Finding the lacuna : Centering student learning

Abstract

In this article, we seek to problematise socially constructed models of learning in higher education. Rather than another way to achieve predetermined and measurable learning outcomes, we ask what education and learning might look like if we centred the meanings that students themselves make. We do so through the concept of the lacuna , which we conceptualise as both the necessary space for learning, where predetermined knowledge and outcomes are withheld, and also the mystery of those moments of profound learning which are beyond the educator’s control. We contribute to management learning in two ways. Through the concept of the lacuna , we invite educators to reflect on the extent to which students are enabled to construct their own meanings and knowledge, and how they might surface and centre such learning. Second, we present an account of teaching practice and specific pedagogies of Collaborative Autoethnography as Pedagogy and of drawing which, we propose, are helpful to facilitate the creation of a lacuna, and through which we analyse key moments of working with and within the lacuna in the classroom.