Summit on Pedagogy
Pedagogy can be a space for imagining radical change, for testing new modes of learning and doing. Although teaching strategies are often reserved for specific areas of study or professional training, they have the potential to provide models for inquiry and practice that reach across disciplines and contexts. The recent surge of alternative educational initiatives — in everything from the art world, to neuroscience, to K-12 and higher education — reveals the high demand for experimental extra-institutional learning, yet these initiatives often operate at a remove from one another, making the insights of such projects largely inaccessible to the discourse and interpretation that might bring them to wider audiences. In an effort to facilitate pedagogical exchange, Pioneer Works Center for Art and Innovation will host its first annual Summit on Pedagogy on June 21, 2015.
The summit will combine a program of speakers with hands-on workshops offering opportunities to practice and exchange tools and ideas from a range of disciplines and approaches. Throughout the day summit participants will be invited to explore tools that are outside their areas of expertise, and to reflect on possible insights gained from such investigation.
We will ask: Can practical tools become effective catalysts for change? Are such tools only local solutions, or can they offer viable answers for the dominant education systems? What are the values and belief systems that underlie the way we teach, interact and collaborate? How can we create more exchange between different learning modalities?
The summit is co-organized by Catherine Despont Director of Education at Pioneer Works, and Hallie Scott, Education Director at the Wassaic Project