Conference Agenda

The use of experiential collaborative learning (ECL) activities is growing in higher education (HE) across Europe. Not least as a response to the need of transdisciplinary approaches to solving complex societal and environmental problems. The university-wide compulsory course “Experts in Teamwork” (EiT) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), constitutes one example which has inspired other HE institutions (e.g. Nordplus, 2022 and ENHANCE, 2023). In EiT master level students work in project teams to increase their collaborative skills. They are expected to reflect on and develop their group process alongside the project work. Learning assistants (LA) support the students through group facilitation and receive support themselves from teaching assistants (TA) with training aimed at enhancing their interpersonal awareness. The focus of this paper is on how TAs experience increased intra- and intersubjective awareness as helpful when supporting the LAs.

In experiential collaborative learning contexts where students are expected to pay attention to interpersonal relations within a team, their thoughts, emotions, actions and reflections make up the source of mutual learning in the team (Kolb, 2014; Veine et al., 2020). From a psychoanalytic perspective, French (1997) argues that learning situations provoke anxiety by fundamentally exposing the learner to her own and others’ evaluations, and that this exposure anxiety may intensify in an experiential collaborative learning context. Students in such learning contexts will likely need support to be able to mitigate the possibly inhibiting effects anxiety has on learning (French, 1997; Schein, 1993).

One way of supporting groups’ learning, is through facilitation (Hogan, 2002). A facilitator may act as a container for a group’s anxiety, without stripping them of their autonomy (McClure, 2005). Literature on facilitation emphasizes the need for facilitators to have knowledge of their own emotions and defenses to better understand the behaviors and emotions of others (Andreasen et al., 2020; Hogan, 2005). We assume that the same self-understanding is of significance when facilitating in an experiential collaborative learning context. This perspective is, however, lacking in literature on experiential learning in HE.

In the case of EiT, some LAs experience that they are not sufficiently prepared for all aspects of their job, despite having received practical training in group facilitation (Veine et al., 2023). Their uncertainty may activate unconscious thoughts, feelings, and action patterns, making it hard for the TAs to relate to, and understand, the different ways LAs act and react as group facilitators. This challenge makes it relevant for the TAs to be more aware of unconscious responses.

Included in the TA training in EiT is a 3 full-day self-reflection seminar designed to increase the TAs’ awareness of self and others as well as build psychological safety among the TAs. We will present narratives based on the TAs’ understanding of the relevance of the self-reflection seminar to their task of supporting the LAs in EiT. Through thematic narrative analysis we explore their stories about the outcome of their training by asking:

• In what ways, if any, do the TAs experience the self-reflection seminar as contributing to a) enhanced understanding and awareness of themselves; b) increased awareness about their relations to others; and c) their capacity to fulfill their TA tasks?

This study contributes new knowledge on how TAs benefit from training aimed at increasing their understanding of themselves and others. This broadens the understanding of students as teachers, investigating the significance of exploring personal stories in an ECL context. Our study is a starting point for more research on the value of intra- and intersubjective awareness in the context of experiential collaborative learning.

This research study aims to investigate how the adolescent search for meaning in their lives can be facilitated through a narrative-hermeneutical-developmental pedagogical approach applied to humanistic subjects like Personal, Social and Career Development (PSCD), Media Literacy Education (MLE), and Religious Education (RE). In turn, such a search for meaning can potentially reduce significantly the uncertainty of adolescents into hope, and transform their vulnerability into strength and resilience that transpire from a sense of wellbeing, including spiritual wellbeing.

The narrative-hermeneutical approach to teaching and learning, that is being explored, seeks to nurture the re-configuration and re-imagination of life experiences, shared in a classroom context. The research is embedded in professional and pedagogical practice, employing a multimodal ethnographic approach that transpires from a hermeneutical ontology and epistemology. Moreover, it utilises individual experiences within various socio-cultural contexts that are offered by digital multimodality in both the final students’ productions and the process leading to them. Through its emphasis on the application of multimodality to students’ tasks and digital productions/artefacts created, the ethnographic approach taken makes the collection of rich data from a variety of sources and techniques possible: workshop seminars, focus groups, semi-structured in-depth interviews, and the student participants’ multimodal productions.

The research questions that this study will explore are the following:

• How can uncertainty and vulnerability during adolescence be transformed into a sense of hope and a source of strength and resilience, respectively, through educational spaces that provide opportunities for meaning-making?
• How can such a transformation occur through a narrative-hermeneutical-developmental approach to pedagogy that is facilitated by creative digital technologies?

The theoretical framework of this study will be inspired simulataneously by Paul Ricoeur's narrative-hermeneutical philosophical framework, Robert Kegan's model of adolescent development, and Charles Taylor's understanding of morality in education.

As this research study strives to achieve such aims and address such questions, it will also seek to explore cross-curricular initiatives that create educational spaces for various subjects to come together and address some of their learning outcomes more effectively. The results of this study can also, potentially, enlighten educators on how to make assessment for, of and as learning, more meaningful and conducive to deep critical reflection and self-reflexivity.

The Paper highlights the connection between Sigmund Freud and Franz Brentano, emphasizing Brentano's epistemological influence on Freud (Barclay, 1971; Jones, 1960; Schwediauer, 2005). This connection introduced Freud to empirical and analytical phenomenalism, which led to his early acknowledgment, as early as 1898, of phenomena existing 'beyond consciousness' (Freud, 1950). This concept is one of Freud's oldest theoretical foundations, describing the 'psychologically alive' as a dynamic event and a 'play of forces'. In Freud's ideas, one can find Brentano's theory of intentionality (Brentano, 1924), which also appears in the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl – a student of Brentano – as well as in the works of Alfred Adler and Viktor Frankl, a student of Adler (Frankl, 1938). Notably, Brentano's concept of intentionality is also present in Karl Bühler's theory of signs (Bühler, 1927), who critically and constructively engaged with Freud's theories. The article aims to elucidate these connections on the foundation of intentionality, including its application in semiotics, and explore the phenomenon of uncertainty, demonstrating its impact on various theories regarding unpredictability and unforeseeability through theoretical considerations.

Intentionality is the basis of a theory of psychic relations, particularly characterized by entanglements and conflicts, as evidenced in the theoretical approaches of Freud, Adler, Frankl, Husserl, and Bühler. Freud's concept of psychic phenomena and the methodology in research align closely with the methodologies proposed by his teacher Brentano (Barclay, 1959; Gay, 1989). Freud himself stated, "the true beginning of scientific activity consists rather in describing phenomena and then in proceeding to group, classify and correlate them" (Freud, 1915, p. 117), a method typical of Brentano's understanding of science.

Brentano's influence extends beyond phenomenology to Gestalt theory, providing insights into phenomena 'beyond consciousness' through uncertainties in perception, according to Bühler (1927). Brentano's approach is particularly noted for highlighting the phenomenon of 'intentionality' (Brentano, 1874, p. 306), encompassing actions like 'I am uncertain' and 'my uncertainty'. As Charlotte Bühler (1971, p. 380) notes, "Intentionality implies both a person's focusing on a subject [object] which means or signifies something to him as well as a person's directing himself toward this subject [object]". Brentano believed that for any meaningful guidance, it is essential to focus on those situations and experiences. Intentionality involves an emergence, a connection, and a fading away in real experiences grounded in imaginations and concepts, judgments, and emotional phenomena such as acts of will, sensations, and feelings. The article will explore the origins of intentionality and attempt to demonstrate its significance for various theories and their conception of Uncertainty.