Teaching Beyond the Curriculum

Abstract

In the light of the pandemic-induced shift from traditional to screen-based learning, we posit that higher education should reexamine ongoing transformations through the lens of a Deleuzian epistemology. This approach prompts an exploration of fostering rhizomatic knowledge, immanence, multiplicity, becoming, and personal empiricism within a hybrid learning model. Through advancements in digital narrativization, reinforcement learning, AI, and ML, higher education can now better promote decentralized, non-hierarchical, and diverse pedagogy that nourishes and activates individual and community identities. But how can higher education institutions make use of these technologies while also deepening the impact of in-person learning? In this paper we demystify screen media as it applies to AI, ML, and RL, proposing a gamified curriculum designed to amplify digital learning platforms’ efficacy, particularly in bridging gaps between socialization, maturation, artistic exploration, intellectual growth, and academic potential. This is particularly salient for cohorts historically marginalized within higher-education environments where learners often do not “see themselves” within the curriculum. Utilizing what we call “personal narrative learning networks,” each learner’s unique embodied history becomes a point of departure, bolstered by AI’s capacity to personalize and adapt curriculum in ways that resemble the non-hierarchical, community-based visions of education proposed by thinkers such as Boal, Gardner, or Freire. Furthermore, we posit that the interactive nature central to emerging screen-centric education allows students to navigate interconnected nodes of information in a non-linear fashion akin to popular media systems that have been organically adopted by popular culture due to their user experience. As a case example of our approach, we apply our framework to a traditional film and media curriculum and propose a new future for critical art education.