Facilitating Creative Learning: Engaging in a Practice of Care

Abstract

Creative learning is shaped not only by tools and activities, but by relationships. This dissertation explores facilitation in creative learning environments as a relational practice centered on care—not as a set of techniques, but as a deeply human way of being with others, a commitment to creating spaces where people feel supported enough to explore, connected enough to share, and valued enough to express themselves. Grounded in constructionist, socioconstructivist, and humanistic pedagogies, the research draws from my multi-year engagement with Learning Creative Learning (LCL)—an online course and global community for educators—and WeScratch, a series of hands-on, collaborative online workshops introducing educators to creative coding. Through qualitative analysis of small-group facilitation during WeScratch workshops, I explore how volunteer facilitators experience and reflect on their practice. Drawing from three case studies, I examine how care takes shape in the situated, relational work of creative learning facilitation. In particular, I identify three interrelated forms of care: epistemic care, which focuses on what and how people learn; affirming care, which supports what learners value and who they are; and convivial care, which attends to how learners feel and relate to one another in a group. After introducing these three forms of care through the work of individual facilitators, I show how epistemic, affirming, and convivial care are deeply interwoven in practice—at times reinforcing one another, at times pulling in different directions. Facilitators must navigate these tensions in the moment, making situated judgments about when to step in, when to hold back, and how to respond to the evolving needs of individuals and groups. By centering care, this research highlights facilitation as deeply human, relational work that sustains the conditions for creative learning, contributing to the broader and evolving discourse on constructionism. It also makes the case for seeing facilitation as an ethical and political practice. In a time when educational discourse is increasingly shaped by ideals of efficiency and optimization—and the world faces rising authoritarianism and dehumanization—choosing to care is not only pedagogically meaningful, but also politically urgent.