September 9, 2025 • 41 mins
Assistant Research Professor in Principled Innovation Dr Bea Rodriguez-Fransen works at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University (ASU), focusing on its Principled Innovation Infrastructure for Discovery and Engagement initiative.
In early 2025, Bea published the book Education and decolonial futures in the Philippines: Perspectives for educators and practitioners in which she introduces the decolonial design futures framework that she developed. It is an extension of design thinking to suit working with Indigenous and marginalised communities better.
Bea introduces the decolonial design futures framework along with the decolonial portals and related ideas in this episode, tying them in particular to reflection and how educators can make use of the techniques and frameworks that she's developed, tested, and elaborated on through her work with different communities.
Additional resources
- Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation
- Principled innovation framework
- Bea's TED World Theater talk 'Unlocking Indigenous knowledge: A new path for education'
- Young African Leaders Initiative
- Design Justice Network
- Costanza-Chock, S. (2020). Design justice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
- Paulo Freire
- Cervantes, C. L. G. (2025). The Filipino experience of Kutob: Understanding culturally-informed hyper-intuition. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies Advance Publication Archive, 113.
- Rank, H. (1976). Teaching about public persuasion, In: Daniel Dietrich (ed.). Teaching about doublespeak. Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English.
- ORID framework
- Rodriguez-Fransen, B. (2024). From “Little Brown Brother” to Filipino genocide: A critical discourse analysis of the Philippine-American War’s impact on Modern Filipino colorism. Journal of Colorism Studies; Windsor Mill, 5(1), 1–22.
- Quimpo, N. G. (2020). Colonial name, colonial mentality and ethnocentrism. Public Policy, 4(1), 1–49.
Related episodes
- Christine Slade and Kevin Kelly: Digital ethics principle DEIBD
- Kevin Kelly & Kristina Hoeppner: Digital ethics principles and UDL guidelines
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Production information
Production: Catalyst IT
Host: Kristina Hoeppner
Artwork: Evonne Cheung
Music: The Mahara tune by Josh Woodward
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kristina Hoeppner (00:05):
Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is
the podcast about portfolios forlearning and more for educators,
learning designers, and managerskeen on integrating portfolios
with their education andprofessional development
practices. 'Create. Share.
Engage.' is brought to you bythe Mahara team at Catalyst IT.
(00:26):
My name is Kristina Hoeppner.
My guest today is AssistantResearch Professor in Principled
Innovation Dr BeaRodriguez-Fransen from Arizona
State University. Dr KevinKelly, a fellow member of the
AAEEBL Digital Ethics TaskForce, recommended Bea because
(00:47):
she recently published the book'Education and decolonial
Perspectives for educators andpractitioners' which extends our
thinking about diversity,equity, inclusion, belonging,
and decolonisation, one of theAAEEBL Digital Ethics in
ePortfolios Principles. Thankyou for sharing what you have
(01:07):
learned from your research, Bea.
I'm really excited about ourchat today.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (01:13):
Me, too.
I'm really excited and honouredto be here with you today.
Kristina Hoeppner (01:18):
Bea, what do you do at Arizona State please?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (01:21):
I am Assistant Research Professor in
Principled Innovation at ASU'sCollege of Global Futures. I'm
also a senior global futurescholar. In this role as
Assistant Research Professor, Iwill be focusing on anticipatory
governance as well asinterdisciplinary collaboration
(01:43):
and public engagement as weunite public interest
technologies across ASU, andwe're also going to be engaging
partners, different stakeholdersthat are interested in advancing
our ninth design aspiration ofthe university, which is called
'Principled innovation', whichbasically asks, just because we
(02:05):
can, should we, especially asnew emerging technology such as
AI and VR and climate tech, forexample, are just proliferating
right now. That is our goal.
Kristina Hoeppner (02:19):
Can I understand principled innovation
as you're wanting to innovateusing foundational or basic
principles that you've agreed onand innovate within that
framework?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (02:32):
Yes, the principled innovation framework
was originally created by MaryLou Fulton College for Teaching
and Learning Innovation. Thereare four components to the
practices of principledinnovation, or PI. It's moral,
civic, performance, andintellectual. 'Moral' is all
(02:53):
about utilising ethical decisionmaking whenever we're
innovating. 'Civic' is aboutunderstanding culture and
context, engaging multiple anddiverse perspectives.
'Performance' is about designingcreative solutions and then
navigating uncertainty andmitigating any consequences. And
(03:13):
then finally, 'intellectual' isdeveloping the habits of an
informed systems thinker to beable to reflect critically and
compassionately.
In a nutshell, it's answeringwhenever we're creating or
innovating a new product orexperience or system that we ask
the question, just because wecan, should we? It's asking a
(03:36):
lot of questions and leaning onmany values, including
compassion, humility, and a hostof other values that we need to
embody as we work with ourcommunity.
Kristina Hoeppner (03:49):
Yeah, that is really incredibly important, I
find, especially in the currenttimes where everybody is looking
towards AI for one thing or theother because, of course, lots
of experiments are being made,not always considering the
impact on peoples and all ofthat, so that having those
principles part of theinnovation is really good
(04:10):
because you can't put the genieback into the bottle. Once a
model is out there and has atraining data set, you can't
remove things easily, onlybecause afterwards you realise,
well, we shouldn't have put thatstuff in in the first place. So
if we are having that there arefrom the get to go, knowing what
sensible guardrails there are toprotect peoples, not just
(04:31):
Indigenous peoples, but otherminorities and also everybody
else in the world, then that isvery important.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (04:38):
Yes, and not to mention that billions of
people are still not connectedto the internet. For example,
there are many forms ofknowledge that are not written
down, that are not representedin any of these data sets. It's
also important to think aboutthe potential long-term
consequences of anything that wecreate because it seems that
(05:02):
we're still, as a society,trapped in this short-termism,
that there's the notions ofrace, racing towards something
and competing against oneanother to race towards what I
question and to what end. That'swhat I encourage, is for us to
really think through what arethe potential harms and benefits
(05:24):
on humanity and the planetgenerations from now, which is
difficult to do, but that's thebeauty of working in an
interdisciplinary community,working with different domains.
That's why I'm really excitedabout this new opportunity of
focusing on bringing togetherdifferent perspectives as we
innovate.
Kristina Hoeppner (05:43):
That's also why we are talking today because
you have already done researchin that area of how to bring in
different perspectives. In yourrecent book 'Education and
decolonial futures in thePhilippines', you take a look at
how the western view ofeducation and being has
influenced educators in thePhilippines and also what can be
(06:05):
done to bring in learning andteaching scenarios that are
rooted in Philippine culture andtraditions. Can you share with
us why you've researched thistopic?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (06:17):
This is going way back in my doctoral
coursework, in my educationaltheory class. I remember
noticing that all of thetheories we were studying came
from Europe or North America.
When I asked my professor in theclassroom if there are other
theories that we can look at, hementioned a word that I was not
(06:37):
familiar with at the time, andthat was 'Decoloniality'. That's
when I started really diggingdeeper and encountered this rich
scholarship of decoloniality.
That's when I decided to shiftmy dissertation idea of using
design thinking to helptransform universities to a
(06:59):
decolonising education.
To do that, I just went back toone of the deepest questions in
my soul, which is, why do westill have colonial mentality
among Filipinos and FilipinoAmericans all over the world,
which is basically thisautomatic rejection of anything
(07:20):
Filipino, and automaticpreference for anything white
American. I started with thatquestion, and then that led to
my research among Filipinoeducators in the Philippines.
