Education that focus on facts and grades does not nurture creativity and problem-solving skills. If the new generations are expected to tackle real-world problems, we need to be able to learn from practice and use theory, but also to produce new insights in the realm of the unknown. When venturing into untrodden ground, tackling emerging problems abductive reasoning as a type of reasoning that is behind introducing new ideas. However, while inductive and deductive reasoning is highly appreciated, abductive reasoning is a way of thinking often not supported in (higher) education. Through an investigation of abductive reasoning, design as inquiry, and design thinking as approaches to pedagogy and learning, this presentation shows possibilities for nurturing creativity and critical thinking. In my talk, I will use examples from different parts of the educational system. It relates to game-based learning, design thinking and design practice.

1. World Creation
HOW MIGHT WE EDUCATE THE CITIZENS OF THE FUTURE
TO BE THOUGHTFUL CREATORS?

2. Hello InSEA2018!
 Stine Ejsing-Duun, Associate Professor, Ph.d.
 Aalborg University Copenhagen,
 Institute for Communication & Psychology
 ResearchLab Communication, It and Learning Design (KILD)

3. My objective is to…
 Describe and develop how
(technological) design processes can be
used as modes of inquiry that can
help us create a preferred future.
 Promote creativity through playful
processes (courage, risk-within-safety
and curiosity)

4. Current research projects
Purpose: To investigate and measure
how game-related design processes can
develop students design competencies:
2018-2023
Purpose: Promote digital creativity in
schools
 Companies bring real world problems
into schools
 Models of innovations
 Programming
2016-2018

5. Problem?
 Education that focus on facts and grades does not
nurture creativity, problem-solving skills or critical
thinking.
 If the new generations are expected to thoughfully
tackle real-world problems, we need to be able to
learn from practice and use theory, but also to
produce new insights in the realm of the
unknown.

6. My Agenda today
 We create and understand the world in
interaction with materials
 however constructive thinking is not
appreciated enough
dies slowly through school.
 Across subjects – not in art education

7. Constructive thinking

8. Designerly ways of knowing
”In educational terms, the development of constructive thinking
must be seen as a neglected aspect of cognitive development in
the individual. This neglect can be traced to the dominance of
the cultures of the sciences and the humanities, and the
dominance of the ‘stage’ theories of cognitive development.”
Cross, Nigel (1982). Designerly ways of knowing. Design Studies,
3(4) pp. 221–227.

9. We need a repertoire
“[The culture of design] relies not so much on verbal, numerical and literary
modes of thinking and communicating, but on nonverbal modes. This is
particularly evident in the designer’s use of models and ‘codes’ that rely so
heavily on graphic images – i.e. drawings, diagrams and sketches that are aids
to internal thinking as well as aids to communicating ideas and instructions
to others.”
Cross, Nigel (1982). Designerly ways of knowing. Design Studies, 3(4) pp. 221–
227.

10. Cognitive development
Piaget: Cognitive development happens
in stages
Bruner: Different representations support
different learning modes - continues

11. Consequence
 Adopting Piaget’s approach:
 Abstract reasoning is superior to constructive thinking
 Deductive + inductice reasoning and arguments are appreciated
 Exploring through the work of the hands is underappreciated

12. ”Is this academia?”
[Dewey] traces the dualisms of knowledge and action, ends and means, the ideal and the real,
and theory and practice to the birth of science and philosophy in the Greek community in which
there was a sharp division of labor between slaves and women on one side, who took care of
practical work, and free men on the other side, who could spend their time with philosophy and
pure theoretical thinking.
(Brinkmann & Tanggaard, 2010, p. 245).
Knowlege Action
Ends Means
Ideal Reality
Theory Practice

13. Understimulated skills
– university students (a mere example)
 ”This is totally out of my comfort zone”
(laughs)
 ”I think I was good at drawing in 4th grade
and then it just ended there.”
 ”I have never in my life drawn something I was
thinking about. It is really a challenge”
(Statements from communication students at
university, field notes by Heidi Hautopp, First
lesson on sketching d.14.12.17)

14. Synthesis – making sense in chaos
 Synthesis is an abductive sensemaking process (Kolko, 2010,
p.17)
 Abductive: Form of reasoning related to what might be and suggests
possibilities
 Sensemaking:
 Action oriented process aiming at making sense of the world by integrating
experiences into understanding of the world around us.
 Externalise ideas about the world, make/find good connections between
elements - see/make coherence

15. Constructive thinking
– abductive reasoning
1. Some surprising fact C is observed
2. If H were true then C would be a
matter of course
3. H is more ‘economical’ than its
envisioned competitors, hence
4. H is more plausible than its
envisioned competitors, hence
5. It is recommended, for one who
desires an explanation of C to further
examine H
 Abduction
 leads to hypothesis foreign to data
 Aims to recommend a course of action
 Is a form of synthesis
Kapitan, T. (2000). Abduction as practical inference. Digital Encyclopedia of Charles Sanders Peirce. Retrieved from http://www.
digitalpeirce. fee. unicamp. br.

