1 Bass School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication, University of Texas at Dallas
We present experimental teaching work in seminars at the Off Center for Emergence Studies (OC4ES) at the University of Texas at Dallas. OC4ES offers a Hybrid Model of teaching and learning including providing seminars to multicultural and multidisciplinary students. The course is piloted for diverse group of college students, including undergraduate, master’s, and PhD candidates, focusing on Experimental Publishing. The course is an educational approach where a small team of experienced teachers disseminates knowledge via technology integration to multiple peripheral nodes, including in person classrooms, remote learners, or satellite groups. This model enables team teaching across both onsite and online settings, ensuring a cohesive teaching and learning experience. Students actively engage in localized learning, discussions, and practical applications. Lectures and interactions are recorded and edited for broader dissemination, extending access to international audiences afterwards. This is part of developing an Off-Center for Teaching and Learning to apply Pedagogy, Heutagogy, Anthropogy, Cybergogy and Geragogy to Emergence.
Keywords: Emergence Studies; Experimental Publishing; Hybrid Learning.
1. Introduction
The Off Center for Emergence Studies (OC4ES) at the University of Texas at Dallas aims to support the implementation of teaching innovations and enhancements. It encourages the development of multiple discipline-appropriate assessment alternative, and the dissemination of successful models for other units to use in teaching improvement. OC4ES also aims to enhance the visibility of emerging student interests, advancements, and innovations within and beyond the campus community. As an experiment, a Hybrid Model of teaching is developed to optimize experiences and productivity of both instructors and the students. The model was piloted in a graduate seminar in Spring 2025 titled Experimental Publishing and Emergence Studies seminar. Students examine the broad range of evolving creative and professional activity in the arts, sciences, humanities, and engineering. The course focuses on the development of innovative methodologies for documentation, presentation, and reputation management through emerging technologies and new publishing formats. Students also learn Experimental Curating, how to identify and share trustworthy publications. Key guest lecturers are retired faculty.
2. Curriculum
This seminar introduces students to the concept of Emergence, a philosophy examining how complex, unpredictable patterns and behaviors arise from interactions within simpler subsystems in physical, biological, psychological and social systems. It provides a framework for approaching an uncertain future by blending theories with theoretical insights, skills and real-world case studies. It builds on the fundamentals of the science of complex systems as developed for instance by the Santa Fe Institute.
The course emphasizes topics of student interest such as AI, and emerging media. We develop the Senex concept (changing age demographics of students and faculty). The course also offers guidance for careers in data science, systems design, healthcare, financial technology, and organizational development.
Students with different academic background explore Experimental Publishing by developing and complete a publication plan. Through the semester, students apply the emergence studies framework and experiment innovative publishing methods using emerging media and AI-assisted tools.
2.1. Multidisciplinary approach
Its perspective differentiates this seminar from the past and current available courses. While many other academic syllabi on the topic of emergence teaching emerging technology, or a specific area in philosophy, social systems, and science, this course encourages interdisciplinary, intercultural, intergenerational, inter-institutional conceptualisation. This approach is crucial because complex systems — whether in nature, technology, or society — often behave in unpredictable ways that cannot be understood through a single field alone. By examining insights from an interdisciplinary lens, the students gain a holistic view of how small, simple interactions lead to large, complex outcomes. This understanding helps them tackle real-world challenges, from advancing science to addressing societal issues, by recognizing underlying patterns, and developing more adaptable and innovative solutions. Convergence and Consilience research (Wilson, 1998) methodologies are applied.
2.2. Collaborative teaching
The seminar is organized by a group of educators with different expertise and geographic locations. While two teachers are team teaching the class onsite, the group of guest teachers from the OC4ES work together regularly to plan, engage, and collaborate with students on research tailed according to their individual interest. The hybrid model breaks the geographic boundaries allowing educators to join teaching online to share their specialties. Collaborative teaching (Solis et al., 2012) empowers the most renowned educators facilitate Transformative Learning (Hoggan & Finnegan, 2023) experience for the students. Encouraging deep learning through perspective shifts may be more important than acquiring a specific skill because one’s perspective decides how skills are used. For instance, to inspire students’ insight on emergence studies, Professor Turner suggested the “Damascene Moment” (English Standard Bible, Act 9) exercise:
Ask the students to remember their own moments of epiphany, their “damascene moment,” when suddenly everything changed and all the parts fell into place in a new pattern. It could be as modest as the sudden understanding of an idea long heard of but never understood, or the solution to a practical problem, or something bigger, when you saw the world in a new way, something of its previously unseen order now revealed. Examine and report the details of that realization. Then take some examples from nature or human affairs and see it as the product of the same sort of reintegration or breakthrough into a different informational space.[1]
A cultural equivalent does not exist in other cultures. In other cultures, similar moments of epiphany or life-changing realizations exist. However, they may not always have the same religious connotations:
2.2.1 Satori (Zen Buddhism):In Zen Buddhism, Satori refers to a sudden moment of enlightenment or awakening, where one gains a deep insight into the nature of existence. It is often described as a transformative moment, like a flash of understanding that cannot be fully captured in words. Satori is about awareness of reality as it is emerging from within while the Damascene Moment is sudden shift in belief or identity triggered by external event or divine intervention.