Kristina Hoeppner (07:32):
You mentioned that you were initially trying
to use the design thinkingframework to improve education,
but then through your researchand also the storytelling that
you have been engaged with usingtraditional methods of
understanding, gainingknowledge, and engaging with
people that you've created thedecolonial design futures
(07:56):
framework. Bea, what are thecomponents of it, and how does
it extend the design thinkingframework? Why, then, is it
actually important for us tolook into that and consider that
as an alternative?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (08:10):
This was an unexpected finding from the
research. I didn't realise I wasgoing to create this framework,
but it just made sense to fusedecoloniality and futures
thinking and human centreddesign because that is exactly
the journey or the process thatI experienced with the
participants. It's basically asix-phase, iterative, collective
(08:35):
design futures framework.
How it departs from designthinking is that there's a time
horizon component thatencourages you to look way, way
back in order to look forward.
Typically, in traditional designthinking, you tend to speak or
interview the end users, whetheryou're designing a product or
(08:56):
service or experience or system,and asking for their pain points
in the present and then quicklydesigning to address that pain
point. Often, we don'tcontextualise that pain point
with the larger story or thelarger history of that
community.
The first phase is Kuwentuhan,and I use my native language of
(09:20):
Tagalog. But when I present thisto different communities, I
encourage them to plug in theirown languages. For example, when
I went to Africa to facilitate adesign charrette for
establishing the Young AfricanLeaders Initiative, which is a
continent wide initiative, whenwe were talking about the values
(09:40):
that underpin this framework,one of them is 'kapwa', which is
expressing the Filipino value ofrelationality, they came up with
'ubuntu', which means 'I ambecause we are'. That's what I
encourage, is that we are notashamed of using our own
languages whenever we'redesigning with folks.
(10:02):
So the first is Kuwentuhan orstorytelling. And the key here,
it's a group storytellingsession instead of an individual
interview. This is becausethere's this notion of
relationality that when youshare your inner self with one
another, you recognise eachother, and then you make
connections with one another'sstories. It helps you remember.
(10:25):
It helps you feel certainemotions as you listen to other
people's stories.
There's also this step ofcontextualising the individual
stories within the larger storyof that community. That was when
you as a researcher or as afacilitator, you go off and also
(10:46):
dig deeper on what's the largerstory of this community, and
then you compare their storieswith the larger story. Then
you'll see that you can actuallyrevise the meanings of these
stories. That method is calledhermeneutic circle, where you
constantly compare these storieswith one another.
The second step isPagmumuni-muni or reflection,
(11:08):
and this is when I encourage theparticipants to identify
specific emotions that they feltwhile they were listening to
each other, and then from there,glean insights based on their
emotions about the particulartopic or problem or issue.
From there, we move on to thethird step, which is Hiraya or
(11:31):
imagination. We did a rapidideation thinking about
imagining the future ofeducation in the Philippines ten
years from now. Ten years is amagic number for futurists
because a lot can happen in adecade. So when we think about
our own lives, for example, whenyou think about your own life 10
years ago, there's probablydramatic changes from then to
(11:55):
now. We also mark our lives in adecade, like you're in your 20s,
30s, 40s, right? And then musicand fashion and culture, there's
very distinctive differences.
After you've imagined that youwould create an artefact from
the future, which is basicallysomething, a tangible thing that
(12:15):
you create, rapidly prototype ora digital format. In this case,
they had digital flyerscommunicating their ideas of
five-year PhD programme and alsoan intergenerational school.
They created a mock-up of that.
And then from there, the fifthphase is Disenyong
Makatarungang, which is designjustice. This is a concept by a
(12:39):
global community of practicethat I am a member of, Design
Justice Network. I encourageeverybody to look at the ten
principles that we have. There'salso a great book by Sasha
Costanza-Chock, called 'Designjustice' that I encourage people
to read.
Basically, it's about askingthree questions when you're
(12:59):
designing something. First is,who's included in the design
process? Typically, Indigenousand marginalised groups are not
included, so how do we representtheir voices? Number two is,
what are the potential benefits?
And then finally, what are thepotential harms of this design
process? I've added thiscomponent of sustainability or
(13:20):
thinking about not just harmsand benefits to people, but also
the planet.
That's the ethical layer thattraditional design thinking does
not typically have. If an enduser wants something, yes, you
can address it, you can designfor it, but is it ethical?
That's where the principledinnovation comes in, just
(13:42):
because we can should we?
Then finally, Paulit-ulit napagsubok is called testing and
iteration. That's when youcollaborate with the community,
you co-design with them, how doyou feel about this artefact,
for example, from the future,and then engage in dialogue
after that. I purposely did notput a scaling phase. In design
(14:04):
thinking the instinct is toscale, but not every solution
should be scaled. It has to becontextualised. The six values
that underpin it are what Idescribed earlier, Kapwa, which
is relationality. There's alsothe non-linearity and
synchronicity of time, multiplefuturities, bold imagination,
(14:25):
hyperlocality, andtransdisciplinary collaboration.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:29):
Thank you for sharing your framework, Bea. I
find there's lots of touchpoints and ideas that can be
found in other Indigenouscultures, and thinking also very
much about where I'm located, inAotearoa New Zealand, where also
relationships, storytelling arevery important, also looking to
the past in order to go forwardand look into the future, and
(14:52):
also thinking about not justyour current position or the
next few years, but what wouldthe solution or the idea that we
are thinking about mean in 100years? So the seven generations
that you also talk about in yourbook as part of that, and then,
of course, also design justice.
How does it benefit, but also,how does it harm people? And
(15:13):
should we be doing it, or shouldwe not be doing it? Could we be
doing that somehow differentlyto also ensure that cultural
values are incorporated and notjust the coloniser lens put on
top and what everybody else issaying who's not from the
culture, so really alsorespecting that, respecting
sustainability. Then sometimes asolution might really only be
(15:37):
for a particular community andnot applicable to everybody, but
that doesn't mean it shouldn'tbe done.
One of your components of thedecolonial design futures
framework is reflection. That ofcourse, in portfolio work is one
of the big components that wehave. Do you have any reflective
(15:59):
question or set of questionsthat helped the participants of
your study or that helped you tostart reflecting and getting
beyond summarising?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (16:11):
For me, the only prompt was, "How did
you feel?" This is actually inline with Paulo Freire's notion
of praxis, reflection and actionupon the world in order to
transform it. The reflectionpart is really honing in on
feelings. In academia, sometimesfeelings are de-emphasised. The
(16:33):
logic or rationality is deemedmore important sometimes. But I
would argue that payingattention to how you feel, and
sometimes there are veryphysiologic changes that happen
that indicate how you feel,sometimes we don't pay enough
attention when we're listeningto others and we're experiencing
(16:54):
things. But to me, that is yourbody telling you something, and
that we need to listen to that.
There's also that notion ofintuition, paying attention to
your intuition. In Tagalog, wecall it 'Kutob'. It's like a
hyper-intuition. Sometimesthat's dismissed in academia or
in research, even, but inreality, and a lot of even not
(17:17):
just social scientists, butpeople who are in what we call
the hard sciences, they actuallyrely a lot on intuition, but
they kind of downplay it. Sowe've suppressed it, I think, in
academia, and I feel like thatneeds to be resurfaced and not
be ashamed that we use it in ourresearch, and we use it when
(17:37):
we're navigating the workplaceor different knowledges,
different knowledge systems. Sothat's the only prompt, really,
that I gave my participants, is,"How did you feel when you were
listening to one another?"It naturally leads to light bulb
moments that they were surprisedto arrive at. One of the
participants said, "It's onlynow that I'm actually realising
(17:58):
so and so." That's another goodprompt. What surprised you? For
example, if you're thinkingabout your portfolio projects,
what was one of the mostsurprising moments for you?
Kristina Hoeppner (18:12):
Because it does get you out of this 'Oh, I
need to describe something,describe something and just talk
about that.' It gets you to thatemotional level and the level of
where you need to think foryourself how it impacted you and
not how has it impacted somebodyelse, or what was the outcome of
it, so that you also get intothat storytelling that is so, so
(18:36):
important for your practice andalso for portfolio practice, so
that we contextualise what wehave learned and make it our
own, so that we can go forwardand see, well, how do I want
that to impact my future?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (18:52):
Yes, you got it. Portfolio, to me is not
just about compiling artefacts.
