Welcome!
Thank you for your interest in the Tactile Academia and Beyond substack. Let me tell you a bit about this - and myself. My name is Alke Groppel-Wegener, and I am an award-winning educator with a passion for learning and teaching, creativity, communication and experience design. I have more than 15 years experience of teaching theory and study skills within art and design subjects, completed a PhD exploring the role of writing in creative disciplines and built a research side-hustle focusing on themed entertainment and experience design.
What’s ‘Tactile Academia’?
‘Tactile Academia’ started as a project when I was working at a university and found myself teaching art and design students how to research and write academia essays. A lot of the students found this to be a different approach to knowledge than they were used to - or interested in. They preferred to experiment and make in their respective studios, to reading and writing.
I, as a creative practitioner myself, knew that the reading and writing not only helped me to communicate about my work with non-artists more effectively, it also helped me develop my work further, so it wasn’t just an ‘academic hoop’ the students were made to jump through in order to get through their university degree. So I started using principles from creative practice to teach academic principles - using visual analogies, objects and activities that were inspired by activities students were familiar with in the studio, like design tasks or simply sketching something.
The outcome of this were a series of activities I used regularly with my students (with great success - they became more engaged with their academic research, used better sources and produced overall better work), as well as some stand-alone workshops that I also took outside of the realms of art and design (think accounting, education, health, sociology, etc.). I called it ‘Tactile Academia’ because I wanted a name that suggested something that suggested a practical and creative approach to academic work - the linking of creative with academic practice. In 2015 I was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship for this work (think UK Oscars for Higher Education professionals - this was a great honour!). I kept track of my thinking and ideas on a blog (www.tactileacademia.com) and collected the core study skills activities into a workbook for students (Writing Essays by Pictures).
Why ‘and Beyond’?
Currently I am not teaching at a university anymore. And while I still really like the ‘Tactile Academia’ name, quite a lot of the principles I use are not just applicable in an academic context. My work is about breaking down complex issues to make them easier to understand, to use storytelling to help people relate with subjects, and to utilise experiential design techniques to help people engage their audience in a maybe tactile, but most importantly meaningful way. I added the ‘and beyond’ to show that.
After publishing Writing Essays by Pictures, which is a workbook for students, I was often asked to write a book for staff on my approach to teaching. But I didn’t feel that the genre of a book was right for that - plus academic publishing is rigged in favour of the publishing houses. So I preferred to share my thoughts on the blog, which is free (and will remain so). I didn’t really want to simply repeat work I had already done and that was out there, however, one of the ideas that I had for a long time was to look at my work again, employing a lens of experience design - to see whether there are as many overlaps as I think there are. This is very intriguing to me, but also felt a bit overwhelming.
Once I came across the substack, I started to realise that this might be a good format to use:
it isn’t as daunting as a whole book (both to write and to read);
it allows people to give feedback via likes and comments, so builds a community;
and because you can have it sent to your email account, it could provide a little spark of inspiration just when you need it at work (obviously I can’t actually promise that, but I have had times when just the right email in my inbox at the right time serendipitously started a whole new train of thought).
As I have left my job and am currently on a sabbatical of sorts, I decided that this will be one of my projects for this year (and then we’ll see how far I got).
And I am adding another dimension of the project: the Creative Conference Consultancy. Because I am interested in experience design (having for example co-authored Critical Encounters with Immersive Storytelling) and have been to many academic conferences, symposia and workshops, I have always understood the design and planning of events to be really important, but often overlooked within academia. The events I organised myself embraced the Tactile Academia spirit, by being creative, engaging and fun with lots of room for discussion, rather than just being papers read out loud (I know this is an extreme example, but you probably know what I mean). Apart from workshops, I am also currently offering a consultancy service that helps people inject some creativity into their events (as well as some awareness of service design principles), and I have decided to also include some thoughts on this as part of this substack.
Why should you subscribe?
You should subscribe if you want to learn more about the award-winning Tactile Academia approach and don’t feel like wading through the blog (don’t get me wrong, I think the blog is a great resource, but it is a bit random at times because most posts were written in the moment). You will get monthly posts, sometimes they will focus on a challenge, sometimes they will highlight an activity (with clear instructions on how to do it yourself) - often I think it will be both (because most of my activities responded to a challenge).
Also monthly, I will publish a Creative Conference Consultancy post. This will feature one aspect of event planning (doesn’t have to be a conference, obviously, but I like the alliteration in the name), and offer ideas of what to think about, options for different budgets and advice to make any events you might be planning outstanding for the right reasons.
Occasionally I will also post a ‘Take Two’. This will be something I have previously written and published or almost published, but with some light editing and an added reflection. If I haven’t actually published it, this will be a way for me to get it out there. If it is published, and it is available Open Access, I’m going to link to it and write a short reflection or commentary. For things that are published and are currently behind a paywall, I might do some summarising with, where appropriate, some quotations to focus on the important bits. Stylistically this might not be pretty, but I do want my subscribers to have as much access to my work as possible.
All these posts will come directly to your inbox, but you can also read them on the website, where they will be archived, or the Substack app.
By subscribing you also become part of a community. You can nominate themes to feature in future posts. You can share your successes and difficulties on subjects with the rest of the community and ask for input (from myself and from the others).
…and your subscription will support a freelance academic (for which I am particularly thankful)!
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