Premium
Seeds of engagement: design conversations for educational change
Author(s) -
Stokes Helga,
CarrChellman Alison
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
systems research and behavioral science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1099-1743
pISSN - 1092-7026
DOI - 10.1002/sres.812
Subject(s) - conversation , scholarship , meaning (existential) , citizen journalism , sociology , focus (optics) , computer science , engineering ethics , epistemology , engineering , communication , world wide web , political science , physics , optics , law , philosophy
Change models revolve around communication between designers and adopters, but the processes involved are far less often the focus of our scholarship. We present design conversation as an inclusive, participatory avenue to designing educational changes and as a legitimate focus of design scholarship. Design conversation sits apart from other forms of communication, such as dialectic conversation and discussions, in which opinions are staked out and defended. Design conversation is a group endeavour where a group searches for common meaning and designs a new entity. Design conversation is linked here to the need for a systems approach to educational change. We discuss this need; describe the nature of design conversation, its theoretical foundation in systems thinking and its use for educational systems design. The direction and nature of communication in selected change models is then compared to design conversation and, finally, its implications for educational systems design are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.