IDEO - U STORYTELLING FOR INFLUENCE: FINAL PROJECT

Visual Connections Project / GMF

I believe that teaching and facilitation is a creative process. I would like to invite all educators and
facilitators from different practices, i.e. adult education, community education and workplace learning,
to engage in and explore this idea through a creative conversation.
Before we do this, I would like to tell you my story of how my practice as an educator and facilitator
has been transformed by my practice as an artist. This practice, that has spanned some thirty years,
has enabled me to explore and observe the world through a number of lenses. Because my practice
as an artist is centered on the medium of photography, these lenses are not just figurative, but also
real. The medium of photography is
more often than not a medium of the
found image. My creative process
utilizes a kind of dialogue between the
found and the constructed.

As my primary subject matter is the urban landscape, these

landscapes hide and reveal themselves. I can walk down
street one day and see nothing, two days later I walk down
the same street and ten plus images emerge. Some of these
images will stand on their own, while others will be
transformed either digitally or physically. These transformed
images become the constructed images.
This creative process of the found and constructed has also flowed into my practice as an educator /
facilitator. During both the development of programs and even during the delivery I find myself
utilizing educational methods and processes that I had been introduced to through my formal studies
in education (art /adult). I have also constructed new programs from elements of found programs from
outside my formal training. These newly constructed programs come from combining elements or
whole components from community - based education, art education or corporate training. As a result
of this, I find myself out on the periphery of adult education, which is an exciting place to work from
because of the freedom to take risks and play.
Speaking of taking risks and play, I
would like to invite educators and
facilitators from different practices to
engage in a creative conversation to
explore the idea that teaching and
facilitation is a creative process. It is
through this creative conversation
that collectively we can frame and
reframe creative processes that
educators may or may not realize
that they are already working with.

Through an ongoing knowledge exchange we can begin to expose and

explore the creative processes that emerge. One option for a knowledge
exchange is a professional development program that I offer, the MIX
Workshop: Integrating the Creative Visual Arts into Adult Education.
This program is comprised of thee components; the Visual knowing
Component: Past Learning Programs / Future Learning Needs, the Visual
Connections Component: Learning Content Development and the Visual
Effect Component, Learning Program Evaluation. All three components
utilize a number of creative processes exercises.
An example of a creative process exercise used in the MIX Workshop is called Issues of Place.
This exercise can be used for the development of learning content or curriculum for a variety of
learning programs. Participants are invited to reflect on a number of guiding questions with regards to
program content or curriculum for a learning program. From this reflective process participants are
then asked to create a landscape image, using drawing and collage. This
landscape image will then function as a metaphor for a learning program. For
many of the educators participating in the MIX Workshop there has been some
trepidation around these types creative processes. I found this, especially true of
those educators or facilitators working in many corporate or workplace training
environments. There is a perception that by participating in these creative
processes that they are not engaged in real learning. This exercise requires the
learners (adult educators / facilitators) to push themselves to think in abstract
ways. I empathize with, and recognize the anxiety felt by many of these
educators and facilitators because I am walking in the same shoes of these
educators and facilitators. I myself recently completed a professional certification
(Strong Interest Inventory) that required me to do a tremendous amount of data
analysis. For someone who does not like working with numbers and is a visual
learner this program was incredibly difficult and I was able to complete the
program. I am now working on how to convert the data from the analysis into a
visual representation.
Although my studio practice and my practice as an educator, utilizes the creative process of the found
and constructed, the end products are very different. The images that I create are for my viewing. If
others are moved by what they see in the images, great. The learning programs I develop, well that is
a different story. Ultimately, these programs have to put the learner at the centre. If the program
participants are not getting anything out of a program then I have to revisit the design of the program
until all the learners are fully engaged.