How can we embrace and learn from the messiness of COVID-19?

Bem Le Hunte, Giedre Kligyte, Jan McLean

COVID-19 escalated from being an unknown virus affecting the District of Wuhan to a pandemic affecting the entire world – all in a matter of months. We are called daily to respond to and act in this situation that we do not fully understand. But what actions can we and should we take? What can we learn about learning and the need to embrace uncertainty in this context – for us and for our students? This pandemic has amplified the need to work creatively with each other whilst we discover new kinds of responses. One such response is this – an invitation to co-create a living framework for tackling uncertainty, to explore stories and concepts from our practice and to collaborate on collating and sharing these insights more broadly. We hope this first session will be the beginning of a series of gatherings, building towards a useful resource available to the UTS community.

Bem Le Hunte has been tackling uncertainty through many practices – be it the tabula rasa of a novel that is yet to be imagined, to the founding of a new degree (and discipline) tasked with defying all disciplinary boundaries (the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation.

Giedre is a Lecturer within the Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation. Since joining UTS in 2016 she has been experimenting with creative pedagogies that encourage students to take a proactive stance in the face of uncertainty as part of the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation degree.

Jan McLean is the Acting Director of IML and a researcher into the effects of the changing higher education context on practice and learning. She has been grappling with how we learn in and through uncertainty with academic colleagues for many years.