A live online conversation about "Creative Pragmatics: Learning in the Making"
A recording of the online conversation on how knowledge can be understood as something alive, situated, and spatially mediated. The conversation also celebrates the publication of the book Creative Pragmatics for Active Learning in STEM Education (Springer, 2025). The conversation was recorded on October 8, 2025.
The organizers of the Book Celebration have invited educators, artists, designers, architects, researchers – and anyone interested in how we can shape meaningful learning in a complex world – to join the conversation, which takes its point of departure in the following questions:
- How can education feel alive, situated, and relational?
- What does it mean to design learning beyond the mere transmission of knowledge?
- How can we navigate complexity without ending up in paralysis or control?
- How is design itself a way of thinking, knowing, and intervening?
Professor Connie Svabo, Head of the STEM Education Research Center at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense, welcomes the audience and introduces the topic of the conversation — namely what the concept of creative pragmatics entails, and what it can do for us, both in relation to science education and to teaching and didactics more broadly.
– One of the aims of the book is to relate some of its insights to educational practice, with a particular focus on STEM didactics,
says Connie Svabo in her introduction.
Andrew Pickering then takes the floor and speaks on “Why this book now?”, followed by brief presentations from four of the book’s contributors:
Michael Shanks: Knowing in a Complex World
Mads Høbye: Learning through Making
Maiken Westen Holm Svendsen: Assessment as Performative Educational Practice
Michael Bell: Design Studio for Active Learning
A joint discussion of the book follows, before Connie Svabo and Michael Shanks close the event.
The entire conversation was recorded and can be viewed in full at the bottom of this page.
The book Creative Pragmatics for Active Learning in STEM Education was published by Springer in the spring of 2025 and is available for purchase here.
Read more about Creative Pragmatics for Active Learning in STEM Education here.
Connie Svabo
Professor Connie Svabo, Head of the STEM Education Research Center – FNUG, University of Southern Denmark.
Andrew Pickering
Professor Emeritus, University of Exeter, PhD (Physics), PhD (Science Studies), has written the foreword to "Creative Pragmatics for Active Learning in STEM Education". Introduction: “Why this book now?
Michael Shanks
Professor of Classics at Stanford University, USA. Presentation: “Knowing in a Complex World”.
Mads Høbye
Associate Professor, Department of People and Technology, Roskilde University. Presentation: “Learning through Making”.
Michael Bell
Professor of Architecture at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Presentation: “Design Studio for Active Learning".
Maiken Westen Holm Svendsen
PhD Student, STEM Education Research Center – FNUG, University of Southern Denmark. Presentation: “Assessment as Performative Educational Practice”.