CURRENT

Archipelago
°f Possibilities

Figure 2. The Archipielago of Possibilities workshop prepares K12 teachers to rethink the mindframes they bring to their classroom practice.

and then crafting a “souvenir” to remember the promise of the
holiday by. The integrated experience is heightened by the con-
versations prompted by making the individual’s decisions visible
(the souvenirs, the travel guide, mode of transport). In framing
acts of making, narrating and discussing the experiential exercise
immerses participants in the act of sense-making the teacher they
want to be. After multiple pilots of the workshop the consensus
was that the experience felt antithetical to traditional professional
development which typically implores a teacher to adopt a new
practice. Instead this workshop draws teachers into enthusiasti-
cally using their newfound understanding of their own passions
(make sense) to inform who they want to become (make shift).

MAKE MOVES TO MAKE HAPPEN:
THE ROLE OF MINDFULNESS AND ACTION

These projects introduce three insights about making in the
explicitly social context of behavior design. Respect for the
research advanced by other disciplines is the first underlying
premise. The effectiveness of the designed outcomes become
amplified by the learning sciences research that informs our
theories of change—the references would change if we were
talking about climate change or public health but the point would
be the same. Seeking out knowledge from other fields requires
disciplinary humility and is matched by the ongoing need to
articulate what design brings to collaborations. These com-
plementary positions drive the third insight around the call to
recognize an expansive notion of making. For it is in integrating

the affordances of designing with the empirical research of other
disciplines that the potential for new practice spaces emerge.

The empathic, human-centered core to the initial faculty work-
shop is forged by the value of making together. Drawing on social
belonging, motivation and narrative research the participatory
approach of making together helps make known the tactical moves
teachers could use to change the mindsets holding them back.
Appropriating from fiction the speculative, future-oriented nature
of design is behind the B’twixt record’s role as a prop. In making
tangible an abstract idea the university community could locate
the prop-as-future-scenario in multiple contexts (advising, recruit-
ing, formative feedback) to collectively dream of the consequences
and implications across the whole learning ecosystem. The reflec-
tive yet solution-oriented focus of design is core to the Archipelago
journey. The activity invites the individual, in a social context, to
make sense of their current practice so the teacher can reflect on
how to make the shifts necessary to realize the future-self they
want to be.

This expanded practice of making is less artefact centric and yet
the role of material intelligence and form-making is still critical.
The Archipelago could have worked without the crafted illustra-
tions, yet an early observation in the pilots was that people leaned
in and began to invest in the exercise when handed their own
travel guide. The poetics of the souvenir, as commitment device,
becomes a material reminder for the participants once the activ-
ity concludes. These material exchanges play an important role in
engaging the hearts and minds when contemplating future action.