It's not just about text andmedia. It's really all about
using the artefacts to tell thatstory that you're talking about,
and also these stories, theseworks that learners are
creating, they hold emotion andmemory and subjectivity and what
(19:12):
I also call ancestral dialogue,meaning that whatever we create
now, it's really a dialoguebetween scholars that are long
gone now and even recentinteractions with your peers and
your professors or yourcommunity members or even family
members. So being able to tellthat story in a way that infuses
(19:35):
all these things, it's basicallytelling a story of who you're
becoming. That's where thereflection and then action comes
in. It's like, what was theprocess? What did I go through?
What was my journey like? Andwhere am I going with this?
Kristina Hoeppner (19:53):
Yeah, and that's also why, when we started
developing the AAEEBL DigitalEthics in ePortfolios
Principles, we did want tocreate one about diversity,
equity, inclusion, andbelonging. Kevin and I did the
research together. So KevinKelly, whom I had mentioned
earlier, I was very privilegedto work with him, because he has
done a lot of work in that areaat his university and also his
(20:16):
consulting work.
During that research phase, whenwe talked to a diverse group of
people, so not just academics orportfolio practitioners, but
also colleagues of mine, whom wewanted to include in the
interview, we realised thatthere are specific questions and
circumstances when we engagedwith Indigenous communities that
(20:39):
we shouldn't really subsumeunder diversity, equity,
inclusion, and belonging. Whatwe did then was advocating to
include decolonisation as partof the principle to make these
questions that you're raising inyour book looking back if we had
the decolonial design futuresframework available that would
have been a wonderful resourceto include because I think we
(21:01):
still need to call outdecolonisation and put the
finger on it, in order to ensurethat we support Indigenous
peoples and their ways oflearning, knowledge sharing,
knowledge creation, and alsobeing so that we can learn these
ways, reflect on them, and makesure that they are part of the
community.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (21:22):
Yes, yeah. It's really difficult to
think beyond our own lifetimes.
That's one dimension ofdecolonisation is really
encouraging you to expand yourtime horizons. I went, you know,
500 years back when I startedthinking about the problem of
colonial mentality [laughs]. SoI appreciate you really taking
the initiative to delineate thatand to emphasise it.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:47):
What I found fascinating, and that's
something that I had not reallythought of before when hearing
your country's name, thePhilippines, that it actually
means people are Philip.
Therefore, it is already in thename itself, the coloniser being
represented right there.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (22:04):
There's actually a Filipino scholar who
wrote an article about how itmight be impossible to really
decolonise simply because wehaven't changed our country's
name. That name itself says alot about our story as a nation.
Kristina Hoeppner (22:20):
Have there been any suggestions of what the
country could be called?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (22:25):
Yes, that same author talked about there
were some suggestions that wereultimately not implemented. So
for example, Rizal, he's ourPhilippine national hero, that
was one of the suggestions.
Another one, I believe, isMaharlika. There are several,
but that conversation died down.
I think the official reason wasthat name is already part of our
(22:47):
history. That's part of who weare, so we shouldn't change it.
That's when decolonialimagination comes in, right?
That's when you can imagine adifferent name, a different way
forward, just because somethinghas been embedded for centuries
doesn't mean that it has to bethat way moving forward. The
ability to imagine new names,new words, new stories, that's
(23:11):
part of decolonising ourmindsets.
Kristina Hoeppner (23:14):
Yeah, we've already touched on storytelling
a couple of times, and that thatis important to Indigenous
communities, as is alsoreflected in your research of
the book that you employedstorytelling techniques. You've
developed the decolonial portalsframework that you also
introduce in the book to supportthat work. Portfolios are prime
(23:36):
examples, where learners cantell their story in their own
works and reflect on theirjourney up to now, as well as
then, if you're employing thedecolonial design futures
framework also looking into thefuture. How do you employ these
techniques in your own teachingand your own learning? Because
(23:58):
in the book, you did talk aboutthe prototypes that people are
creating for imagining thefuture, that these can be
digital prototypes, so they canbe multimedia, but they could
also be more physicalprototypes. Have you already had
the chance to employ some ofthose techniques that you've
talked about in the book,outside of your research
(24:18):
context?
Bea Rodriguez-Franse (24:20):
Decolonial portals, and you can look at my
website, beafuturist.com for ashort video explaining the
topology. Currently, there arefive types, mentor led, history,
indigeneity, transdisciplinary,collaboration and art. To me,
for example, history, it's anongoing practice of
(24:41):
interrogating the officialstories that are currently in
textbooks, for example, or noweven AI. Many times we,
especially if it's an officialtextbook, it's taken at face
value and seen as authority, asthe official story. But that
decolonial portal is reallyabout encouraging learners and
(25:05):
yourself to interrogate andchallenge existing assumptions.
The intensify and downplayframework by Hugh Rank, created
in the 1970s and published bythe National Council for
Teachers in English, is a greatframework that we can all use in
K-12, in higher ed, in our dailylives as professionals that can
(25:29):
help us interrogate history andany political stories that we
see or any ads, social media,all of that. To me, that's a
portal that anybody can open,and it's a practice, really.
It's a lifelong practice.
Just really quickly, intensify,downplay. There are three
techniques that are used foreach of those categories. The
(25:54):
first for the 'Intensify' isrepetition. So if you hear a lot
of repeated words and phrases,pay attention to those and then
question the assumptions.
There's also composition, forexample, in political cartoons
or even ads, how is the messageand the images and even the
music, how are they composed?
(26:15):
What kinds of feelings are theyeliciting? What messages like,
subliminal messages? The lastone is 'Association', meaning
that you tend to create a binarycategory, basically, associating
what the story, what thatparticular message is aligning
with as good or as representinglove or it's better, basically
(26:39):
versus fear, light versus dark,love versus fear, things like
that. That is a technique thatwe all should be able to
identify because in reality,almost everything has nuances.
That's what I think we lack intoday's conversations is to be
able to detect and identifythese nuances, not only in
(27:02):
history, but also in everydaypublic discourse. That's, I
think, a key thing that we allneed to pay attention to and to
hone as a society, is to be ableto go beyond this binary
thinking and think morenon-binary.
In downplay, there are alsothree techniques. There's
'Omission', basically omitting,completely omitting, maybe even
(27:24):
lying. There's the jargon or'Confusion', where you use a lot
of jargon to confuse people,euphemisms too. And then the
third is 'Distraction', whereyou basically deflect from the
issue that you're talking aboutand redirecting to a peripheral
(27:45):
issue so that you don't talkabout what you want to talk
about. These are things that arestill at play, not just in
history, but in everydaydiscourse.
Kristina Hoeppner (27:53):
That history portal is a fascinating one, and
you can see the downplay andalso the intensifying so many
times. When I've read aboutthat, I was reminded very much
of my history classes very earlyon after the wall came down
because, of course, in formerEast Germany, different books
(28:14):
were available in the library.
And so for one class, I can'teven remember why I was
researching it. I was in thelibrary and reading old
newspapers about a topic, andthat was the early 1900s, then
reading books from the late 50sor 60s, where the language had
changed entirely and wasdifferently flowery, and of
(28:36):
course, talking very much aboutthe accomplishments of the
Soviet Union in helping the GDRbecome what it was. And then
looking at the books from the90s, realising, well, the
language differs so so much. Inthe 90s, it felt like the
language had been a bit moreobjective than before when it
(28:56):
was very emotional.
However, I suspect if I were toread books from the 2000s or
2010s on the same topic, I wouldhave a very different opinion
about what was said in the 90sbecause those books were also
written from the perspectivemore of West Germany,
downplaying a lot of things thathappened in East Germany.