16. Epistemology of
the hand
(Brinkmann & Tanggaard, 2010)

17. Design as a mode of inquiry in design pedagogy and design
thinking
1. Mode: Process
(Reflective practioneer)
2. Mode: Research
(Design-Based Research)
3. Mode: Politics
(Critical design)
Indeterminate situation
What kinds of questions can be asked?
Starts with:
 Clients' problems
 Users’ practice
 Designers’ own practice
Starts with
- Lack of knowledge on domain
- Questions about domain
Starts with:
- Designers identification of issue
- Non-awareness of/carelessness about a
political issue amongst citizens
Controlled/directed transformation
What does the inquiry aim to change?
Aims to:
- Solve issues for the target users
- Solves the client's problem
- Improve practice for the designer
Aims to:
- Gain knowledge about domain
- Solve issues for the users
Aims to:
- Raise awareness of structures
- Make the issue actionable
- Look like a real design
Assumptions/knowledge
What does design build upon?
Assumptions are made based on:
- Experience
- Empirical observations
- and possibly theory
Assumptions are made based on:
- Theories about the domain
- and empirical knowledge
Assumptions are made based on:
- Research knowledge about (tech)
development for the future
- or Knowledge about consequences of
past choices
Methods applied
How does design determinate its
constituents, distinctions and relations?
Approach to problem:
- Naming and framing
- Generative metaphors
Approach to problem:
- Iterative process going from knowledge
of the domain to lab, to intervention, to
reflection that leads to new insights
about the domain
Approach to problem:
- Tracing and projection tactics (both
analytical and synthesising)
The mode’s objective
What is regarded as a determinate/stable
situation?
Goal:
- Designer solves the issue
- …and become a better designer
Goal:
- Design knowledge and principles are
found and tested
- The intervention is implemented
Goal:
- Publics are raised in relation to the issue
(Skovbjerg & Ejsing-Duun, 2018)

18. Art museum
– field work Inquiry processes
facilitated through
supervision/teaching
Exhibit as continious inquiry
Inquiry through
prototyping with
collaborators
Illustrated bu Heidi Hautopp, Ph,D, Aalborg University Copenhagen

19. Thinking or presenting
”We cared so much about it being
straight”, she says while her fingers slide
across the edge of the cartrigde wall.
”But we had to remind ourselves, that it
wasn’t the intention.”
…It was merely a ”sketch”
(Excerpt from field notes, Skovbjerg, 2017)
 Design process as an inquiry – could
this be it?

20. Inquiry through materials
They stand and talk about the room looking at their
scale model.
They talk about what you see when you enter the
door, and what you do not see – and about the
trajectories.
One says while looking down on the model:
"Our room is not a passageway" “
(From field notes, Ejsing-Duun, December, 2017).
(Ejsing-Duun, S. & Skovbjerg, H.M. 2018, in press)

21. Four forms of aesthetics in learning
Operational concept
(Creating expressions)
The beautiful
(Standing out)
Exploration of materials
(Experimenting)
”Grasping” the world
(Understanding)
Aesthetics as...
EXPRESSIONUNDERSTANDING
T H E C O N C R E T E L E V E L T H E A B S T R A C T L E V E L
Ejsing-Duun & Tosca (2017)

22. Four forms of aesthetics in learning
Operational concept
(Creating expressions)
The beautiful
(Standing out)
Exploration of materials
(Experimenting)
”Grasping” the world
(Understanding)
Aesthetics as...
EXPRESSIONUNDERSTANDING
T H E C O N C R E T E L E V E L T H E A B S T R A C T L E V E L
Ejsing-Duun & Tosca (2017)

