Malloy 8 how my car works, but I do want to succeed in driving it. A sense of mastery, I would argue, can be as simple as a sense of success. Likewise, meaning and purpose can be as simple as giving context to one’s life. Books designed to help teachers with student engagement, such as the work of Elizabeth Barkley, emphasize that teachers need to show students a goal or purpose for them to feel invested in the work. If the best teachers are those who add context to their lessons by involving, applying, and relating content to the lives of students, they are also the best communicators. Their approach is more to activate than dictate. Education researcher, Eric Jensen, proclaims what has become my co-creative mantra of late, “Create the challenge, build a supportive environment with compelling biases, and get out of the way.” 10 This is a lot easier said than done, and as arguments surrounding both co-creation and active learning declare, managing results and keeping a consistent and clear message is a challenge. Arguments exist against co-creation and participatory design because they are more open for interpretation. Critics feel this ambiguity can lead to miscommunication or dilution of brand. Contrary to these arguments is the argument supporting ambiguity in interaction design put forth by Trevor Parfitt. Parfitt argues ambiguity allows for multiple interpretations which is actually an emancipatory strategy. The benefits, as Eric Jensen describes, are that we learn much better when we apply what we learn to our lives, so the bonds of personal involvement in communication are potentially far more potent than a topdown approach. Jensen outlines how to achieve active learning through engagement, repetition, input quantity, coherence, timing, error correction, and emotional states. Jensen’s
10
Erik Jensen, Teaching with the Brain in Mind (Alexandria, VA: Assocaition for Supervision and Curriculum
Development, 2005), 111.