Online symposium: Change Laboratories for sustainable development in the higher education workspace

Online symposium: Change Laboratories for sustainable development in the higher education workspace

Date and time

This online symposium will be held on Friday 14 November 2025, 10:00 to 12:45 South Africa time.

Registration

Registration is required. Please click on the link below and complete the registration form by 10 November:

https://forms.office.com/r/vXCUkEdPQN

Timetable

10.00-10.05

Online arrangements and protocols

Maria Spante, Hogskolan Vast

10.05-10.10

Introduction to the change laboratory symposium

Chris Winberg, PERI, CPUT.

10.10-10.20

The dilemma of designing a full Change Laboratory in higher education versus a modified formative intervention

 

Meg Colasante, RMIT, Australia

10.25-10.35

Conceptual development in Change Laboratories: the case of a campus sustainability statement

 

Brett Bligh, U. Lancaster, UK

10.40-10.50

No Easy Fix: The Promise and Limits of a Change Laboratory in Higher Education

 

Warren Lilley, UCT, RSA

10.55-11.15

Questions and discussion

11.20-11.30

Fostering agency in a university graduate attributes project through the Change Laboratory methodology

James Garraway, CPUT, RSA

11.35-11.45

Cultural Historical Activity Theory as a tool for reimagining WIL: Conducting contradiction analysis workshops and the implications for Change Laboratory work

Maria Spante, Hogskolan Vast, Sweden

11.50-12.00

Co-creating ethical AI guidelines in a change laboratory, working in HE with pre-service teachers and Education faculty

Rob Miles, Higher Colleges of Technology, UAE

12.05-12.25

Questions and discussion

12.25-12.30

Endnote

James Garraway and Maria Spante

Each presentation is 10 minutes in length, with an additional three to five minutes for gathering keywords/concepts and for change over. 

We will ask the audience to list keywords and/or concepts of importance during each 
presentation and we will open up a link after each presentation to develop a word cloud. These will assist in promoting discussion. 

The presenters will not delve into the nature, structure and theory of the change laboratory in detail as there will be an assumption that the audience has some familiarity with the methodology. For those wishing to explore the methodology see:

  • Engeström, Y., Rantavuori, J. and Kerosuo, H., 2013. Expansive learning in a library: Actions, cycles and deviations from instructional intentions. Vocations and learning, 6(1), pp.81-106.
  • Or online articles in the U. Lancaster Bureau de Change Laboratory site https://ojs.library.lancs.ac.uk/bcl

Abstracts

The dilemma of designing a full Change Laboratory in higher education versus a modified formative intervention

Meg Colasante, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia

This presentation shares the experiences of one researcher who designed and facilitated a Change Laboratory inspired intervention for a team of university anatomy teachers. The facilitated series of formative interventionist workshops enjoyed some success in achieving a collaborative, collegiate space for the teachers to examine their activity of digital teaching, problematise an object and associated contradictions, and model and trial solutions. However, Meg experienced hesitations and doubt during the research process in relation to several research design features. These are critically discussed in the paper ‘Five methodological dilemmas when implementing an activity theory transformative intervention in higher education’, including modifications made that deviated from a classic Change Laboratory. As conveyed in a blog post, the paper approximates an apology, or perhaps lessons learnt during the research project journey. The presentation summarises the dilemmas, then focuses upon what worked well and what could be improved for the interventionist workshops. Having benefited from others in the CHAT community – their sharing of experiences and encouraging continual growth in this theoretical and methodological space – Meg looks forward to the opportunity to share her experiences and engage in discussion.

Conceptual development in Change Laboratories: the case of a campus sustainability statement

Brett Bligh, University of Lancaster, UK

Concepts are an important part of human activity and yet they have not been extensively studied in the context of Change Laboratory work. In this presentation, I will draw on a recent paper, co-authored with John Scahill, which traced the conceptual development in a Change Laboratory focussed on sustainability in higher education. I will define what concepts are and outline four concepts developed in the project which were important for subsequent change. I will then outline the development process for one of the concepts (a “Campus Sustainability Statement”). I will draw attention to how developing new concepts can be an important part of the process and outcomes for Change Laboratory work.

Reference: https://doi.org/10.3390/su17093968

No Easy Fix: The Promise and Limits of a Change Laboratory in Higher Education

Warren Lilley, University of Cape Town

Change Laboratories are designed to surface contradictions and open possibilities for transformation in higher education. This presentation draws on a South African case with language instructors and students to show how the methodology both leveraged and was constrained by entrenched structures (from institutional rules to pedagogical traditions such as TEFL). These structures did not simply block change; they also generated the very tensions around digital pedagogy, multilingual instruction, and student participation that animated expansive dialogue. By highlighting both the promise and the limits of the intervention, I argue that the strength of the Change Laboratory lies in holding structural contradictions as generative sites for reimagining sustainable engagement in the academy.

Fostering academic developers’ agency through the change laboratory methodology

James Garraway, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town

Graduate attributes (GA) represent the particular qualities, skills and knowledge that the university wishes to develop in its graduates. Although many universities forward such qualities, their actual implementation within the university’s activities may be uneven. Barriers to their development include lack of university-wide discussion and consultation and difficulties with relating them to the curriculum, often resulting in lack of commitment to the GA project from staff. In order to address these issues academic staff were supported in developing their collective agency to confront and reflect on conflicts within the GA project and to envision practical approaches to resolve them.

Cultural Historical Activity Theory as a tool for reimagining WIL: Conducting contradiction analysis workshops and the implications for Change Laboratory work

Maria Spante, University West, Trollhättan, Sweden

In this presentation I describe the rationale and structure for conducting a series of sepa-rate  Cultural  Historical  Activity  Theory-inspired  contradiction  analysis  workshops  focused  on  work-integrated learning. The events occurring in each separate workshop are then illustrated and the benefits gained from the participants’ perspectives are highlighted. Overall, participants clearly valued gaining a collective and systematic understanding of difficulties with their WIL initiatives.  Furthermore,  from  the  perspective  of  the  researchers,  the  workshops  appeared  to  identify motive and interest for participants to move further with a full-scale change laboratory.
Reference 
https://ojs.library.lancs.ac.uk/bcl/article/view/01-11-Spante_et_al/pdf

Co-Creating Ethical AI Guidelines in a Change Laboratory: Working with Pre-Service Teachers and Faculty in Higher Education

Rob Miles, Higher Colleges of Technology, United Arab Emirates

This presentation reports on an ongoing Change Laboratory (CL) intervention with pre-service early childhood education students and faculty at the Higher Colleges of Technology (UAE), focused on the rapidly emerging challenge of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education. The project seeks to address institutional uncertainty around AI use by involving students directly with faculty in the co-creation of ethical and practical guidelines. Situated in a higher education system traditionally characterized by top-down policy directives and hierarchical decision-making, the CL creates a rare bottom-up space for expansive learning. Participants explore AI at two levels: first, how it is shaping policies and practices within their higher education environment, and second, how they are encountering AI in their actual work practice with children during school placements, both as teachers in training and student mentors . This dual perspective enables them to surface contradictions between institutional rules, classroom realities, and their own professional needs, and to collaboratively envision strategies for responsible AI use. Emerging findings point to key affordances of CL in such a context. These include amplifying student voices, fostering collective responsibility, and bridging abstract policy discourses with everyday practice, while also revealing challenges around balancing open exploration with institutional expectations, navigating language barriers, and sustaining engagement beyond the CL cycle. The presentation will share insights from this work-in-progress on how CLs can support sustainable engagement with rapidly evolving issues in higher education.

 

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