[iDC] learning ecologies

[micha cardenas]

I forgot to also add...

In the past, I've worked a lot with Free Skools and am working towards
a horizontal pedagogy, but now that I'm an adjunct at a major
university and I stumble across efforts like this one to create a
non-hierarchical learning environment:

http://www.theasintheas.org/about/

I wonder if it's hierarchical for me to try so hard to get students to
read and then engage in dialogs about these issues...


2010/4/19 micha cardenas <azdelslade at gmail.com>:
> 2010/4/16 elana langer <elana.langer at gmail.com>:
>> There is much to say on this issue, however one thing to bear in mind
>> is that the culture of exposing problems and discussing them is itself
>> a tricky business. When are we never not being evaluated and how do we
>> create an institution  where failure is celebrated as an opportunity
>> to learn? What does that institution look like? Is it on this list?
>> Does someone on this list know?
>
> Hi all,
>
> How wonderful to stumble across this discussion. I have been thinking,
> as an adjunct myself at UCSD, about my own struggles getting my
> students to actually read anything, or my sometimes failure to get
> them to do so. I'm interested in hearing people's nuts and bolts ideas
> and experiences with new media education. This year, I've been
> teaching a class at UCSD on Electronics for Art, and the last two
> quarters, I've really focused on " the university as a site of
> politics" as a sort of case study, to focus the discussion in our
> classes on the recent experiences on campus of resisting the budget
> cuts, the racist/sexist/homophobic indicents of violence at UCSD in
> the past few months [http://stopracismucsd.wordpress.com/] and now on
> the persecution of myself, ricardo dominguez and the rest of the bang
> lab [http://bang.calit2.net/].
>
> In my class, I try to present them texts to help them have a language
> to think about these things critically and in detail, so we've read
> things like bell hooks, hardt and negri, henri giroux, writings from
> the occupiers of the uc like the necrosocial, and more [syllabus here:
> http://banglabinexile.pbworks.com/vis147b-spring2010]. And while it's
> sometimes very effective (I was very happy with the outcomes last
> quarter: http://bang.calit2.net/wiki/Vis147b#Group_Projects ), this
> quarter I just feel like my students are outright resistant to reading
> anything. I guess they always are, and I usually have them write a
> short paragraph response to the reading every week, but now I've moved
> to a written mid-term, which is perhaps the whole problem, maybe
> they're saving all their effort for the middle of the quarter.
>
> All of this is to just ask you all about your approach to teaching new
> media and teaching about things like institutional critiques of the
> university itself.
>
> thanks,
>
>  micha
>
> --
> micha cárdenas / azdel slade
>
> Lecturer, Visual Arts Department, University of California, San Diego
> Artist/Researcher, UCSD Medical Education
> Calit2 Researcher, http://bang.calit2.net
>
> blog: http://transreal.org
>



-- 
micha cárdenas / azdel slade

Lecturer, Visual Arts Department, University of California, San Diego
Artist/Researcher, UCSD Medical Education
Calit2 Researcher, http://bang.calit2.net

blog: http://transreal.org