Considering approaches and interventions
This week, groups in our class presented their initial findings from researching their chosen field of interest. I recorded some of my ideas and observations during class session and thought it would be worthwhile to include a couple of them here:
Ema, Kate, Nick, and Yue: Food Systems
This group is exploring the relationships that college freshmen have with their food, through the context of campus food vending services. There are many places to eat on campus. We have a food truck, cafés, several eating areas in the University Center, as well as residential halls. There is a disconnect between the staff and the food they serve. This is compounded by the disconnect students experience by not preparing meals themselves. The team has proposed a series of interventions, designed to create more student engagement and a sense of ownership.
My thoughts: Freshmen are going through a series of drastic changes in their life. This presents a unique opportunity to change habits early in adult life — people are more likely to adopt new habits during periods of change. I am also curious about the idea of a student-led cleaning weekly session. Could this produce an opportunity to build empathy with the staff? Could it create a greater sense of joint ownership?
Amanda: Civics and Tech
Amanda is interested in how to instruct political radicals to leverage technologies to mobilize and affect meaningful political and social change. She has several different avenues to explore along this subject:
Political engagement through digital and physical spaces
Who are their stakeholders and what are your thoughts on their understanding of them and discoveries they made?
Mass mobilization and online activists
Students
Politically-minded
Radicals
High focus on community
Interested in both digital and analog engagement
The *How* remains unclear (this is more or less true for all of the groups at this stage), but I do have some thoughts, given that we began this process as a single group:
What are your thoughts on their use of the 4MAT System (McCarthy) to propose ways of planning and executing effective learning experiences?
I agree with the method of starting with the WHY quadrant of the 4MAT chart. I do wonder if you will meet an obstacle due to knowledge gaps. “Why” can be harder to justify if the intended audience does not already understand “WHAT.” I wonder if there is a way to leverage the audience’s curiosity, and to help them learn of their own knowledge gaps. How then would you proceed from that discovery, to compel them to consider the “WHY.” One other thing that comes to mind is the alternate reality game, “YEAR ZERO” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_timeline_of_Year_Zero). Originally launched in 2007, it anticipated a future America in the year 2022 (we are getting close now), where America’s government has fallen, replaced by a Christian-dominionist, fascist government (this seems more likely now, which is terrifying). A resistance group uses digital technologies to try to fight back against an oppressive regime, leading to a series of clandestine information sharing methods. Have you considered alternate reality games? It could spark some creative methods for teaching this subject.