RIDER and its value

Howkins (2001) proposes his RIDER process. This has five perspectives, some of which point in different directions. These are:
∑ REVIEW
∑ INCUBATION
∑ DREAMS
∑ EXCITEMENT
∑ REALITY CHECKS.
Howkins (2001:16-17) says of this process:
"My own analysis of the creative process is a five-fold mix of dreams and analysis, intuitive jumps and cold-blooded calculation spelled out in a list I call RIDER.
Some of these points are diametrically opposed (e.g. dreaming and checking). Some operate at different speeds (e.g. incubation and excitement).
The RIDER acronym helps people trying to work towards a solution to their problem choice and ‘premise’, since it recognises the tensions between opposites. The mind jumps about in search of energising eureka moments"
I have put this in here because it is something I am always thinking about (like "marsing" - see previous post) and so I should post it now, if only to review much later.

Marsing.

Have just started academic year 2005-06 and all 12 students have their blogs up and running in less than four weeks. They have has a sample of last year's blogs too. This post is to date-stamp this marsing initiative (Harri-Augstein and Webb, 1995). Essentially, I would like students to Monitor a learning event, Analyse it, Record it in their blog, Re-construct it (re-live it), Reflect on it and finally Review the whole event to see to what extent their learning and/or practice has moved on. Then they Spiral on to the next event or activity.

The words Monitor, Analyse, Record, Re-construct, Reflect, Review and Spiral make MARRRRS or in verb terms "marsing". It will be interesting to see how Self-Managed Learners cope with this idea in their project work.

This is this Blog's anniversary

Yep, it has been a year since this blog started and 106 days of that I was Internet disabled at home. Admittedly it was during Summer 2005 that access to the internet was not available and holidays were taken! But what do I want to say today?

Perhaps it is time to reflect on five years of encouraging multimedia students to do their best for their final year project in their BSc studies. I can talk about what they have delivered, and the exhibitions they have created. But that would be too instrumental. It seems to me a battle has been raging in my mind between "technical rationality" and "creativity". Which of these two is the higher life form?

A year ago I posted a comment on this very issue. I reproduce it here, Creativity v Technical Rationality, in its four paragraphs:

1.
Ones view on these two is incredibly important. Creativity is open, whereas Technical Rationality is closed.
Creative people are open to experience, they want to 'know' the world. Technical Rationalists work inside a closed domain, they want to make the world more reliable, they want to make the world more predictable.

COMMENT:
It seems to me we have two expectations of the world and its people. The first is RELIABILITY and the second is INTEREST. The first suggests predictability and the second suggests unpredictability. Creativity favours the unpredictable, since new forms are sought. Much creativity is buried in Technical Rationality: the essential idea is there somewhere. It is the quality of the idea that makes 'all things new'.

2.
In the new millenium, education must keep a balance between these two perspectives on the world. But our world in the UK at least, is skewed heavily towards the predicatble world of what is known and what can be managed by hierachies and bureaucracies. New ideas are often not wanted, they interfere with the smooth running of the institution.

COMMENT:
In the last century there has been too much recognition of hierarchic forms that favour a top-down approach, and not enough of Self-Organising forms or organisation. Hence the panopoly of Chief Executive Officers and Ministers and Heads of State. Perhaps we give these instances of the top down form of organisation too much credence. Perhaps we should give bottom-up processes more importance: Self-Organisation will happen anyway - why fight it? Why not go with the flow of Self-Organising systems?


3.
If we say students are free to organise themselves, to be agents in knowledge formation, what do we make of students who choose to move in a safe predictable world grazing on hard facts? Do we recognise they are being 'creative' in making their own choices, or do we feel they are being 'timid' by playing safe? What is our position - do we ask for the design of courses to build in creativity and design, or do we say "this area is known, do you want to know it too?"

COMMENT:
Perhaps if the learners world has been chaotic and unpredictable, it is only natural they will want to seek out any approach that removes this unpredictability. Once a learner feels they have a surfeit of predictability (we say an area of study is exhausted - do we not?) there natural curiosity makes them look for more intesting things to do. It seems we should build in opportunities to be creative at al levels of a course, otherwise we risk making our world ever more predictable and thereby boring ourselves to death.


4.
Should we allow students to learn in a closed system or in an open system? Is it not the case that in the world anything can happen? If so, why allow students the comfort of a safe harbour when in fact the seas are rough and the currents may be strong? Is the philosophy of the neophyte encouraging us to be over-protective of the learning experience?

COMMENT:
We have seas and we have harbours. We are expected to know when we should use them. If the seas are rough make for a harbour if one is at hand. But harbours are protection from rough seas - they are not the reason for sailing. It takes nerve to go out onto the high seas. It is akin to the nerve of the entrepreneur, who tries to make something new, a new business. We can be over-protective and make people risk averse. Our bureaucracies are witness to the craving for predictability and rationality.