Global Conversations: Future of learning and teaching practice, off and online
OnlineThe 2020 edition of the Global Conversation took place on 27 May from 10:00-12:00 EDT (16:00-18:00 CET). It gathered 41 participants from Belgium, China, France, Japan, the Philippines, Spain, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
While the COVID-19 crisis imposed a quick reactive transfer of our well-trodden face-to-face modes of learning and teaching (L&T) into the digital environment, educators’ reflective insight across the world has tended, understandably, to examine these changes primarily from a deficit perspective (i.e. to focus on what ‘we used to do that we can’t do anymore’).
Yet, we all know that ‘face-to-face’ is not totally perfect! Indeed, many will suggest that the move to digital is promoting healthy questioning of all aspects and modes of our learning and teaching practice, off and online.
In this context, and as we have now experienced some of the challenges and opportunities of going digital, the most productive debate that we could have at this transitional point in time was to ask ourselves these questions:
- What do we think are the opportunities afforded by going digital?
- What do we think that we can achieve better in a digital environment that we didn’t think about when teaching face-to-face?
- Is there a useful mix of pedagogies here that is of benefit to learning and teaching communities?
- What are the challenges and the main issues at stake in the transition to digital?
- How must we adapt our teaching expectations and learning outcomes for the potential impact on the broader cultural arts landscape?
The ENCATC/AAAE Global Conversations session sought to examine these issues via moderated Town Hall discussion.
FOLLOW UP EVENTS IN 2020
As a continuation of this Global Conversations, ENCATC organised on 5 June 2020 ENCATC Members Talk#3 on "Future of learning and teaching practice, off and online" for members of ENCATC, AAAE and TACPS to revisit the discussions on 27 May with new energies and ideas.
Later in 2020, ENCATC and AAAE organised a second Global Conversation, this time during the 2020 ENCATC Digital Congress on 4 November. The focus of this Global Conversation was on "Decolonising cultural management education".
BACKGROUND
The ENCATC-AAAE-TACPS Global Conversation was first designed in 2017 by ENCATC, the Association of Arts Administration Educators (AAAE) and the Taiwan Association of Cultural Policy Studies (TACPS) as result of the Memorandums of Understanding signed by the 3 organisations in 2016 (AAAE) and 2017 (TACPS).
This bi-annual exchange at the AAAE Conference in May and at the ENCATC Congress in October is meant to offer an international platform for a global debate on education on cultural management and policy.