23. Hindering design as mode of inquiry
+ creativity
 “Did we design the thing right?”
 ‘Affirmative approach shut down the inquiry process, since students knew that
reframing or renaming the problem would send them back to the drawing board
and, thus, they were hesitant to do so’ (Skovbjerg & Ejsing-Duun, 2018)
 Getting it done
 Time restraints may introduce a focus on product rather than proces
 Getting the points
 Assessment focusing on qualifying choice through teory or empirical data may
disrupt the inquiry process
 Making it look good
 Aesthetics as expression (operational concept or standing out) may disrupt trying
to grasp something through the design proces

24. Critical stance
Thoughtful | by Salvatore Falcone

25. Challenging structures of power
Revealing hegemony, which “is a tactic of exposing and documenting the
forces of influence in society and the means by which social manipulation
occurs”
 results in individuals and communities “participating in an ongoing
process of exposing and documenting current hegemonic practices so they
can be examined and questioned.”
DiSalvo, Carl. Adversarial Design. Design Thinking, Design Theory.
Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2012

26. ROBERT MOSES
Urban planner, 1888-1981
Langdon Winner, Do artifacts have politics?, 1980

27. JANE JACOBS
Journalist/aktivist, 1916-2006

28. .walk
//Classic.walk
Repeat [
1st street left
2nd street right
2nd street left
]
 Challenge our habits

29. URBAN PEDAGOGY
‘Only he who walks the road on foot learns of the power it
commands…’
(Benjamin, 1979, p. 50)
Psychogeography, Debord
Indeterminate Hikes+, ecoarttechPark(ing) Day, Rebar

30. Carefully designed, locative media events can thus serve as
forms of urban intervention. They can provide a temporal
interface between the participant and the urban landscape,
rendering our practices and the space in which they are used
readable and making the familiar strange and open to
negotiation. As such, locative media can temporarily overwrite
the structures of power and disrupt the habits of citizens. This
is an everyday participatory approach to building the
structures within which we live.
EJSING-DUUN, S. (2016). PARTICIPATORY URBANISM: MAKING THE STRANGER FAMILIAR AND THE FAMILIAR
STRANGE. IN CITIZEN MEDIA AND PUBLIC SPACES: DIVERSE EXPRESSIONS OF CITIZENSHIP AND DISSENT.
ROUTLEDGE.

31. In schools we also need to
distance ourselves from what is
familiar and to challenge our
assumptions

32. Simone Giertz – shitty robots
"The true beauty of making useless things [is] this acknowledgment that you don't
always know what the best answer is," Giertz says. "It turns off that voice in your
head that tells you that you know exactly how the world works. Maybe a
toothbrush helmet isn't the answer, but at least you're asking the question."
► Challenges the assumption that robots are clever
► Uses humour and playfulness to explore the (un)possibilities of tech  curiosity
► No risk of failure – failure is a part of the idea

33. We don’t need only fact-control
…please leave space for some
ambiguity and ‘what’ifs’

34. Players transform everyday spaces
 Players interface between the game and their surroundings
 Price battle with café
 ”Not working” on hot drinks machines
Reference:
Ejsing-Duun, S., Hanghøj, T & Karoff, H. S. (2013). Cheating and Creativity in
Pervasive Games in Learning Contexts. Proceedings of ECGBL 2013

35. How might we educate the citizens of
the future to be thoughtful creators?

41. GBL21 - assessment
 Formative assessment in portfolios during the teaching sessions
 Performance based assessment pre+post:
 Goal: develop a competency based assessement based on realistic scenarios
e.g. creating a new design in a toy factory
 Students create multimodal designs within the test scenario
 Dilemmas: design as material practices, design is contingent – but test is a
sequential events
 Some items are scored by computer – some by humans

42. Ongoing research…
 Challenge the logics appreciated in schools
 Nurture constructive thinking (abductive reasoning)
 Develop a more rich culture of representations (visually/aesthetically)
 Frame aesthetics/design as a mode inquiry
 Leave room for playfulness, humour and ambiguity
 Challenge assumptions through projects
 Provide summative feedback
 Develop assessment forms that emphasize constructive
thinking/reasoning as valid knowledge production

43. Tak! Kiitos! Thanks!
Don’t be a stranger
 Social Media: @agentnifty
 Mail: sed@hum.aau.dk
About GBL21: http://gbl21.aau.dk
My research: http://personprofil.aau.dk/100986
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stineejsingduun/

44. SAVE the date!
 ViLD annual meeting 2018 will take place
November 15th 9.00 - 16.30.
 Venue: Institute for Visual Design,
The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design
and Conservation, School of Design.
 Join the event. We are looking forward to seeing you!