Network Drawing: A Meta-Learning Tool? Claire Scanlon & Paul Grivell - Northbrook College, Sussex We never observe the source, nor the springing forth, but only what is outside the source, the source becomes reality external to itself and always again without source or far from source. Maurice Blanchot (1971) Abstract Springing forth…this paper outlines our creative enquiry into the drawing game Network Drawing, considering its potential application as a meta-learning tool for group work. We offer a brief history of the development and application of the game in our creative practice, teaching and beyond. We describe our ethos and evolving research methodology, pointing speculatively to a web of relevant theory. We then report on our workshop activity at conference and debate questions arising from the experience and feedback gathered. Reflecting on this we consider the use and value of the term meta-learning and contextualise the workshop experience and feedback in relation to the term. Lastly we offer an invitation to those interested to play the game with others and to reflectively engage with the developing network of participant researchers interested in this practice. This is very much a work-in-progress, and may it remain so… Key words: drawing, network, meta-learning Origins Network Drawing sprang out of a need to think visually in a complex, collaborative photo-editing task that involved looking for connections between images. It seemed a good idea to record the process by using a line to connect images, which then became ‘nodes’ in an unfolding network of lines. Somehow, the collaborative drawing process and the compelling image of an unfolding network hi- jacked our interest. This ‘discovery’ happened to coincide with the start of a collaborative art project centring on ideas of growth. In establishing and co-ordinating a group of a dozen or more artist- participants we began to use Network Drawing as an induction and warm-up activity at each meeting of the group. An account of the process and an archive of the images generated in this phase are available at: http://isthismybeginning.com/network_drawings.html. Playing The Game To both save space on our word count and to encourage interested readers to constructively engage with Network Drawing beyond this article we offer a Prezi presentation link to explain how to play the
This paper outlines our creative enquiry into the drawing game Network Drawing, considering its potential application as a meta-learning tool for group work. We offer a brief history of the development and application of the game in our creative practice, teaching and beyond. We describe our ethos and evolving research methodology, pointing speculatively to a web of relevant theory. We then report on our workshop activity at conference and debate questions arising from the experience and feedback gathered. Reflecting on this we consider the use and value of the term meta-learning and contextualise the workshop experience and feedback in relation to the term. Lastly we offer an invitation to those interested to play the game with others and to reflectively engage with the developing network of participant researchers interested in this practice. This is very much a work-in-progress, and may it remain so…
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Network Drawing: A Meta-Learning Tool?
Claire Scanlon & Paul Grivell - Northbrook College, Sussex
We never observe the source, nor the springing forth, but only what is outside the source, the source
becomes reality external to itself and always again without source or far from source.
Maurice Blanchot (1971)
Abstract
Springing forth…this paper outlines our creative enquiry into the drawing game Network Drawing,
considering its potential application as a meta-learning tool for group work. We offer a brief history of the
development and application of the game in our creative practice, teaching and beyond. We describe
our ethos and evolving research methodology, pointing speculatively to a web of relevant theory. We
then report on our workshop activity at conference and debate questions arising from the experience
and feedback gathered. Reflecting on this we consider the use and value of the term meta-learning and
contextualise the workshop experience and feedback in relation to the term. Lastly we offer an invitation
to those interested to play the game with others and to reflectively engage with the developing network
of participant researchers interested in this practice. This is very much a work-in-progress, and may it
remain so…
Key words: drawing, network, meta-learning
Origins
Network Drawing sprang out of a need to think visually in a complex, collaborative photo-editing task
that involved looking for connections between images. It seemed a good idea to record the process by
using a line to connect images, which then became ‘nodes’ in an unfolding network of lines.
Somehow, the collaborative drawing process and the compelling image of an unfolding network hi-
jacked our interest. This ‘discovery’ happened to coincide with the start of a collaborative art project
centring on ideas of growth. In establishing and co-ordinating a group of a dozen or more artist-
participants we began to use Network Drawing as an induction and warm-up activity at each meeting of
the group. An account of the process and an archive of the images generated in this phase are available
A number of our collaborators have reported back positively on drawings made in a range of contexts
including: Art School, Call Centre Training, Care Home residents with dementia, autistic children, down
the pub with friends, and at home with children on a wet Sunday afternoon.
