Designing for anticipation, Teaching for anticipation

by | Monday, October 19, 2009

In a couple of previous posts I had talked about the idea of postdiction (see the posts here and here). The argument being that good teaching (among a long list of other good things) is postdictable, i.e. it walks the line between predictability and chaos, and most importantly makes sense post hoc. To make my point I had posted a couple of videos that were good examples of being postdictable.

Closely connected to the idea of postdictable is the idea of creating anticipation and suspense. Once again other artists (particularly those working in temporal media such as film, and advertising) seem to have grasped the importance of this earlier than educators. Good film-makers can create suspense out of pretty much the flimsiest of materials. Think of the first scenes from Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. The way the scene builds tension out of a disagreement over whether or not to tip is pitch perfect. There is more tension in that scene than in dozens of other “suspense” thrillers.

However making suspense work is difficult. Navigating this line between predictability and tension over the unknown is a fine art. (This is where, of course, the connection with postdictability becomes most clear.)

Check out the two videos below, which highlight just how fine the line is between succeeding at creating suspense and anticipation and failing to do so. Both of these videos are interesting and well made – both have pace and rhythm but one of them builds anticipation while the other just happens. One tells a story, the other doesn’t.

But before going on further, here are the two videos. Watch both of them and ask yourself which one works and which one doesn’t?

Here’s one…
Blue Thousand and One from Blue Man Group HD on Vimeo.

… and here’s another:

Music Painting by JUL & MAT from JUL & MAT on Vimeo.

So what do you think? Both these videos were cool to watch – but don’t you think the one from the Blue Man Group a tad more interesting, both in its buildup and its dénouement. Even within its its short time frame, the video sets up a narrative arc and creates, something akin to aclassical dramatic structure. In contrast the second video, though visually interesting through out, loses steam somewhere half-way through. The action begins to seem repetitive and the movie lacks a narrative thrust. It lacks drama.

So what does this mean for teaching?

First, everything we do as educators needs a larger goal (the big picture as it were). Too often we get lost in the minutia of of the project and forget the broader, overarching frame. The structure of our lessons, our semester, our mini-activities needs to have a larger narrative thrust, a dramatic flow. A beginning, a middle and an end. A good science activity can have them all. So can a well designed social studies activity.

Second, every thing we do as educators needs to be subservient to meeting that larger goal. The Blue Man group movie works because each frame (and musical note) is part of a larger story being played out in front of us. Not a frame is wasted. In contrast, you could take away a chunk of the second and I doubt anybody would even notice. This is design for anticipation. This is design for postdiction. As educators this means that we can’t give them stupid-work (like most seat work at school) but rather every assignment needs to inform the larger picture and in turn be informed by it.

Don’t you think that as educators need to pay more attention to building anticipation and suspense in our students?

A few randomly selected blog posts…

Design book-review podcasts

Design book-review podcasts

I am teaching a new masters/doctoral seminar titled Design in the real world. This is the first class I am teaching here after coming to ASU and it is exciting to back in with students engaged in discussions about design, technology, and its role in our...

MSU Fight Song: MAET style

The summer of 2015, there were 133 students and instructors in the hybrid and overseas components of the MAET program. These people were spread out across three locations: East Lansing, MI (with 2 cohorts, Yr1 and 2 of MAET); Chicago, IL (with 2 cohorts of the...

Microblogging in the classroom II

I had blogged earlier about my attempts at using micro-blogging in my face to face classroom. As I had said after the experiment At the end of the class, upon being quizzed, the students seemed to feel that this experiment had been a success and would like to do it...

Student Panel at FOLC Fest

Student Panel at FOLC Fest

On March 14-15, 2024, Arizona State University hosted its inaugural Future of Learning Community (FOLC) Fest at the Omni Hotel in Tempe. This conference brought together educators, technologists, and student success advocates to explore how ASU can fulfill its charter...

stealth assessment

Just heard this of stealth assessment idea (from Michael Spector at NTLS) that struck a chord. More here, [word document].

Poetry, Daisies And Cobras: A Class With Manjul Bhargava

An amazing presentation by Manjul Bhargava (Fields medal winner in Mathematics) to school children in India. See how he effortlessly combines poetry, nature, music and mathematics. Watch an excerpt on YouTube below or the complete video here....

The joy of learning: A reflection

The joy of learning: A reflection

What is this thing called learning? What does it mean to learn something? What makes us want to learn? Why is it fun? Why do we want to know? Even as educators, we often don't take the time to ask ourselves these foundational questions. So it is rewarding when we get...

Does the Internet mean that knowledge is obsolete?

I was recently interviewed by Wired magazine for a story about Sugata Mitra's (of Hole in the Wall fame) experiments with minimally invasive learning, or more recently what are called SOLE (Self Organized Learning Environment) classrooms / schools. I have been...

The pleasures of being a teacher

Yesterday, as I was watching the second presidential debate, and following various bloggers who were live-blogging the event, I took a moment to check my email. I found that I had received a note from a former student. This individual had been in my summer cohort last...

2 Comments

  1. Bob Reuter

    pre-processed not pre-processes 🙂 sorry…

    Reply
  2. Bob Reuter

    Yes I do think that as educators we need to care more about building anticipation and suspense in our students… I feel that too often we try to fill them (and we are expected to do so) with nicely structured and pre-processes knowledge that hardly would correspond to real authentic problems… thus, instead of entertaining their curiosity and sense of inquiry, we entertain them, like TV does (in the best case), or we bore them to death, like a non-believing preacher would (in the worst case). In both cases, students don’t have to think too much, because they can do their part of the “job” by simply absorbing the pre-processes knowledge and will pass the exams (or what ever evaluation we have) by simply recalling what they have temporarily stored somewhere in their no-so-long-term-memory.

    “We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.”
    Oscar Wilde – Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet (1854 – 1900)

    Supporting people in their own grow is certainly also a wicked problem, but at least it defines and serves a larger goal for education.

    Reply

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