VIRTUAL: Applying Education
Abstract
This paper is framed by a theoretical framework for the pragmatic operationalisation of a notion of complex thinking, informed by complexity theories and by an enactive approach to cognition. This framework aims to operationalise complex thinking by pointing to how properties of complex systems, enacted at the level of the thinking, may generate novel information guiding effective actions, for example, in the context of interventions with ‘real-world’ complex systems, guiding decision-making in conditions of high complexity, risk and partial information. We developed a qualitative method-Complexigraphy- to visually map the complexity of the thinking of practitioners conducting assessments and interventions with multichallenged families with at-risk children in community and child protection contexts. This method presents a performative dimension and can be used, in contexts of training and supervision of practitioners or intervenors intervening with real-world complex systems, as a tool to scaffold their thinking movements (and guide actions). In this presentation, we give examples of its potential as a training and supervision tool. Given how this method supports reflexivity and invites the observer to approach their own thinking as an object of investigation and manipulation it has the potential to activate transformational processes and promote personal change. We reflect on the promise of this method to promote transformative learning processes in contexts of real-world practice, from a 4-E (embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended) cognition and constructive-developmental approaches. Finally, we reflect on the implications regarding how educational activities are conceptualised and implemented, particularly when targeting contexts of real-world practice with complex systems.
Ana Teixeira de Melo is a researcher at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra. She was awarded a PhD in Clinical Psychology, by the University of Coimbra and holds the title of specialist in Clinical Psychology with a subspeciality in Community Psychology. She carries a highly interdisciplinary research program. She investigates human change processes, family flourishing, change and resilience, love-force as an emergent relational force, from a complex systems perspective, complex thinking applied to the management of change in real-world complex systems.
Leticia has a PhD in Psychology from the Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil, with an internship at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Liège, under the supervision of Vinciane Despret. She has developed work in the area of cognitive psychology, with special interest in the enactivist approach and embodied cognition. She is a co-founder of the International and Multidisciplinary Research Group on Enactive Theories (GRIMTE). She also worked in the area of mental health.. Her research interests are: enactivist approaches, participative and collaborative research methodologies, first-person methodologies and, more recently, the migratory experience.
11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Wednesday 26th April, 2023