(29:18):
Oftentimes you don't notice thatsomething has been omitted or
downplayed if you don't see thatother perspective, if you don't
know through a differentresource, 'Oh, actually this
happened,' or 'Hmm, hold on aminute. They are talking about
this event like this, and inthis book, it is like this. Why
are these descriptions sodifferent? Do we need to dig
(29:39):
deeper?' Where do we accept thatit is storytelling and we need
to present those differentperspectives in order to let
people make their own opinionsabout it and look to both sides.
It was fascinating having thatas part of your portal, and
realizing, yes, this is aparticular lens to look at
(30:00):
something.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (30:01):
Yeah, you were already doing it, right. So
I just named it. I just named itas decolonial portal. But you
already tracing it. You wentthrough this journey and
understanding your own colonialsubjectivity because that's what
it is, it is reflecting on yourown subjectivity, growing up in
that environment, in thatculture, and then imagining
(30:23):
different perspectives,different stories, imagining
what are the potential storiesthat can liberate us from this
one way of thinking. Many peopleare already doing it.
Kristina Hoeppner (30:35):
At some point, somebody else might come
up with yet another portal toextend your framework.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (30:41):
Yes, and that's actually what I would
love for people to do, is to addto the different types,
experiment, and also supplementthe curriculum. In art, an
example would be to ask yourlearners to consider, let's say,
a colonial artwork and thinkabout that story that's being
told. What is the gaze that yousee in this painting? And then
(31:05):
encourage them to revise orrecreate that same painting, but
this time from the colonisedperspective. Shift the gaze,
basically. That's one way ofsupplementing the curriculum
using the art portal, and thereare many other ways.
Kristina Hoeppner (31:21):
Bea, earlier, you mentioned that you have been
using your decolonial designframework in Africa with a
community, and that you do wantpeople to localise the
framework, use their ownlanguage, maybe also add some
different components to it, sothat it really becomes their
own. Do you then actually haveany plans of adding those
(31:45):
localised frameworks to yourwebsite so that you can
eventually have a gallery ofthose available to show how the
framework has been appliedacross the world?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (31:56):
That's the dream. I would love to
connect with folks that aregoing to use this and modify it
to their own communities. I'mvery open to hearing from them
and to publish it on my website.
The book is new, so I'm hopingthat more people will read it
and that more people will usethe framework over time. I'd
love to hear how othercommunities are using it and how
(32:20):
helpful they find it.
Kristina Hoeppner (32:24):
I think it could be a great exercise then
in the classroom to take theframework and for students to
localise it to their owncontexts, even if it is just the
translation into a language thatthey prefer to communicate in,
or maybe even as a class projectso that they agree on the
elements of what is importantfor them as a group. I do hope
(32:46):
that a lot of people are goingto read your book and see that
as an invitation to thinkfurther, to use it as a basis,
knowing that they can extend onit, that they can make their own
version of it, that they canlocalise it, or what you say,
hyperlocalise it.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (33:04):
The goal is really to basically just
spark their imaginations or helpthem amplify what's already
there. Sometimes all we need todo is name it, and actually
that's one of the frameworksthat has guided the study, is
naming, reflecting, acting.
First you name, once you'venamed it, you can reflect on it,
and then once you've reflected,then you can act on it. I'm sure
(33:25):
that's the process that we gothrough every day when we're
making decisions.
In fact, there's a facilitationmethod called ORID - objective,
reflective, interpretive, anddecisional, which is, I believe,
based in Kolb's learning theoryand experiential learning, where
(33:47):
every day, this is what we gothrough, this ORID process,
where we recall, we remember, orsense through our five senses,
whatever topic it is, whateverwe observe, and then reflect,
that's the heart. How do we feelabout what we just saw or
experienced, and then interpretis the insights, and then
decision is, what do we do withthis insight? It's all connected
(34:10):
the ways we all process ourexperiences. This one just has a
bent towards Indigenous andmarginalised communities.
Kristina Hoeppner (34:20):
You're right.
We are reflecting all day long,just in our heads and with the
storytelling that you're doingand encourage educators to do or
also students and the reflectionthat is often done in portfolios
is that we are externalisingthat reflection, kind of pull it
out of our brains, talk about itor write it down or use a
different medium to make it morevisible so that it is then
(34:43):
easier to talk about it and see,okay, these are the things that
we have reflected on, and theseare actions that we are taking,
but yes, we are doing that onvery trivial things every single
day, not just using reflectionwithin an educational setting.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (35:00):
This basically just slows down our
thought process. In that way, itmakes it more clear.
Kristina Hoeppner (35:07):
We could talk much, much longer about your
book. So hopefully at somepoint, we'll also be able to
have an AAEEBL webinar on it,where we can in an interactive
workshop, look at your ideas andthen localising them for the
participants, encouraging themto work with a framework and see
what they are already doing andwhere they might like to be
(35:28):
encouraged or might like toexplore something new.
So for the time being, let'sfinish off with our three quick
answer round questions, and I'veslightly adjusted them because
today we talked more aboutstorytelling in general and your
framework, rather thannecessarily specifically for
portfolio practice. So Bea,which words do you use to
(35:51):
describe storytelling thatrespects Indigenous ways of
knowing, learning, and teaching?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (35:59):
Three words would be relational,
contextual, andintergenerational. Relational
meaning that you focus on theconnections between self and
community and nature and eventhe universe, the cosmos.
Contextual is being rooted inyour culture, your community,
(36:19):
your history, and being able tosituate yourself, locate
yourself within the larger storyand also the larger cosmos.
Finally, intergenerational isnot just passing down knowledge
or learning from generationsbefore, but also learning from
younger generations. I come frompositive youth development, and
(36:43):
sometimes there's what we call'adultism' or this idea that
adults know more, are more wisethan young people. But in fact
[laughs], we can learn a lotfrom young people, and often
they're not in positions ofpower, but they have so much
insights, especially becausethey're going to be living in
the futures that we're not goingto be inhabiting. So it's really
(37:07):
important to consider theirstories now and not relegate
them as, 'Oh, you're not wiseenough.'
Kristina Hoeppner (37:15):
Yeah, and that mirrors what in Māori
culture is called'tuakana-teina' that you have
the mentor and menteerelationship with one person
being the more knowledgeable tothe other. But that can be
reversed in that relationship.
It is not one way oftransmitting knowledge, but one
day you might be the one whoteaches something, and the next
day, you are the one who islearning from the other person.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (37:40):
I love that.
Kristina Hoeppner (37:41):
Next question, what tip do you have
for learning designers orinstructors who want to use your
framework with students?
Bea Rodriguez-Fran (37:50):
Co-designing with learners instead of being
prescriptive about the portals.
Encourage the students toexplore and create their own
portals. Sometimes in theprocess of exploring, you
stumble upon a portal. Theseportals don't have to exist now.
They can be co-created. For thedesign futures, I would
(38:10):
encourage learning designers,instructors for their learners
to participate and conduct storycircles because that practice
is, for me, really liberating,and it helps you build rapport
and also recognise the humansoul that we don't often talk
about in academia or in theclassroom and really emphasises
(38:33):
relationality, yourrelationships with one another.
We want to be able to connectwith one another more through
story.
Kristina Hoeppner (38:45):
Thank you.
What advice do you have forlearners who use one of your
frameworks?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (38:51):
Use your imagination and then also
challenge yourself to look asfar back as you can and as far
forward as you can, beyond yourown lifetime. It's like
stretching your muscles waybeyond you thought you are
capable of. People who practiceyoga or people who do strength
(39:12):
training, that kind of thinking,where you train yourself and you
practice to the point that youreach a place where you can
actually move in a way thatyou've never moved before. Using
that as a metaphor to thinkabout time and encouraging
yourself to think beyond lineartimelines and really expanding
(39:36):
your horizons.