2.2.2. Nirvana (Hinduism and Buddhism): In Hinduism and Buddhism, Nirvana represents a state of perfect peace and liberation from the cycle of suffering and reincarnation. While it is more of a gradual process, there are moments of insight and awakening that resemble the Damascene Moment — when an individual suddenly sees the world in a completely different way, often leading to spiritual liberation. Unlike a Damascene moment is about a sudden conversion, Nirvana is about the ultimate release from suffering and attachment which may take a lifetime of practice.
2.2.3. Ah-ha Moment (Western Cultures): The term “Ah-ha Moment” is commonly used in Western cultures to describe the instant when someone has a sudden realization or understanding, like solving a difficult problem. It doesn’t necessarily have religious connotations but shares the essence of a sudden and profound shift in awareness. However, the Damascene moment is a profound existential shift that changes a person’s belief. An Aha moment is a quick flash of insight often triggered by internal learning or mental connection.
2.2.4. Anagnorisis (Greek Tragedy): In ancient Greek drama, Anagnorisis refers to the moment of recognition, where a character realizes a crucial piece of information that changes the course of the narrative. This sudden insight can lead to a transformation or reversal of fate. In comparison to the Damascene, this is an internal realization from past events often leading to self-awareness.
2.2.5. Tao (Taoism): In Taoism, a profound realization or alignment with the Tao (the way of nature or the universe) can be akin to a Damascene Moment. It involves understanding and embracing the flow of life, often experienced suddenly or strikingly, bringing peace and clarity.
2.2.6. Bodhi (Buddhism): In Buddhism, the term Bodhi refers to the wisdom or enlightenment that comes with understanding the true nature of reality. The moment of awakening, or the realization that one is free from ignorance, can be a “Damascene Moment,” similar to Siddhartha Gautama’s enlightenment under the Bodhi tree.
2.2.7. The Bhagavadgita: The Bhagavadgita recounts the climactic moment of the great epic Mahabharata, when the hero Arjuna, seeing among the opposing army that it is his duty to defeat the faces of so many of his friends, kin, and mentors, droops in despair. His charioteer Krishna suddenly reveals himself to be an avatar of Vishnu, the god of the whole universe, and in that moment–prolonged subjectively, though over in a brief time–Arjuna is made to see the glory, grandeur, and rightfulness of the divine plan and the justice of his martial work. It is really the core moment of Hinduism.[2]
2.2.8. The Journey to the West: The climactic episode of Wu Cheng’en’s great Chinese epic The Journey to the West, when the action hero Sun Wukong’s magic restraining headband falls from his head at the behest of the religious hero Xuangzhang, is compared by Professor Turner (2025) as a Damascus moment. It too is on a journey and involves a whole new meaning to things (also related to the carrying of the Buddhist scriptures from India into China and its change in worldview).
Across many cultures, the idea of changing one’s mind is often associated with a sudden moment of clarity or insight that changes the course of a person’s life. While the specifics may vary depending on the cultural or religious context, the underlying theme is a sudden or gradual, transformative realization that shifts one’s perspective or life path, much like the Damascene Moment. The learning moment is that the same concept may not exist in different cultures.
2.3. Open classroom
While the central classroom is a research lab setting with high tech equipment where regular class members attend the seminar, the classroom is open to all students on campus and over the Internet. Lab members, the video crew handling the recording of the class, and random visitors passing by are all welcome to participate in the discussion. Collaborative and peer learning is encouraged among students of different majors and levels. Multiple video cameras are setup to record instructors’ remarks and follow rest of the speakers in the room when then talk. The input and discussion of each session are recorded and are edited and shared on YouTube.
We use the methods of Bohmian Dialogue such as asking the participants to change seats periodically.
2.4. Syllabus
The syllabus is structured via a series of progressively organized seminars with theories and applications focused on both Experimental Publishing and Emergence Studies. The Emergence Study series begins with astronomy and cosmology, then moving through geology, biological view of evolution, emerging technologies, money system, Game theory, AI, and concluding with “the Senex” — the final stage of human development. Topics like the emergence of dynamic order, emergence of structure in the universe, and an overview of the earth system science cover the big pictures of emergence. Practical projects and use cases are designed to help students apply their skills to the real-world scenarios preparing them for career success. Experimental Publishing practice coupled with the framework of thinking, helps students explore their personal and academic experiences to uncover the interests, motivations, and aspirations that shape their career paths, enabling them to make informed decisions about their futures. It draws on McCluhan’s argument that the medium affects the content.
