The evocative object. Innovation, reflexivity and transformation in university teaching

Abstract

The paper offers an epistemological and pedagogical basis for using objects in teaching at university, inspired by the experience-based research and practice of object-based learning, here reframed by complexity theory and enactive, symbolic, and reflexive pedagogy. The paper proposes a teaching method where different languages and forms of knowledge are composed in order to favor the transformation of the students’ perspectives of meaning. The paper itself is written in such a way to connect different forms of knowledge: narration of experience sustains theorization, looking for embodied and subjectivated thinking. Theoretical concepts are developed through the analysis of an object-based didactic experience and the students’ reflexive reinterpretation of their own learning. The outcome of this study is the articulation of a practical theory of transformation, as an antidote to the dominant reductionist and functionalist understanding of innovation in HE didactics.

Keywords

• Apprendimento trasformativo
• Formazione superiore
• Complessità
• Innovazione