Kristina Hoeppner (39:38):
Thank you so much, Bea, for this advice, the
other tips that you have givenalso learning designers and
instructors and overall thisconversation because I've really
enjoyed having you bring yourbook to life, talking about how
we can support Indigenouscommunities in their learning
today, and how we can alsorespect those cultures, what we
(39:58):
can do in order for everybody tofeel included in the education,
to be heard, and then have abetter future for them because
they can bring in themselves.
Thank you so much, Bea.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (40:12):
Maraming salamat. That means many thanks
in Tagalog.
Kristina Hoeppner (40:17):
Now over to our listeners. What do you want
to try in your own portfoliopractice? This was 'Create.
Share. Engage.' with AssistantProfessor Dr Bea
Rodriguez-Fransen. Head to ourwebsite, podcast.mahara.org,
where you can find resources andthe transcript for this episode.
(40:39):
This podcast is produced byCatalyst IT. Our next episode
will air in two weeks. I'd loveit if you shared this episode
with a colleague of yours sothey can subscribe to our
podcast and support us that way.
Until then, create, share, andengage.
Welcome to 'Create. Share. Engage.' This is
the podcast about portfolios forlearning and more for educators,
learning designers, and managerskeen on integrating portfolios
with their education andprofessional development
practices. 'Create. Share.
Engage.' is brought to you bythe Mahara team at Catalyst IT.
(00:26):
My name is Kristina Hoeppner.
My guest today is AssistantResearch Professor in Principled
Innovation Dr BeaRodriguez-Fransen from Arizona
State University. Dr KevinKelly, a fellow member of the
AAEEBL Digital Ethics TaskForce, recommended Bea because
(00:47):
she recently published the book'Education and decolonial
Perspectives for educators andpractitioners' which extends our
thinking about diversity,equity, inclusion, belonging,
and decolonisation, one of theAAEEBL Digital Ethics in
ePortfolios Principles. Thankyou for sharing what you have
(01:07):
learned from your research, Bea.
I'm really excited about ourchat today.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (01:13):
Me, too.
I'm really excited and honouredto be here with you today.
Kristina Hoeppner (01:18):
Bea, what do you do at Arizona State please?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (01:21):
I am Assistant Research Professor in
Principled Innovation at ASU'sCollege of Global Futures. I'm
also a senior global futurescholar. In this role as
Assistant Research Professor, Iwill be focusing on anticipatory
governance as well asinterdisciplinary collaboration
(01:43):
and public engagement as weunite public interest
technologies across ASU, andwe're also going to be engaging
partners, different stakeholdersthat are interested in advancing
our ninth design aspiration ofthe university, which is called
'Principled innovation', whichbasically asks, just because we
(02:05):
can, should we, especially asnew emerging technology such as
AI and VR and climate tech, forexample, are just proliferating
right now. That is our goal.
Kristina Hoeppner (02:19):
Can I understand principled innovation
as you're wanting to innovateusing foundational or basic
principles that you've agreed onand innovate within that
framework?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (02:32):
Yes, the principled innovation framework
was originally created by MaryLou Fulton College for Teaching
and Learning Innovation. Thereare four components to the
practices of principledinnovation, or PI. It's moral,
civic, performance, andintellectual. 'Moral' is all
(02:53):
about utilising ethical decisionmaking whenever we're
innovating. 'Civic' is aboutunderstanding culture and
context, engaging multiple anddiverse perspectives.
'Performance' is about designingcreative solutions and then
navigating uncertainty andmitigating any consequences. And
(03:13):
then finally, 'intellectual' isdeveloping the habits of an
informed systems thinker to beable to reflect critically and
compassionately.
In a nutshell, it's answeringwhenever we're creating or
innovating a new product orexperience or system that we ask
the question, just because wecan, should we? It's asking a
(03:36):
lot of questions and leaning onmany values, including
compassion, humility, and a hostof other values that we need to
embody as we work with ourcommunity.
Kristina Hoeppner (03:49):
Yeah, that is really incredibly important, I
find, especially in the currenttimes where everybody is looking
towards AI for one thing or theother because, of course, lots
of experiments are being made,not always considering the
impact on peoples and all ofthat, so that having those
principles part of theinnovation is really good
(04:10):
because you can't put the genieback into the bottle. Once a
model is out there and has atraining data set, you can't
remove things easily, onlybecause afterwards you realise,
well, we shouldn't have put thatstuff in in the first place. So
if we are having that there arefrom the get to go, knowing what
sensible guardrails there are toprotect peoples, not just
(04:31):
Indigenous peoples, but otherminorities and also everybody
else in the world, then that isvery important.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (04:38):
Yes, and not to mention that billions of
people are still not connectedto the internet. For example,
there are many forms ofknowledge that are not written
down, that are not representedin any of these data sets. It's
also important to think aboutthe potential long-term
consequences of anything that wecreate because it seems that
(05:02):
we're still, as a society,trapped in this short-termism,
that there's the notions ofrace, racing towards something
and competing against oneanother to race towards what I
question and to what end. That'swhat I encourage, is for us to
really think through what arethe potential harms and benefits
(05:24):
on humanity and the planetgenerations from now, which is
difficult to do, but that's thebeauty of working in an
interdisciplinary community,working with different domains.
That's why I'm really excitedabout this new opportunity of
focusing on bringing togetherdifferent perspectives as we
innovate.
Kristina Hoeppner (05:43):
That's also why we are talking today because
you have already done researchin that area of how to bring in
different perspectives. In yourrecent book 'Education and
decolonial futures in thePhilippines', you take a look at
how the western view ofeducation and being has
influenced educators in thePhilippines and also what can be
(06:05):
done to bring in learning andteaching scenarios that are
rooted in Philippine culture andtraditions. Can you share with
us why you've researched thistopic?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (06:17):
This is going way back in my doctoral
coursework, in my educationaltheory class. I remember
noticing that all of thetheories we were studying came
from Europe or North America.
When I asked my professor in theclassroom if there are other
theories that we can look at, hementioned a word that I was not
(06:37):
familiar with at the time, andthat was 'Decoloniality'. That's
when I started really diggingdeeper and encountered this rich
scholarship of decoloniality.
That's when I decided to shiftmy dissertation idea of using
design thinking to helptransform universities to a
(06:59):
decolonising education.
To do that, I just went back toone of the deepest questions in
my soul, which is, why do westill have colonial mentality
among Filipinos and FilipinoAmericans all over the world,
which is basically thisautomatic rejection of anything
(07:20):
Filipino, and automaticpreference for anything white
American. I started with thatquestion, and then that led to
my research among Filipinoeducators in the Philippines.
Kristina Hoeppner (07:32):
You mentioned that you were initially trying
to use the design thinkingframework to improve education,
but then through your researchand also the storytelling that
you have been engaged with usingtraditional methods of
understanding, gainingknowledge, and engaging with
people that you've created thedecolonial design futures
(07:56):
framework. Bea, what are thecomponents of it, and how does
it extend the design thinkingframework? Why, then, is it
actually important for us tolook into that and consider that
as an alternative?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (08:10):
This was an unexpected finding from the
research. I didn't realise I wasgoing to create this framework,
but it just made sense to fusedecoloniality and futures
thinking and human centreddesign because that is exactly
the journey or the process thatI experienced with the
participants. It's basically asix-phase, iterative, collective
(08:35):
design futures framework.
How it departs from designthinking is that there's a time
horizon component thatencourages you to look way, way
back in order to look forward.
Typically, in traditional designthinking, you tend to speak or
interview the end users, whetheryou're designing a product or
(08:56):
service or experience or system,and asking for their pain points
in the present and then quicklydesigning to address that pain
point. Often, we don'tcontextualise that pain point
with the larger story or thelarger history of that
community.
