Slides from Rikke Toft Nørgård & Søren Bengtsen's presentation "Becoming Jelly: A call for gelatinous pedagogy within higher education" at the Ninth International Conference on Networked Learning 2014

1. Becoming Jelly:
A call for gelatinous pedagogy within
higher education
Søren S.E. Bengtsen, Assistant Professor, PhD
Rikke T. Nørgaard, Assistant Professor, PhD
Centre for Teaching Development and Digital Media
Aarhus University, Denmark

2. Background
DIVERSITY AT THE HEART OF PEDAGOGY
• A hightened focus on diversity in learning processes across
discourses
PARADOXICALLY NOT ABLE TO CONCEPTUALIZE
DIVERSITY
• Unintentionally ”betraying” mongrel and diverse learning
processes
VISIBLE AND CLOAKED PROGRESSSION
(1) Visible and evident learning
(2) maturation, growth, authenticity
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?
• Assimilation and reduction, scripted and plotdriven
learning narratives

3. NEW WAYS OF NOTICING & FRAMING LEARNING PROCESSES
the use of a rare and singular measuring-rod, almost a frenzy: the feeling of heat in things
which feel cold to all other persons: a divining of values for which scales have not yet been
invented: a sacrificing on altars which are consecrated to an unknown God (Nietzsche
2006: 50)
 We need new ways of conceptually evoking the nerve of learning practices
SPEAKING FROM THE INTERIOR AF THE EVENT – AN EMBEDDED
PERSPECTIVE
Now then, imagine the importance of a language or system of expressive signs whose
function was not to tell us about things but to present them to us in the act of executing
themselves (Ortega 1975: 138)
 Lodge the research perspective within the learning processes themselves
Agenda

4. Crossing boundaries
Networked students
Making students matter

5. The course
”Design: theories, methods &
practices”
& 3 core learning goals
Be innovative towards
technological and
educational tendencies
Innovative use of media
to present and reflect on
the educational design
Design part of an
ICT-based
educational design

6. The course
”Design: theories, methods &
practices”
& 3 core learning goals
1. Be innovative towards
technological and
educational tendencies
Innovative use of media
to present and reflect on
the educational design
Design part of an
ICT-based
educational design

7. The course
”Design: theories, methods &
practices”
& 3 core learning goals
1. Be innovative towards
technological and
educational tendencies
Innovative use of media
to present and reflect on
the educational design
Design part of an
ICT-based
educational design
• Digital
competencies
• Design thinking
• Collaborative
inquiry
• Digital literacy
• Design ability
• Hacker
confidence
• Youtube
channels &
videos
• Twitter
• Maker spaces
• FabLabs
• 3D printers
• Makey Makey
• Digital fabrics

8. The course
”Design: theories, methods &
practices”
& 3 core learning goals
1. Be innovative towards
technological and
educational tendencies
Innovative use of media
to present and reflect on
the educational design
2. Design part of
an ICT-based
educational design
• Digital
competencies
• Design thinking
• Collaborative
inquiry
• Digital literacy
• Design ability
• Hacker
confidence
• Youtube
channels &
videos
• Twitter
• Maker spaces
• FabLabs
• 3D printers
• Makey Makey
• Digital fabrics

9. The course
”Design: theories, methods &
practices”
& 3 core learning goals
1. Be innovative towards
technological and
educational tendencies
3. Innovative use of
media to present and
reflect on the educational
design
2. Design part of
an ICT-based
educational design
• Digital
competencies
• Design thinking
• Collaborative
inquiry
• Digital literacy
• Design ability
• Hacker
confidence
• Youtube
channels &
videos
• Twitter
• Maker spaces
• FabLabs
• 3D printers
• Makey Makey
• Digital fabrics

10. Crossing boundaries
We need new ways of conceptually speaking from
the interior of students interactions and experiences
by evoking and embracing
• Students criss-crossing domains to own pathways
– not just growing or progressing?

11. Crossing boundaries
We need new ways of conceptually speaking from
the interior of students interactions and experiences
by evoking and embracing
• Students criss-crossing domains to own pathways
– not just growing or progressing?
• Activities as being in bloom or becoming
beached?
• Contexts as mattering or maddening?

12. Making students matter
Rather than requiring of students that they
grow – according to plan – and find their voice
– which is to say an accademically acceptable
voice – that we as teachers or educational
designers can accept as ‘students found voice’
– it is our concept and understanding of ‘voice’
that needs to grow and find our students.
In order for them
• to matter
• to take matter into their own hands

13. Making students matter
Rather than requiring of students that they
grow – according to plan – and find their voice
– which is to say an accademically acceptable
voice – that we as teachers or educational
designers can accept as ‘students found voice’
– it is our concept and understanding of ‘voice’
that needs to grow and find our students.
In order for them
• to matter
• to take matter into their own hands
• to take mattering into their own hands

14. Networked students
We need new tools - like the metaphor of the jelly – for
thinking about and conceptually evoking the nerve of
learning practices where students are equally
networking and being networked
External shapers
1. students shaping themselves by networking others
2. students being shaped by being networked
Internal movers
3. students moving themselves by networking others
4. students being moved by being networked

15. Networked students
We need new tools - like the metaphor of the jelly – for
thinking about and conceptually evoking the nerve of
learning practices where students are equally
networking and being networked
External shapers
1. students shaping themselves by networking others
2. students being shaped by being networked
Internal movers
3. students moving themselves by networking others
4. students being moved by being networked

16. Weirdness in HE
Weird learning
• No guarantees of growth, or that HE leads anywhere, charm/allure
• Skills only partially perfected, premature ideas, half-formed thoughts
Weird teaching
• Acknowledge, handle and act on idiosyncratic and ”troublesome” knowledge
• Pedagogy of doubt: constantly critical evaluation of your own capacity
Weird thinking
• Is it possible to think learning detached from ideals of progression and growth?
• Reconsider implicit connection between ”virtue” and learning

17. The limits of Jelly
New hierarchy
• Giving priviledge to certain learning and thinking styles
• Sacrificing one segment of students on the behalf of others
Warning – Obscurity ahead!
• Trying too hard? – poeticized and artificial construction
• The jelly as master trope risks assimilating other relevant tropes

18. Potentials of jelly
A jelly vocabulary
• Giving voice to educational run-ups, flawed ideas, blind alleys
The jelly as a trope for networked learning
• Makes possible learning without progression and ennoblement
Gelatinous pedagogy
• Enables us to perceive, understand and support mongrel learning
Jellified organisation
• Invites to rethinking assessment and strategies for supporting students