3. Satellite network
The HM components include the following groups: the OC4ES including professors, specialists, students of UTD cross disciplines with teaching, research, and publication functions; the ArtSciLab and the UTD Geosciences department through its former head. These group members have overlaps. Other students from different schools and collaborators off campus are floating participants.
Figure 1. Hybrid Model: illustration by the authors (2025).
This approach is framed by the more general categories of: Andragogy – The study and practice of teaching adults: Heutagogy: self-determined learning approach where learners take full responsibility for their learning; Anthropogogy: Study of human education and development across cultures; Cybergogy (Wang & Kang, 2006); Learning that integrates technology and online learning environments; Geragogy: Educating older adults.
Fundraising is also under way, under the name Silver Ingenuity, to pay middle aged students, who have already worked in industry or raised a family, to co-teach retired professionals.
4. Research publications
A website is being developed to nurture publications from the OC4ES group and the student collaborators using both conventional forms like podcasts, video or films, journal papers, white papers and also emerging media and AI empowered tools.
Figure 2. OC4ES Research and Publications: illustration by the authors (2025).
5. Conclusion
This teaching uses Terri Irwin’s Iterative Design methods (Irwin 2015), adjusting the content and methods as the semester goes by. We hope that useful new ways of teaching will “emerge” through this process. Recognizing the shifts in student demographics shifts, we are adapting our curriculum to better accommodate the unique needs and goals of these mature learners. We are also incorporating the senior scholars’ expertise and experience into our teaching resources. By doing so, we not only enrich the diversity of our teaching team but also provide our students with valuable insights and perspectives from seasoned professionals. In summary, by incorporating a hybrid model of design methods and continuously adapting our curriculum to meet the evolving needs of our multicultural students and faculty, we strive to create a dynamic and engaging learning environment that fosters personal and academic growth. Each semester we will modify the content and the methods.
References
Irwin, T. (2015). Transition design: A proposal for a new area of design practice, study, and research. Design and Culture, 7(2), 229-246.
Hoggan, C., & Finnegan, F. (2023). Transformative learning theory: Where we are after 45 years. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 2023(177), 5–11. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.20474
J, Naman. (2023, August 18). Models of teaching: Everything you need to know – upeducators – helping teachers, educators, tutors, tuitions and parents in online teaching with technology. upEducators. https://www.upeducators.com/models-of-teaching-everything-you-need-to-know/
Solis, M., Vaughn, S., Swanson, E., & Mcculley, L. (2012). Collaborative models of instruction: The empirical foundations of inclusion and co-teaching. Psychol. Schs, 49(5), 498–510. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.21606
Wang, M., & Kang, M. (2006). Cybergogy for Engaged Learning: A Framework for Creating Learner Engagement through Information and Communication Technology. (For Cybergogy)
What is Complex Systems Science? Santa Fe Institute. (n.d.). https://www.santafe.edu/what-is-complex-systems-science
Wikimedia Foundation. (2024, December 1). Bohm dialogue. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_Dialogue.
Wilson, E. O. (1998). Consilience: the unity of knowledge. Knopf.
Yu, S. Q., & Wang, M. J. (2006). Modern distance education project for the rural schools of China: recent development and problems. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 22(4), 273–283. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2006.00174.x
Appendix
Glossary
Hybrid: Combines in-person and online instruction for flexible teaching and learning experiences.
Satellite Education: approach initially used for distant learning in China, also known as “TV university,” which breaks geographic barriers, offers flexibility and convenience. It utilizes radio, television, textbooks, audiovisual materials, computer courseware, and the internet to conduct distance education (Yu& Wang, 2006).
Transformative Learning: Encourages deep learning through perspective shifts. Learning that changes a person’s worldview through reflection and experience.
Universal Design for Learning: Flexible learning environments that accommodate different learning styles. Uses multiple means of engagement, representation, and action/expression.
Personalized & Adaptive Learning: Uses AI and data analytics to tailor lessons to individual student needs.
Collaborative & Peer Learning: Encourages teamwork, discussion, and knowledge-sharing among students.
Collaborative Teaching: an instructional approach where two or more educators work together to plan, teach, and assess a group of students. It is commonly used in inclusive classrooms, interdisciplinary courses, and professional development settings.
[1] Turner, F, January 30, 2025, group teaching discussion note.
[2] Professor F. Turner’s remark in the Damascene Moment discussion via email.