The first phase is Kuwentuhan,and I use my native language of
(09:20):
Tagalog. But when I present thisto different communities, I
encourage them to plug in theirown languages. For example, when
I went to Africa to facilitate adesign charrette for
establishing the Young AfricanLeaders Initiative, which is a
continent wide initiative, whenwe were talking about the values
(09:40):
that underpin this framework,one of them is 'kapwa', which is
expressing the Filipino value ofrelationality, they came up with
'ubuntu', which means 'I ambecause we are'. That's what I
encourage, is that we are notashamed of using our own
languages whenever we'redesigning with folks.
(10:02):
So the first is Kuwentuhan orstorytelling. And the key here,
it's a group storytellingsession instead of an individual
interview. This is becausethere's this notion of
relationality that when youshare your inner self with one
another, you recognise eachother, and then you make
connections with one another'sstories. It helps you remember.
(10:25):
It helps you feel certainemotions as you listen to other
people's stories.
There's also this step ofcontextualising the individual
stories within the larger storyof that community. That was when
you as a researcher or as afacilitator, you go off and also
(10:46):
dig deeper on what's the largerstory of this community, and
then you compare their storieswith the larger story. Then
you'll see that you can actuallyrevise the meanings of these
stories. That method is calledhermeneutic circle, where you
constantly compare these storieswith one another.
The second step isPagmumuni-muni or reflection,
(11:08):
and this is when I encourage theparticipants to identify
specific emotions that they feltwhile they were listening to
each other, and then from there,glean insights based on their
emotions about the particulartopic or problem or issue.
From there, we move on to thethird step, which is Hiraya or
(11:31):
imagination. We did a rapidideation thinking about
imagining the future ofeducation in the Philippines ten
years from now. Ten years is amagic number for futurists
because a lot can happen in adecade. So when we think about
our own lives, for example, whenyou think about your own life 10
years ago, there's probablydramatic changes from then to
(11:55):
now. We also mark our lives in adecade, like you're in your 20s,
30s, 40s, right? And then musicand fashion and culture, there's
very distinctive differences.
After you've imagined that youwould create an artefact from
the future, which is basicallysomething, a tangible thing that
(12:15):
you create, rapidly prototype ora digital format. In this case,
they had digital flyerscommunicating their ideas of
five-year PhD programme and alsoan intergenerational school.
They created a mock-up of that.
And then from there, the fifthphase is Disenyong
Makatarungang, which is designjustice. This is a concept by a
(12:39):
global community of practicethat I am a member of, Design
Justice Network. I encourageeverybody to look at the ten
principles that we have. There'salso a great book by Sasha
Costanza-Chock, called 'Designjustice' that I encourage people
to read.
Basically, it's about askingthree questions when you're
(12:59):
designing something. First is,who's included in the design
process? Typically, Indigenousand marginalised groups are not
included, so how do we representtheir voices? Number two is,
what are the potential benefits?
And then finally, what are thepotential harms of this design
process? I've added thiscomponent of sustainability or
(13:20):
thinking about not just harmsand benefits to people, but also
the planet.
That's the ethical layer thattraditional design thinking does
not typically have. If an enduser wants something, yes, you
can address it, you can designfor it, but is it ethical?
That's where the principledinnovation comes in, just
(13:42):
because we can should we?
Then finally, Paulit-ulit napagsubok is called testing and
iteration. That's when youcollaborate with the community,
you co-design with them, how doyou feel about this artefact,
for example, from the future,and then engage in dialogue
after that. I purposely did notput a scaling phase. In design
(14:04):
thinking the instinct is toscale, but not every solution
should be scaled. It has to becontextualised. The six values
that underpin it are what Idescribed earlier, Kapwa, which
is relationality. There's alsothe non-linearity and
synchronicity of time, multiplefuturities, bold imagination,
(14:25):
hyperlocality, andtransdisciplinary collaboration.
Kristina Hoeppner (14:29):
Thank you for sharing your framework, Bea. I
find there's lots of touchpoints and ideas that can be
found in other Indigenouscultures, and thinking also very
much about where I'm located, inAotearoa New Zealand, where also
relationships, storytelling arevery important, also looking to
the past in order to go forwardand look into the future, and
(14:52):
also thinking about not justyour current position or the
next few years, but what wouldthe solution or the idea that we
are thinking about mean in 100years? So the seven generations
that you also talk about in yourbook as part of that, and then,
of course, also design justice.
How does it benefit, but also,how does it harm people? And
(15:13):
should we be doing it, or shouldwe not be doing it? Could we be
doing that somehow differentlyto also ensure that cultural
values are incorporated and notjust the coloniser lens put on
top and what everybody else issaying who's not from the
culture, so really alsorespecting that, respecting
sustainability. Then sometimes asolution might really only be
(15:37):
for a particular community andnot applicable to everybody, but
that doesn't mean it shouldn'tbe done.
One of your components of thedecolonial design futures
framework is reflection. That ofcourse, in portfolio work is one
of the big components that wehave. Do you have any reflective
(15:59):
question or set of questionsthat helped the participants of
your study or that helped you tostart reflecting and getting
beyond summarising?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (16:11):
For me, the only prompt was, "How did
you feel?" This is actually inline with Paulo Freire's notion
of praxis, reflection and actionupon the world in order to
transform it. The reflectionpart is really honing in on
feelings. In academia, sometimesfeelings are de-emphasised. The
(16:33):
logic or rationality is deemedmore important sometimes. But I
would argue that payingattention to how you feel, and
sometimes there are veryphysiologic changes that happen
that indicate how you feel,sometimes we don't pay enough
attention when we're listeningto others and we're experiencing
(16:54):
things. But to me, that is yourbody telling you something, and
that we need to listen to that.
There's also that notion ofintuition, paying attention to
your intuition. In Tagalog, wecall it 'Kutob'. It's like a
hyper-intuition. Sometimesthat's dismissed in academia or
in research, even, but inreality, and a lot of even not
(17:17):
just social scientists, butpeople who are in what we call
the hard sciences, they actuallyrely a lot on intuition, but
they kind of downplay it. Sowe've suppressed it, I think, in
academia, and I feel like thatneeds to be resurfaced and not
be ashamed that we use it in ourresearch, and we use it when
(17:37):
we're navigating the workplaceor different knowledges,
different knowledge systems. Sothat's the only prompt, really,
that I gave my participants, is,"How did you feel when you were
listening to one another?"It naturally leads to light bulb
moments that they were surprisedto arrive at. One of the
participants said, "It's onlynow that I'm actually realising
(17:58):
so and so." That's another goodprompt. What surprised you? For
example, if you're thinkingabout your portfolio projects,
what was one of the mostsurprising moments for you?
Kristina Hoeppner (18:12):
Because it does get you out of this 'Oh, I
need to describe something,describe something and just talk
about that.' It gets you to thatemotional level and the level of
where you need to think foryourself how it impacted you and
not how has it impacted somebodyelse, or what was the outcome of
it, so that you also get intothat storytelling that is so, so
(18:36):
important for your practice andalso for portfolio practice, so
that we contextualise what wehave learned and make it our
own, so that we can go forwardand see, well, how do I want
that to impact my future?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (18:52):
Yes, you got it. Portfolio, to me is not
just about compiling artefacts.
It's not just about text andmedia. It's really all about
using the artefacts to tell thatstory that you're talking about,
and also these stories, theseworks that learners are
creating, they hold emotion andmemory and subjectivity and what
(19:12):
I also call ancestral dialogue,meaning that whatever we create
now, it's really a dialoguebetween scholars that are long
gone now and even recentinteractions with your peers and
your professors or yourcommunity members or even family
members. So being able to tellthat story in a way that infuses
(19:35):
all these things, it's basicallytelling a story of who you're
becoming. That's where thereflection and then action comes
in. It's like, what was theprocess? What did I go through?
What was my journey like? Andwhere am I going with this?
Kristina Hoeppner (19:53):
Yeah, and that's also why, when we started
developing the AAEEBL DigitalEthics in ePortfolios
Principles, we did want tocreate one about diversity,
equity, inclusion, andbelonging. Kevin and I did the
research together. So KevinKelly, whom I had mentioned
earlier, I was very privilegedto work with him, because he has
done a lot of work in that areaat his university and also his
(20:16):
consulting work.
