Dissertation Title: Facilitating Creative Learning: Cultivating Caring Communities of Practice, Reflection, and Human Connection
Abstract:
In creative learning environments, learners are invited to express themselves, follow their interests, collaborate with others, and take risks. In such settings, care plays a central role—helping people feel supported enough to explore, connected enough to share, and valued enough to grow.
This dissertation explores facilitation as a relational practice centered on care—not as a set of techniques, but as a human attitude to be cultivated. Facilitators offer care by listening attentively and taking learners seriously, and they model care by shaping environments where participants learn not only how to create, but also how to care for one another.
Grounded in constructionist, sociocultural, and humanistic learning theories, the research draws on my long-term involvement with Learning Creative Learning, an online course and global community for educators, and WeScratch, a series of playful online workshops that introduce creative coding through collaboration. Using qualitative, ethnographic methods—including observation, reflective practice, and case studies—I examine the lived experiences of volunteer facilitators from within the community I helped build.
The first part of the dissertation explores what care looks like in practice through three facilitator case studies, each highlighting a different form of care—offering expertise, dedicating attention, and fostering belonging—while navigating tensions around guidance, emotional engagement, and group dynamics.
The second part focuses on how facilitators themselves can be supported. Drawing from my dual role as researcher and community organizer, I describe a model of support rooted in learning communities that nurture practice, reflection, and connection—showing how facilitators grow not only through experience but also through shared reflection grounded in relationships of mutual trust.
This dissertation offers insights for educators and educational leaders seeking to support creative learning facilitators—especially in online environments—through intentionally cultivated communities of care.
Committee members:
Prof. Mitch Resnick, LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research, MIT Media Lab
Prof. Karen Brennan, Timothy E. Wirth Professor of Practice in Learning Technologies, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Prof. Ricarose Roque, Assistant Professor in Information Science, University of Colorado Boulder