Education, Complexity & Societal Change || Domenico Dentoni

In this episode of The (Re)generative Education Podcast I chat with dr. Domenico Dentoni, professor at Monpellier Business School, part of the University of Montpellier in Southern France.

Domenico is fulll professor in business, transformation and resilience and specializes in using complexity-as-pedagogy with inductive approaches to teaching and research that has been highlighted for excellence by his students (while at Wageningen University) for years. 

In this chat we discuss the importance of scaffolding so that learners can engage with complexity that comes through his educational approach: placing the complexity of phenomena of everyday practices, of the mundane, and their relationship to systemic unsustainability as central in the teaching process.  

In this discussion the following systemic barriers and opportunities emerged:  

1. The importance of engaging with complexity in research, teaching and learning.  
2. The power of curiosity and fascination with the world around me as a way of being in the world.  
3. Balancing figuring things out for yourselves while providing support for your students to engage with it in a safe way.  
4. The power of using inductive approaches to learning and teaching (placing real life cases before theories).   
5. The importance of engaging with real life cases that learners can relate to and allowing learners to self-select knowledges and theories to engage with this case.  
6. The importance of incorporating (meaningful) choice in the learning process.  
7. Seeing learning akin to a design process of cycles of diverging and converging linked together with reflective practice.  
8. The importance of making a purposive effort when working with real complexity cases that there is no right or wrong but different lenses and approaches that are more or less profound.  
9. Finding a balance between the depth of analysis and effectiveness of identified interventions/solutions when working with higher education students.  
10. Working with balanced teams (usually the most diverse teams possible – diversity of gender, experiences, disciplines).  

External Links:  

Dr. Domenico Dentoni - Montpellier Business School (montpellier-bs.com) 

Domenico Dentoni 

Domenico Dentoni | LinkedIn 

dr. D (Domenico) Dentoni - WUR