During that research phase, whenwe talked to a diverse group of
people, so not just academics orportfolio practitioners, but
also colleagues of mine, whom wewanted to include in the
interview, we realised thatthere are specific questions and
circumstances when we engagedwith Indigenous communities that
(20:39):
we shouldn't really subsumeunder diversity, equity,
inclusion, and belonging. Whatwe did then was advocating to
include decolonisation as partof the principle to make these
questions that you're raising inyour book looking back if we had
the decolonial design futuresframework available that would
have been a wonderful resourceto include because I think we
(21:01):
still need to call outdecolonisation and put the
finger on it, in order to ensurethat we support Indigenous
peoples and their ways oflearning, knowledge sharing,
knowledge creation, and alsobeing so that we can learn these
ways, reflect on them, and makesure that they are part of the
community.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (21:22):
Yes, yeah. It's really difficult to
think beyond our own lifetimes.
That's one dimension ofdecolonisation is really
encouraging you to expand yourtime horizons. I went, you know,
500 years back when I startedthinking about the problem of
colonial mentality [laughs]. SoI appreciate you really taking
the initiative to delineate thatand to emphasise it.
Kristina Hoeppner (21:47):
What I found fascinating, and that's
something that I had not reallythought of before when hearing
your country's name, thePhilippines, that it actually
means people are Philip.
Therefore, it is already in thename itself, the coloniser being
represented right there.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (22:04):
There's actually a Filipino scholar who
wrote an article about how itmight be impossible to really
decolonise simply because wehaven't changed our country's
name. That name itself says alot about our story as a nation.
Kristina Hoeppner (22:20):
Have there been any suggestions of what the
country could be called?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (22:25):
Yes, that same author talked about there
were some suggestions that wereultimately not implemented. So
for example, Rizal, he's ourPhilippine national hero, that
was one of the suggestions.
Another one, I believe, isMaharlika. There are several,
but that conversation died down.
I think the official reason wasthat name is already part of our
(22:47):
history. That's part of who weare, so we shouldn't change it.
That's when decolonialimagination comes in, right?
That's when you can imagine adifferent name, a different way
forward, just because somethinghas been embedded for centuries
doesn't mean that it has to bethat way moving forward. The
ability to imagine new names,new words, new stories, that's
(23:11):
part of decolonising ourmindsets.
Kristina Hoeppner (23:14):
Yeah, we've already touched on storytelling
a couple of times, and that thatis important to Indigenous
communities, as is alsoreflected in your research of
the book that you employedstorytelling techniques. You've
developed the decolonial portalsframework that you also
introduce in the book to supportthat work. Portfolios are prime
(23:36):
examples, where learners cantell their story in their own
works and reflect on theirjourney up to now, as well as
then, if you're employing thedecolonial design futures
framework also looking into thefuture. How do you employ these
techniques in your own teachingand your own learning? Because
(23:58):
in the book, you did talk aboutthe prototypes that people are
creating for imagining thefuture, that these can be
digital prototypes, so they canbe multimedia, but they could
also be more physicalprototypes. Have you already had
the chance to employ some ofthose techniques that you've
talked about in the book,outside of your research
(24:18):
context?
Bea Rodriguez-Franse (24:20):
Decolonial portals, and you can look at my
website, beafuturist.com for ashort video explaining the
topology. Currently, there arefive types, mentor led, history,
indigeneity, transdisciplinary,collaboration and art. To me,
for example, history, it's anongoing practice of
(24:41):
interrogating the officialstories that are currently in
textbooks, for example, or noweven AI. Many times we,
especially if it's an officialtextbook, it's taken at face
value and seen as authority, asthe official story. But that
decolonial portal is reallyabout encouraging learners and
(25:05):
yourself to interrogate andchallenge existing assumptions.
The intensify and downplayframework by Hugh Rank, created
in the 1970s and published bythe National Council for
Teachers in English, is a greatframework that we can all use in
K-12, in higher ed, in our dailylives as professionals that can
(25:29):
help us interrogate history andany political stories that we
see or any ads, social media,all of that. To me, that's a
portal that anybody can open,and it's a practice, really.
It's a lifelong practice.
Just really quickly, intensify,downplay. There are three
techniques that are used foreach of those categories. The
(25:54):
first for the 'Intensify' isrepetition. So if you hear a lot
of repeated words and phrases,pay attention to those and then
question the assumptions.
There's also composition, forexample, in political cartoons
or even ads, how is the messageand the images and even the
music, how are they composed?
(26:15):
What kinds of feelings are theyeliciting? What messages like,
subliminal messages? The lastone is 'Association', meaning
that you tend to create a binarycategory, basically, associating
what the story, what thatparticular message is aligning
with as good or as representinglove or it's better, basically
(26:39):
versus fear, light versus dark,love versus fear, things like
that. That is a technique thatwe all should be able to
identify because in reality,almost everything has nuances.
That's what I think we lack intoday's conversations is to be
able to detect and identifythese nuances, not only in
(27:02):
history, but also in everydaypublic discourse. That's, I
think, a key thing that we allneed to pay attention to and to
hone as a society, is to be ableto go beyond this binary
thinking and think morenon-binary.
In downplay, there are alsothree techniques. There's
'Omission', basically omitting,completely omitting, maybe even
(27:24):
lying. There's the jargon or'Confusion', where you use a lot
of jargon to confuse people,euphemisms too. And then the
third is 'Distraction', whereyou basically deflect from the
issue that you're talking aboutand redirecting to a peripheral
(27:45):
issue so that you don't talkabout what you want to talk
about. These are things that arestill at play, not just in
history, but in everydaydiscourse.
Kristina Hoeppner (27:53):
That history portal is a fascinating one, and
you can see the downplay andalso the intensifying so many
times. When I've read aboutthat, I was reminded very much
of my history classes very earlyon after the wall came down
because, of course, in formerEast Germany, different books
(28:14):
were available in the library.
And so for one class, I can'teven remember why I was
researching it. I was in thelibrary and reading old
newspapers about a topic, andthat was the early 1900s, then
reading books from the late 50sor 60s, where the language had
changed entirely and wasdifferently flowery, and of
(28:36):
course, talking very much aboutthe accomplishments of the
Soviet Union in helping the GDRbecome what it was. And then
looking at the books from the90s, realising, well, the
language differs so so much. Inthe 90s, it felt like the
language had been a bit moreobjective than before when it
(28:56):
was very emotional.
However, I suspect if I were toread books from the 2000s or
2010s on the same topic, I wouldhave a very different opinion
about what was said in the 90sbecause those books were also
written from the perspectivemore of West Germany,
downplaying a lot of things thathappened in East Germany.
(29:18):
Oftentimes you don't notice thatsomething has been omitted or
downplayed if you don't see thatother perspective, if you don't
know through a differentresource, 'Oh, actually this
happened,' or 'Hmm, hold on aminute. They are talking about
this event like this, and inthis book, it is like this. Why
are these descriptions sodifferent? Do we need to dig
(29:39):
deeper?' Where do we accept thatit is storytelling and we need
to present those differentperspectives in order to let
people make their own opinionsabout it and look to both sides.
It was fascinating having thatas part of your portal, and
realizing, yes, this is aparticular lens to look at
(30:00):
something.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (30:01):
Yeah, you were already doing it, right. So
I just named it. I just named itas decolonial portal. But you
already tracing it. You wentthrough this journey and
understanding your own colonialsubjectivity because that's what
it is, it is reflecting on yourown subjectivity, growing up in
that environment, in thatculture, and then imagining
(30:23):
different perspectives,different stories, imagining
what are the potential storiesthat can liberate us from this
one way of thinking. Many peopleare already doing it.
