Abstract:

Introduction:
Our paper is about the production of experiential learning in digital space we call the fishbowl. We are concerned with how learning is produced online. Shifting away from individual meaning-making in the form of cognitive learning cycles [1], we recognize that experiential learning is a collaborative process, mediated through embodied experience and situated within contextualized space and time [2]. Following a socio-spatial perspective, we explore ways in which learning experiences are both socially produced and socially producing through engagement [3]. We see our paper as joining conversations that enrich research, practice and knowledge production.

Purpose:
To present a multi-stage process, with each stage further refining learning that is realized by the participant. To realize is "to convert something imagined into real existence or fact.” Realization is the process by which surface representation is derived from its underlying representation, that is, the way abstract object of analysis comes to be produced in actual language and felt experientially.

Method:
As active learners, we are in a collaborative process of making sense of ourselves, the world, and places within it. Henri Lefebvre’s spatial Triad provided the framework to recognize three elements of producing space. Conceived space is “what is thought,” “perceived space is what is seen,” and “lived space is what is felt” [3].

Our method examines the experimental genre of writing known as Denkbild or ‘thought-image’ [4]. The thought-image borders on traditional genres like the parable and the aphorism, and relates to the short story and prose poem.

Our paper presents the following 5 steps:
1. Select three words, e.g., Growth, Discipline, Integrity.
2. Capture thought-images for each word. Describe the image and relate a personal event.
3. Reflection is consciously looking at, thinking about and interpreting experiences, actions, feelings and responses.
4. Identify two qualities constituting one’s unique experience by making Self the object of its own reflective consciousness.
5. Return to step 1.

Outcome:
The fishbowl exchanges were aesthetically prominent structures that gave rise to conceptual thought, constituting a fluidity that resists definition. As a material and virtual artifact, the authors produced a unique circuit of exchange and a sharper picture of reality. By sharing content and images of their thoughts with regard to each of the words: Growth, Discipline, Integrity, the authors created a disconnected and non-binding form capable of building a shared community and culture from the standpoint of subjective experience. Foregoing the claim to completeness, and relying instead on the fragment [5] and anecdotal evidence [6], the fishbowl offered the best option for keeping the original three concepts alive. The thought-image with its evocation “of something that cannot be said in words” became the singular and unpredictable but not arbitrary or facile acts of conceptual creation.

References:
[1] Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development (Vol. 1) Prentice-Hall
[2] Kolb, A. Y., & Kolb, D. A. (2005). Learning Styles and Learning Spaces, Academy of Management Learning & Education, 4, 193-212.
[3] Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Blackwell
[4] Richter, G (2007) Thought-Images, Stanford
[5] Baudrillard, J (2004) Fragments, Routledge
[6] Gallop, J. (2002) Anecdotal Theory, Duke University

Keywords:

Thought-images, Conceptual Space, Perceptual Space, Lived Space.