The wet kipper experience
Nicholas Watson, The Open University
Context/situation/challenge
Setting up and running a four week media production training course at an institution in a country that I had not visited prior to starting the course.
What were the particular characteristics of the situation that engaged you in an immersive way?
On arrival the information given about the course, number of participants, facilities available and overall objectives were all changed from that discussed and agreed beforehand. Culturally the institution had a completely different approach to the organisation of work, project management, day to day processes and procedures to what I was used to. Culturally the country was completely different to anything I had experienced before even as a tourist let alone a working environment – the smells, the noise, the colours, the behaviours, the heat. A bit like being slapped round the face with a wet kipper 100 times a day.
What forms of learning / personal development / change emerged from the situation?
For the participants: they experienced a degree of learning in an immersive environment as the physical on-site facilities had to be reconfigured and resources found through their own energies to allow the program to go ahead – it had an element of time bounded challenge about it. I can’t comment on their personal development or changes emerging from the situation.
For me: The forms of learning were: initially experiential for the duration of the course as the program needed to be redesigned and reorganised on the fly with the agreement and participation of the students in that process; later, after the event, predominantly reflective.
Personal development: recognition of the importance of taking a holistic approach to such problem contexts; equally appreciating the value of Systems tools and analytical frameworks (reductive and orthodox process tools are not able to appropriately reflect or value ‘soft’ system components).
Change: Increased controlled use of immersive environments for teaching learning and training.
What words/concepts/feelings would you use to describe the immersive experience?
Intense, invaluable, challenging, exhausting, stimulating, amusing, unsustainable, one-off.
What principles or lessons can be drawn from this story?
It prompts the question: to what extent is an immersive learning environment intended to emulate an authentic life experience?
Ideally an immersive learning environment has intellectual and visceral (or emotional) elements, and to design those elements appropriately, and create a balance between them some form of holistic analysis of the problem, and problem context needs to be undertaken.
Design to meet intended outcomes and learning objectives is likely to be a key factor in the success or failure of an immersive educational experience.
Incorporating too many variables in an immersive learning environment being used to attain measureable student behaviours/knowledge may create unintended and potentially unmanageable consequences.
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