Kristina Hoeppner (30:35):
At some point, somebody else might come
up with yet another portal toextend your framework.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (30:41):
Yes, and that's actually what I would
love for people to do, is to addto the different types,
experiment, and also supplementthe curriculum. In art, an
example would be to ask yourlearners to consider, let's say,
a colonial artwork and thinkabout that story that's being
told. What is the gaze that yousee in this painting? And then
(31:05):
encourage them to revise orrecreate that same painting, but
this time from the colonisedperspective. Shift the gaze,
basically. That's one way ofsupplementing the curriculum
using the art portal, and thereare many other ways.
Kristina Hoeppner (31:21):
Bea, earlier, you mentioned that you have been
using your decolonial designframework in Africa with a
community, and that you do wantpeople to localise the
framework, use their ownlanguage, maybe also add some
different components to it, sothat it really becomes their
own. Do you then actually haveany plans of adding those
(31:45):
localised frameworks to yourwebsite so that you can
eventually have a gallery ofthose available to show how the
framework has been appliedacross the world?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (31:56):
That's the dream. I would love to
connect with folks that aregoing to use this and modify it
to their own communities. I'mvery open to hearing from them
and to publish it on my website.
The book is new, so I'm hopingthat more people will read it
and that more people will usethe framework over time. I'd
love to hear how othercommunities are using it and how
(32:20):
helpful they find it.
Kristina Hoeppner (32:24):
I think it could be a great exercise then
in the classroom to take theframework and for students to
localise it to their owncontexts, even if it is just the
translation into a language thatthey prefer to communicate in,
or maybe even as a class projectso that they agree on the
elements of what is importantfor them as a group. I do hope
(32:46):
that a lot of people are goingto read your book and see that
as an invitation to thinkfurther, to use it as a basis,
knowing that they can extend onit, that they can make their own
version of it, that they canlocalise it, or what you say,
hyperlocalise it.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (33:04):
The goal is really to basically just
spark their imaginations or helpthem amplify what's already
there. Sometimes all we need todo is name it, and actually
that's one of the frameworksthat has guided the study, is
naming, reflecting, acting.
First you name, once you'venamed it, you can reflect on it,
and then once you've reflected,then you can act on it. I'm sure
(33:25):
that's the process that we gothrough every day when we're
making decisions.
In fact, there's a facilitationmethod called ORID - objective,
reflective, interpretive, anddecisional, which is, I believe,
based in Kolb's learning theoryand experiential learning, where
(33:47):
every day, this is what we gothrough, this ORID process,
where we recall, we remember, orsense through our five senses,
whatever topic it is, whateverwe observe, and then reflect,
that's the heart. How do we feelabout what we just saw or
experienced, and then interpretis the insights, and then
decision is, what do we do withthis insight? It's all connected
(34:10):
the ways we all process ourexperiences. This one just has a
bent towards Indigenous andmarginalised communities.
Kristina Hoeppner (34:20):
You're right.
We are reflecting all day long,just in our heads and with the
storytelling that you're doingand encourage educators to do or
also students and the reflectionthat is often done in portfolios
is that we are externalisingthat reflection, kind of pull it
out of our brains, talk about itor write it down or use a
different medium to make it morevisible so that it is then
(34:43):
easier to talk about it and see,okay, these are the things that
we have reflected on, and theseare actions that we are taking,
but yes, we are doing that onvery trivial things every single
day, not just using reflectionwithin an educational setting.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (35:00):
This basically just slows down our
thought process. In that way, itmakes it more clear.
Kristina Hoeppner (35:07):
We could talk much, much longer about your
book. So hopefully at somepoint, we'll also be able to
have an AAEEBL webinar on it,where we can in an interactive
workshop, look at your ideas andthen localising them for the
participants, encouraging themto work with a framework and see
what they are already doing andwhere they might like to be
(35:28):
encouraged or might like toexplore something new.
So for the time being, let'sfinish off with our three quick
answer round questions, and I'veslightly adjusted them because
today we talked more aboutstorytelling in general and your
framework, rather thannecessarily specifically for
portfolio practice. So Bea,which words do you use to
(35:51):
describe storytelling thatrespects Indigenous ways of
knowing, learning, and teaching?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (35:59):
Three words would be relational,
contextual, andintergenerational. Relational
meaning that you focus on theconnections between self and
community and nature and eventhe universe, the cosmos.
Contextual is being rooted inyour culture, your community,
(36:19):
your history, and being able tosituate yourself, locate
yourself within the larger storyand also the larger cosmos.
Finally, intergenerational isnot just passing down knowledge
or learning from generationsbefore, but also learning from
younger generations. I come frompositive youth development, and
(36:43):
sometimes there's what we call'adultism' or this idea that
adults know more, are more wisethan young people. But in fact
[laughs], we can learn a lotfrom young people, and often
they're not in positions ofpower, but they have so much
insights, especially becausethey're going to be living in
the futures that we're not goingto be inhabiting. So it's really
(37:07):
important to consider theirstories now and not relegate
them as, 'Oh, you're not wiseenough.'
Kristina Hoeppner (37:15):
Yeah, and that mirrors what in Māori
culture is called'tuakana-teina' that you have
the mentor and menteerelationship with one person
being the more knowledgeable tothe other. But that can be
reversed in that relationship.
It is not one way oftransmitting knowledge, but one
day you might be the one whoteaches something, and the next
day, you are the one who islearning from the other person.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (37:40):
I love that.
Kristina Hoeppner (37:41):
Next question, what tip do you have
for learning designers orinstructors who want to use your
framework with students?
Bea Rodriguez-Fran (37:50):
Co-designing with learners instead of being
prescriptive about the portals.
Encourage the students toexplore and create their own
portals. Sometimes in theprocess of exploring, you
stumble upon a portal. Theseportals don't have to exist now.
They can be co-created. For thedesign futures, I would
(38:10):
encourage learning designers,instructors for their learners
to participate and conduct storycircles because that practice
is, for me, really liberating,and it helps you build rapport
and also recognise the humansoul that we don't often talk
about in academia or in theclassroom and really emphasises
(38:33):
relationality, yourrelationships with one another.
We want to be able to connectwith one another more through
story.
Kristina Hoeppner (38:45):
Thank you.
What advice do you have forlearners who use one of your
frameworks?
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (38:51):
Use your imagination and then also
challenge yourself to look asfar back as you can and as far
forward as you can, beyond yourown lifetime. It's like
stretching your muscles waybeyond you thought you are
capable of. People who practiceyoga or people who do strength
(39:12):
training, that kind of thinking,where you train yourself and you
practice to the point that youreach a place where you can
actually move in a way thatyou've never moved before. Using
that as a metaphor to thinkabout time and encouraging
yourself to think beyond lineartimelines and really expanding
(39:36):
your horizons.
Kristina Hoeppner (39:38):
Thank you so much, Bea, for this advice, the
other tips that you have givenalso learning designers and
instructors and overall thisconversation because I've really
enjoyed having you bring yourbook to life, talking about how
we can support Indigenouscommunities in their learning
today, and how we can alsorespect those cultures, what we
(39:58):
can do in order for everybody tofeel included in the education,
to be heard, and then have abetter future for them because
they can bring in themselves.
Thank you so much, Bea.
Bea Rodriguez-Fransen (40:12):
Maraming salamat. That means many thanks
in Tagalog.
Kristina Hoeppner (40:17):
Now over to our listeners. What do you want
to try in your own portfoliopractice? This was 'Create.
Share. Engage.' with AssistantProfessor Dr Bea
Rodriguez-Fransen. Head to ourwebsite, podcast.mahara.org,
where you can find resources andthe transcript for this episode.
(40:39):
This podcast is produced byCatalyst IT. Our next episode
will air in two weeks. I'd loveit if you shared this episode
with a colleague of yours sothey can subscribe to our
podcast and support us that way.
Until then, create, share, andengage.
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