Tutorial follow on

 During my individual tutorial following the festive break, the main discussion point was to look into learning theory and the different ways we learn and how I can bring that into materiality to enhance the learning experience.

'Problem find, problem solve' is probably the biggest thing I took from the tutorial as it was really interesting - to some may read as make a problem and then solve it (as a lot of global companies seem to do) but to me that reads as searching for the problems that already exist but perhaps aren’t being paid attention to and find a way to solve that. Find a a way to solve a problem, even if said solution is bringing attention to said problem.

In general this is something I do a lot with my work, with a focus on environmentalism but I haven't necessarily gone about actually searching for a problem as of course, environmentalism is being discussed at large every day, or at least it is now!

A TED talk was shared with me, titled 'Do schools kill creativity?' as my idea with this project is to educate through design and tactile interaction. Admittedly it was rather humorous but it did also raise some interesting thoughts:

I find this to be an interesting idea, that has a lot of truth behind it! The simple fact is, if you give a child paper and a pen/pencil they are much more likely to draw or write a creative story than that of an essay or mathematics problem! We naturally learn through doing and exploring and accepting that not everything will be 'correct' - we interact with that we find curoius and we enjoy or are good at, until we reach the regimente structure of school.

I may have a lot more research to do on this subject but why not educate through creative mediums and showcase the important topics in an interesting way that can be engaging for all! My aim here is to celebrate creativity and to shine an exciting light on education.

A link was also shared;

https://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html

I must admit, this article was leaning more towards an academic publication than that of the TED talk and was that bit more difficult to follow but I think I got the main understanding from it and found a quote that got me think:

"Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience" which is kind of the basis of my idea but perhaps the way I'm going with it is a tad more abstract than what I think this means. I read this to mean sort of 'learning on the job', learning by doing and gaining first hand knowledge. I still want to create an experience but a more small scale experience that is already manufactured.

All four elements of this theory make sense, in that if you're not actually thinking about what you've experienced of learnt and putting it into practice then you're not fully engaging with it. Obviously not everything you learn forever and always will be something that you'll actually use and put into practise but in general this makes sense.

It's interesting however, that Kolb states that these four stages can be interacted with at any start point, working around the circle but that all four elements MUST be executed for effective learning to occur. Again though, I guess it depends on what you're learning?

A simple example of this method in my life is trying a new recipe to cook - I tend to start by looking for a recipe on YouTube, think about the ingredients needed and if I've done something similar in past that I can bring into it and then give it a go. Simple and follows the order from top right to top left but starts to make sense in a practical format.

There were a few other things to note but I didn't fully understand them, within the context of this article anyway, other than the fact that there are different ways of taking in information, which I knew anyway. This was a good starting point into the realm of learning theory though!