As a result of these experiences we are struck by the potential for further research and development in
the following fields:
• the pedagogic - with students and staff across a broad range of subject areas
• the therapeutic - in care/social work with specific groups and dementia patients
• in creative practices - with artists, designers, crafts people and programmers
• in organisational/change management/staff development
As researchers we are interested in ‘the bricolage’ (Kincheloe & Berry 2009 Levi-Strauss 1962
Schwitters 1933) and Actor Network Theory1 (Callon, Latour, Law circa 1980), as research (art) forms
1 ANT is now subsumed under the much larger co-creation project AIME: An Inquiry into Modes of Existence. See here: http://www.modesofexistence.org/index.php/site/index
that approach the problem of complexity from differing points of entry. We aim to tease out and test their
relative methodological similarities viz ‘thick description’, and their differences in and of interpretation.
To this end we have positioned Network Drawing as our Point Of Entry Text or POET (Kincheloe and
Berry 2009) through which we are networking our literature review across a range of disciplinary and
interdisciplinary boundaries in order to situate our research practice in a broad (and ever expanding)
theoretical eco-system - though we hasten to add that we are curious visitors in many of these fields
and as such may have a curious take on some.
Thinking Through the Body
Embodiment in learning has been a key aspect of our previous research (Scanlon & Grivell 2012,
Scanlon & Grivell 2011) and it continues to be so in our hypothesis on Network Drawing.
In brief, we draw on developments in cognitive science and philosophies of consciousness such as
enactivist theory (Maturana & Varela 1998), which re-situate and embody cognition outside of the brain
and in the world (Alva Noë 2009). Noë explains how our body schemas are extended through the use of
tools and how we think and learn by doing. We connect this line of thinking to ideas of distributed
consciousness (Salomon 1997) and the canon of constructivist pedagogy (John Dewey, Carl Rogers
etc). The interdisciplinary formation of Somaesthetics (Shusterman 2012) has also come to inform our
thinking and doing in its pragmatic re-evaluation of the body’s importance in philosophies of self-
knowledge. Shusterman draws attention to a mind in the body culture in eastern philosophy, contrasting
it with the traditional western philososphical binary of mind and body.
Drawing is a physically active form of engagement with the world - it can engage the whole body,
especially if one is standing and moving around as is often the case when making a group Network
Drawing. Crucially in the playing of a Network Drawing game participants leave a trace of their action as
sign, describing the paths taken in the space of drawing and the encounters/intersections made with the
traces of other players in the unfolding structure.
Angela Rogers (2008) posits many of the underpinning arguments for drawing in a social context
relevant to our own study, arguing for,
…a reassessment of the relationship between drawing and identity, a move from reading drawing as
primarily individual acts of self-expression to a consideration of drawing as a social act of connection
and identification.
Rogers (2008)
Though we emphasise that there are no specialist skills involved in network drawing it is still relevant to
conceive of drawing as an expressive act of cognitive mapping. Petherbridge (2010) points to,
...the simple real world equation that linear drawing is a record of movement that implies movement, a
reciprocity that means that every drawing invites a spectator and an interpreter. In the sense that a line
is a conduit of meaning or ductus…The linear paths that the spectator/interpreter perceives or infers in
the drawing constitute cognitive mapping.
Petherbridge (2010)
Furthermore, she makes evident that in drawing,
…the contiguity between the action of drawing and the resulting trace as sign for that action is loaded
with as Barthes put it an energon, a labor which reveals - which makes legible - the trace of its pulsing
and expenditure.
Petherbridge (2010)
In the context of the network drawing game an individual's linear path maps not only their particular
journey through the increasingly complex network of lines, but also their willingness or ability to connect
with the unfolding structure. This observation points to both the opportunity for (self) reflection in the
context of meta-learning.
Meta-Learning - Mapping the Debate
In education the concept of meta-learning is primarily attributed to Maudsley (1979) who described it as,
…the cognitive process by which learners become aware of and increasingly in control of habits of
perception, inquiry, learning, and growth that they have internalized.
Maudsley (1979)
Thus it is premised on two key processes for learners; the development of self-knowledge of their
learning, and their movement to take control of that learning (Biggs 1985). This development of skill in
learning is distinct from conventional learning skills offered to support students.
