Make Aware: Designing to Make Visible Transformative Learning Experiences

Working with change practitioners, educators and learners to make visible transformative learning.

Transformative learning has to do with shifts in one's basic premises of thinking (mindsets, beliefs), feeling (senses, emotions) and doing (behaviors). Working with change practitioners, educators and learners, I explore how to make aware intangible transformative learning experiences. I explore, in particular, the subjective, preverbal, embodied and relational aspects of experiences occurring during transformative learning encounters. This PhD draws from practice-based research projects carried out internationally, including projects in Brazil, Chile,  India, Mexico, the United States and Germany.

"In bringing design probes to awareness-based action research, I developed a method which I am referring to as Awareness-based Design Prompts. The choice of the word prompt instead of probe is to emphasize the core purpose of the method: which is to prompt, to provoke, to support a person's move towards becoming aware of an important or meaningful subjective, non-verbal, embodied and/or relational experience. Through a range of practice-based projects, I have used design prompts to support groups of people to become aware of behaviors, emotions, values, mindsets and/or felt experiences (...). In working with different forms of materiality, I choose to make a distinction between design prompts that are 2D (e.g. drawings, writing prompts, photographs), 3D (e.g. objects and materials), and 4D—referring to our body (three-dimensional) and the dimension of time."

Contact: Ricardo Dutra

Email: ricardo.dutragoncalves@monash.edu