The arrival of the fourth Innovating Pedagogy report from The Open University was met with muted enthusiasm at Lacunae HQ. Like a fancily wrapped gift that turns out to be rather disappointing…’It is just not very…innovative…this year!’, came the puzzled response.

In previous years the predictions have proven to be pretty good. For example, the 2014 report brought us the flipped classroom, BYOD, storytelling, threshold concepts and (a firm favourite!) bricolage –  innovations that we at Lacunae tinkered with for most of 2015!

So what is different about the predictions for 2016?  Well, part of the problem was that many of the ideas just didn’t feel very new or relevant at first glance. Many of us have been implementing ‘crossover learning’ for a decade or so. If you don’t teach maths or science,  all of the suggestions about labs and scientific argument don’t seem very useful.

On the other hand, those ideas which are more exciting, seem somehow out of reach. Different technologies to help teachers ‘read’ individual students and respond to their specific needs just seem a bit out of reach to the jobbing (time-poor) academic who sees their students one hour a week.

But then we took a second look…..

The key phrase  from the blurb for the report that framed this second reading was “ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education“. And it is that notion of profound influence that brings the light bulb moment.

When you believe that your practice attempts to value the links between informal and formal learning, when interdisciplinarity is at the heart of what you do and you are convinced of the potential to capture affective learning through reflection – and perhaps more importantly you work collaboratively with others who think/feel the same – it is easy to forget that not everyone values these pedagogies. Or even if they value them in some abstract sense, the ideas lack heft and form when it comes to influencing policy. So, although terms like crossover learning, incidental learning and context-based learning may seem a little like cover versions of our favourite tunes, we do see the possible benefits of getting everyone to sing from the same song sheet!

Also, for those readers that feel tempted to skip over the bits that seem aimed at STEM colleagues – don’t!

As the report acknowledges, learning through argumentation is relevant across the disciplines. But we would argue that it isn’t just transdisciplinary, but provides opportunities for an interdisciplinary pedagogical approach. The report recommends professional development for STEM teachers to build their skills in supporting argumentation. Providers of that professional development would do well to draw on the skills of philosophy teachers and law educators. Scientific mooting anyone?

Likewise, computational thinking might provide a handy matrix for extending the acknowledged benefits PBL, but if we also overlay the matrix with the principles of learning and teaching based on ‘wicked problems’ then we could really be onto something.

The key to making everything fall into place and get the most from the report is to look at the table on Page 7. This presents all of the pedagogies identified in all four of the reports, grouped into six themes: scale, connectivity, reflection, extension, embodiment, and personalisation. When you look at the 2015 pedagogies in this context, it is much easier to see the value they bring and to understand how they contribute to a bigger story.

This post was one of our advent learning and teaching treats. To explore all the other treats click here.