Synopsis of "Architecture of the Unexpected"

Beyond the Learning Paradigm

Abstract

This keynote approached the question of how the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) might play a role in the continued progress of “the learning paradigm,” post-pandemic and into the future. I assert that it was primarily the progress of the learning paradigm—the growth of the multi-layered practices related to good pedagogy and educational caretaking—that provided the essence of higher education’s capacity to survive the pandemic. Given that the future will likely be filled with such disruptions, we need to keep building this “architecture of the unexpected” if we are to positively transform higher education in the midst of these disruptions to be more impactful, relevant, equitable and inclusive. Using a framework known as “Three Horizons,” I explore the potentially disruptive role that SoTL might serve in this transformation. This summary is a synthesis of the keynote at the Banff Symposium and a written piece by the same name, forthcoming in the volume Recentering Learning (Debelius, Kim, and Maloney, JHU Press, 2024).