Reading Doubting Learning Outcomes in Higher Education Contexts by Addison brings forward questions about how we define and measure learning. The text unsettles the idea that learning can be fully captured through predetermined outcomes. Instead, Addison advocates for an approach that allows for negotiation and emergence. This perspective brings me back to my own struggles with formal assessment structures in design education. There is often an expectation that learning should follow a linear path, but in my experience, true intellectual and creative growth unfolds in unpredictable ways.
When I teach, I notice that students often approach assignments with an acute awareness of assessment criteria, sometimes to the detriment of their own creative and critical instincts. They ask: “What do I need to do to meet the outcome?” rather than “Where can I take this idea?” This fixation on predefined goals is what Addison critiques, pointing out that “learning outcomes are too often framed in terms of what students should have achieved by the end of the course” (Addison, 2014). The assumption is that knowledge is something to be attained rather than embodied or situated. But what if learning is more about movement, about the shifting nature of ideas as they develop through dialogue, making, and reflection?
Christine Schranz’s introduction Commons for Design, Design for Commons in Commons in Design proposed another way of thinking about knowledge production. Schranz describes the commons as an ongoing negotiation, a space where different voices interact to create something collectively. She writes, “The commons are places of sharing and negotiation, where different voices contribute to a collective understanding” (Schranz, 2024). In this way, learning is not about arriving at a fixed destination but about engaging with others in a process of exchange. My own experiences with students have reinforced this. The moments when they challenge each other’s ideas, when they push beyond what was expected, are often the most meaningful.
This is also where Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society enters the conversation. Illich critiques traditional education for its rigid institutional structures, which condition learners to believe that knowledge is something dispensed by an authority rather than something created through lived experience. His argument pushes me to reconsider how much of my own teaching is shaped by institutional expectations. If learning is to be meaningful, it must be freed from rigid frameworks that dictate what “success” should look like.
In the history, the experimental ethos of Black Mountain College challenges conventional notions of education outside of hierarchical governance structures that risk stifling innovation. The college operated on the belief that learning happens through doing—through risk-taking, improvisation, and collaboration. This history reminds me that as an educator, I am not just delivering content but facilitating conditions where knowledge can emerge organically. It makes me question whether I, too, sometimes fall into the trap of seeking measurable results at the expense of deeper, less predictable forms of learning.
Reading these texts, I return to a simple but pressing question: How can I create an environment where students feel empowered to pursue knowledge beyond the limits of predefined learning outcomes? Addison, Schranz, Illich, and the experimental practices of Black Mountain College suggest that the answer lies in allowing uncertainty, in continuous dialogue, and in recognizing that learning is always in motion and in commons.
References
Addison, P. (2014). Doubting learning outcomes in higher education contexts: From performativity towards emergence and negotiation.
Schranz, C. (2024). Commons for design, design for commons. In Commons in Design (pp. 14-20). Valiz.
Illich, I. (1971). Deschooling society. Harper & Row.
PAGES Teacher Resources. (2016). Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College 1933-1957. WexPages. Retrieved from https://wexpagesonline.edublogs.org/files/2016/08/PAGES-Teacher-Resources_Look-Before-You-Leap-11e6hel.pdf