However, assumptions about the capacity for meta-learning tools to diagnose and improve learning may
themselves be questioned.
…'good' learning is not necessarily synonymous with reflecting upon learning or having consciousness
of one's learning strategies. Correspondingly, poor learning strategies can be deeply embedded and
therefore difficult to manipulate....problematic learners do not necessarily improve their study strategies
just because they are alerted to these strategies and…in many cases, problematic learners lack the
very awareness of how to go about study in a more effective fashion.
Connolly & Ward (2010)
Given this paradox Connolly and Ward assert that meta-learning's utility is very much predicated on the
context of support that surrounds it: a position we endorse.
Nonetheless meta-learning is big business. Go google the term and you encounter a growing industry of
business consultants selling meta-learning solutions for team-building, for optimising efficiency and
maximising profit. These solutions queasily adopt western and eastern philosophies to persuade the
business and education communities of the value of training in meta-learning, or MLP (meta-learning
programmes). They include established tools such as the Reflections on Learning Inventory (RoLI),
Belbin® Team Roles Report, the VARK® Guide to Learning Styles, and the contentious positivity ratio
offered by Losada Line Consulting. Most rely on text-based questionnaires to determine their solutions.
Without entering into a sustained critique of these textual, question-based, test orientated meta-learning
tools one need only look at their websites to recognise that the visual and somatic are not significant
components of their methods, despite some recognition of the importance of these aspects in learning.
Further, the psychometric operationalism of most proprietary meta-learning tools results in quantitative
and prescriptive solutions that are highly contestable in their generalisations when applied to the unique,
specific circumstances and histories of real, individual learners and their subjects of study. These
prescriptions are derived from pre-programmed algorithms applied to responses to a sequence of
closed text-based questions that tie a range of respondent’s habits and behaviours to their learning
propensities. Whilst some proponents recognise this as a problem in their accounts of how to interpret
and apply the results of inventories or ‘tests’, they still offer up a seemingly conclusive, statistically
based account of the individual learner/respondent’s propensities in their approach to learning.
Beyond the specific problematics of operationalism, when meta-learning theory is reviewed in the light
of cognitive science, we encounter human beings’ biological and cultural pre-disposition to avoid self-
awareness.
This special situation of knowing how we know is traditionally elusive for our Western culture, We are
keyed to action and not to reflection, so that our personal life is generally blind to itself. It is as though a
taboo tells us: “it is forbidden to know about knowing”
Maturana and Varela (1987)
Using the example of the blind spot in visual perception Maturana and Varela remind us that under
normal circumstances we do not see that we do not see in that part of our visual field, and that it takes a
simple optical test to make present this discontinuity in our perception of the world.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_spot_(vision)
It may be that we need meta-learning tools to enable us to recognise our blind spots in learning, but we
suggest that such tools need to be enactive, given our understanding that learning is not simply taking
place in the learner but in their co-existence with others and the environment, which of course includes
the meta-learning tool itself.
Reflections In & On Network Drawing
As a visual and somatic practice Network Drawing offers multiple dimensions for reflection in and on the
game: from becoming aware of one’s levels of emotional and physical comfort or discomfort in the
process of drawing with others, to noting one’s attitude to the ‘rules’, to drawing per se, and the pace,
range and quality of line drawn. All of these attributes can speak volumes to those able to access them.
However, it is also evident that tacit feelings and knowledge (Polyani 1967) can be made more available
to consciousness if they are brought into language and shared with others (Rogers 2008).
In speculating about Network Drawing as a meta-learning opportunity we have used video recording to
produce a supervisory perspective, enabling participants to step-back from the action and see
themselves as other, in a kind of action re-play.
Screenshot of facebook page with video of network drawing activity and comments from participants
This critical distance is also achieved by simply moving the drawing from the horizontal plane of action
to a vertical plane of reflection, where the face to face perspective pre-disposes us to interrogate and
reflect.
Making a drawing (in the horizontal plane) - Network Drawing Workshop, University of Brighton Learning &
Teaching Conference 2013
This shift allows a move from the self-centred action of the micro, to a consideration of the macro bigger
picture. Participant response at this stage is often characterised by an appreciation of the aesthetic
appearance of the drawing, its spatial qualities for instance and even a sense of pride in its production.