ability to recognise and take advantage of a useful possibility.
In the Ripples model, such categories as autopoiesis and self-regulation are correlated with the notion of self-design. The term emphasises the heightened role of the learner as a knowledge-maker. They do not simply regulate or re-make themselves in agreement with the circumstances; they think critically, reflecting on their abilities and attitudes, as well as the surrounding world, and re-invent themselves according to what they believe is their best representation. This is predetermined by their existing cognitive structures, however, and can be modified only to a certain degree at a time. The existing pattern of ripplework is the individual’s mental grasp-schemata. To adapt to new circumstances, such processes as assimilation, or taking new information into existing structures and its modification, must take place. This is how Piaget’s concept of adaptation is incorporated in the Ripples model.
Key terms | |
|---|---|
Accommodation | – A conceptual segment adopted from Jean Piaget’s (1036) concept of adaptation (theory of cognitive development). Accommodation is the adjustment of existing mental grasps schemata in congruence with new knowledge |
Adaptation | – An equilibration of mental grasp-schemata to new knowledge. Adaptation is a circular process ‘looping’ between assimilation and accommodation. Adaptation = Assimilation
|
Assimilation | – A conceptual segment adopted from Jean Piaget’s (1036) concept of adaptation (theory of cognitive development). Assimilation is a process of taking in new knowledge into existing mental grasp-schemata |
Attractor | –Centre-point, an intended purpose of a learning task |
Autopoiesis | – Maturana and Varela’s (1998) concept referring to a system capable of being remade in coherence with the environment. In cinematic bricolage, it is associated with the concept of self-design ing |
Chance | – Results from fluctuation. In the Ripples model, it is an important aspect because it provides an opportunity to foster ability to be flexible in the face of unplanned changes and resilience to the instability of the world |
Critical point | – ‘The edge of the chaos’ where instability causes spontaneous change |
Cognitive equilibration | – Assimilating new information into existing mental schemata by making adjustments within these schemata congruent to the new context |
Dissipative system | – Complex, chaotic and unstable system that at the critical point of instability undergoes spontaneous change. In cinematic bricolage, it is associated with the ripplework of various circularities that establish a continuous system of feedbacks |
Far from equilibrium | – The property of a chaotic system moving towards the critical point |
Feedback loop | – Regulated future action on the ground of the corrections made as a result of the previous action |
Fluctuation | – Unstable environment. In the Ripples model, it is associated with the dynamic of the ripplework |
Ripplework | – In the Ripples model, ripplework is a dynamic totality of experience in a field isolated for the purpose of knowledge production |
Ripples pedagogy or Ripples model of teaching and learning | – An approach to teaching and learning facilitated by the privatisation of the tools of knowledge production, in which the knower assimilates new knowledge by acting upon his/her individual interests and abilities towards equilibration to the environment |
Self-design | – Cognitive growth resulting from engagement in a knowledge-production task regulated by a recurring system of feedback loops |
Self-regulation | – Small spontaneous changes in a system towards coherence with the environment |
Structural coupling | – Coherent changes in the organism and its environment occurring as a result of recurrent interactions. In the Ripples model, structural coupling is understood as learning |
Structural determinism | – Fundamental functional structure of the organism. In cinematic bricolage, it refers to mental grasp-schemata. Cognitive growth is predetermined by their existing structures |
6.10 DOING
KNOWING: The Ripples Pedagogy in Practice
6.10.1 Learning Task Five: Piaget’s Equilibration
Psychologically, we again find the same process in the sense that the pressure of circumstances always leads, not to a passive submission to them, but to a simple modification of the action affecting them. This being so, we can then define adaptation as an equilibrium between assimilation and accommodation, which amounts to the same as an equilibrium or interaction between subject and object. (Piaget 1950, p. 9)
1. Read the quote above from the work of Jean Piaget Psychology Intelligence: Volume 92.
In this unit of work, we explore Piaget’s concept of adaptation = assimilation
accommodation.
Think about a particular ‘lesson’ that you learned recently that either changed your previous belief or extended your knowledge in some way. For example: I never thought that food at university is not healthy or connecting with your roommates means setting down ground rules.
In your drawing/writing application, draw an empty circle. This signifies your mental schema. ‘Piaget preferred the term schema rather than concept because it can be used to describe interrelated groups of actions as well as ideas’ (Newman and Newman 2016, p. 89). A schema develops through ‘the repetition of regular sequences of action’ (p. 89). It is a coordinated and integrated system that evolves continuously throughout life into more complex schemata (p. 90).
The circle you have drawn signifies your integrated belief. Inside the drawn circle place a few other circles that may represent its structure. For example, in relation to the fact that you must set down ground rules with your roommates: circle 1 may signify an idea that your roommates at university are of the same or at least similar age; circle 2 may represent the idea that people who came to study at university do their homework regularly; circle 3 may symbolise that people do not listen to their music when it is too loud and all the time when there are other people living with them; circle 4 may suggest that roommates do not ‘borrow’ your clothes without permission and so on. Label the circles. Distribute them according to their priority in your belief by applying different colours, sizes and organise them in a special relationship.
Adaptation is a two-way interaction between the individual and the environment where new experiences are interpreted according to the existing mental schema, which is altered as result of the subsequent adjustment and modification.
Select your existing mental grasp-schema and copy/paste it to create a new schema representing the process of ‘assimilation – the tendency to interpret new experiences in terms of an existing schema’ (p. 90). Modify the structure to depict a state of being ‘far-from-equilibrium’. Increase the sizes of some circles, intensify their colour, make the whole composition look unbalanced. Add some other circles representing something that you did not think about before. Examples include noise from constant visits from friends; the smell of smoke; not wishing to talk and so on. Add some circles that represent particular people or events, your feelings or other people’s advice. Label the new circles.
Select your assimilation schema and copy/paste it to represent the process of accommodation—‘the tendency to modify familiar schema in order to account for new dimensions of the object or event that are revealed’ (p. 91). In this visual, you must add new circles representing your actions and emotions. You must adjust other circles’ sizes and colour intensity to reflect the changes in the situation. Label new circles. You will most likely need to increase the size of the main circle so that it can encompass the whole schema. The increased size and complexity of the schemata epitomises expansion of knowledge and skills in addressing difficult situations.
In reality, the process of adaptation may be more sophisticated and move back and forth before equilibrium is achieved and adaptation is successful.
When all the elements are created, generate a simple animation depicting the changes of size, colour and position among the circles and illustrating the process of adaptation or equilibration according to Piaget.