Uncertainty, Live from London: Harnessing Uncertainty, Location, and Game-Like Structures in Teaching

In 2017, first year Information and Interface Design students at London College of Communication (University of the Arts, London) undertook a ten-week series of sessions that asked them to leave the classroom and engage actively with the world around them to develop their understanding of Contextual and Theoretical Studies (CTS). Conventionally a classroom-based course, CTS can be difficult to enliven for students, particularly in the first year, but here the tutor challenged students to step outside their comfort zone and visit a wide range of cultural and commercial locations to build a lively and creative approach to theory and analysis. Students were asked to analyse themselves and the spaces around them to situate their practice within a wider world of Information and Interface Design. Moreover, elements of controlled uncertainty and game-like structures were built into the course in such a way that neither student nor tutor was completely “in charge” and situations developed from discussion and creative thinking on both sides, rather than being delivered mono-directionally. In this twenty-minute talk, I will outline how the course worked, and show how its systems can be used in a wide range of teaching contexts to spark discussion and debate. I will also discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the approach, and explore future directions for development.