Unfold: A paper-folding classroom learning method to support graduate qualities sought in the era of AI

Generative AI currently dominates the debates about learning at the higher education level, and is being embedded in teaching and learning at a very fast pace. But knowledge, learning and relationships cannot be wholly encompassed by a digital world based around brain metaphors. We anticipate a renewed interest in analogue methods of classroom engagement which forefront embodiment in learning.

The specific Unfold zine method was developed by a colleague in art and design (University of the Arts London), then evolved over five years through collaboration with the Bayes Business School. The aim was to develop a flexible form of engagement that could be used not only in small workshops but also large, raked lecture rooms. When COVID arrived, the method had to be applied online, where its flexibility enabled the development of the method to continue. Unfold is a learning design process geared to adult learning and the hands-on workshop will be based around two worked examples – the first being the most basic form of paper-folded zine, usable economically in almost any physical classroom situation. The second demonstrates a more refined partly pre-printed zine.

Workshop participants will work on, and discuss, each of these. The emphasis is on experiencing and dialogue, based on using the two examples, not on presenting theory.

Paper folding has featured in European educational innovation for some 200 years, though mostly for small children (Blasche, 1825; Iurescu, 2021; Froebel, Montessori, 1912, Dewey, 1934). Many of our experiences since 2019 have been in professional development, in parallel with degree courses.

Some paper-folding innovations in higher education have emphasised the playful learning perspective (Parvin, 2024), and this is indeed one of the eight dimensions of our Unfold framework. Our overall emphasis though is on what some generically call “manipulatives” (Byrne et al, 2023) – designing physical objects which stimulate forms of thinking and active learning. Other relevant terminology includes “active experience”; Lozada and Carro (2016) explore “how cognition arises emerges from experiential (enactive) processes, which contributes to the understanding of how embodied agency facilitates conceptual processing”.