Creating a Sublime Learning Environment

A PERSPECTIVES Webinar

Perspectives Webinar #002
Date: 12th February 2017, 8:00 PM IST

In the first of our Webinar series, PERSPECTIVES, we interviewed Dr. Madhulika Sagaram, researcher, educator, and artist, on the intricacies of creating sublime learning environments. The goal of this webinar was to facilitate informal learning work through an understanding of balance in learning environments and sublimity in spaces and interaction. It was open to artists, scientists, educators, philosophers, and THE STORY OF community at large. Here is the take-away summary compiled with the support of Dr. Madhulika Sagaram.

About the Talk

Learning environments do not just encompass the space, ambiance, and aesthetics that appeal to the senses but also the sublimity that extends beyond sensory perceptions. All our experiences emanate from within our being and our limited sensory perceptions can become barriers that can confound clarity, originality and authenticity. It is thus imperative that our senses and their perceptions be clearly understood to engage them in learning environment. The goal of this webinar is to facilitate interdisciplinary work through an understanding of balance in learning environments and sublimity in spaces and interaction. It is open to artists, scientists, educators, philosophers, and THE STORY OF community at large.

About the speaker

Madhulika S has a PhD in Molecular and Environmental Plant Science followed by a Master’s with triple emphasis in Curriculum and Instruction, Social and Leadership development from Texas A&M University, USA. Her innovations with English learning using local language, culture, and way of life has been listed among the top 10 innovations in Asia and Africa in Secondary Education (Results for Development Institute, Washington D.C., supported by Rockefeller Foundation). Dr. Madhulika.S has been a TEDx IIM Ranchi speaker on “Teaching with a difference” and TEDx IIT BHU speaker on “Arts based learning”. She focuses on innovation for human development with perspectives on transforming self, ideas and surroundings, and creating interdependence through an understanding of the connected world using progressive approaches such as constructivist pedagogy, place based learning, arts based learning and spiral learning. She’s working with The Story of Space 2017 as a consultant to improve the learning environments.

Notes

Mountains: This is Sublime

Learning takes place within the reflections of an individual’s inner self. The center of any experience is one’s body. Allowing a human to be intellectually subjective and explore their inner being is of paramount importance .
— Merleau-Ponty and the Bodily Subject of Learning

The connections that bodies have with the environment and world around them through their emotions and senses allow the bodies to become lived experiences and ultimately, these experiences allow the body and world to become “of the same fabric”.
—O’Loughlin, 1995

When the external environment consisting of form, content and context is connected to the internal experience of logic, perception, and self-awareness, the experience of the environment is sublime!

Form (aakar or aakaram in sanskrit) refers to ‘What do I see or hear or smell or taste and touch?’ Essentially, it is the choice and arrangement of all sensory devices: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory and tactile. It constitutes the composition and construction of the sublime learning environment. Content (vishay or vishayamin sanskrit) refers to ‘What does it mean?’ In the case of a learning environment, it refers to the emotional or intellectual message of an event, phenomena, artwork, or artifact. Content encompasses all the emotional and sensory triggers that lead to a pattern of associated perceptions that manifest themselves as experiences. And Context (sandharbh or sandharbham) refers to ‘How does it mean what it means?’ The set of circumstances or facts that surround an event, phenomena, or situation: the what, who, where, when, and why — the purpose. The context also speaks of the scope of the environment.