Welcome our 2020 Mayfielders

Adjusting to the added complexity of the Covid workspace, our 2020 Mayfielders are now halfway through their workshop sessions with NoTosh, investigating how curiosity and creativity impact on learning and learning spaces. 

The Mayfield Project has now transitioned to its fully online format and our Mayfielders have been hard at work reading, sharing, experimenting and ideating their experiences and ideas around how to encourage creativity and lifelong curiosity in learning environments.

It’s with great pleasure we introduce you to our dedicated team from across Australia and New Zealand, including teachers, designers, project managers and planners. We are really excited to be working with the following Mayfielders, and appreciate the generous support of their employers to be part of this year’s project.

NZ	Ackley Aniebietabasi	Project Coordinator	Ministry of Education
NSW	Alana Croker	Architectural Project Leader	BVN
Vic	Amanda Loughman	Architect	Hede Architects
NZ	Angelina Yang	Architect	DCA Architects
SA	Anthea Perkas	Architect	Brown Falconer Architects
Vic	Ashleah Davis	Project Officer, Asset Management & Strategy	Victorian School Building Authority
WA	David Muir	Senior Project Officer, Capital Works and Maintenance	Department of Education
ACT	Ella Masters	Architect	Howff Design
Qld	James Lewis	Architect	Fulton Trotter Architects
Vic	Jana Mollison	Educator	Marist College Bendigo
NSW	Joanne Frith	Religious Education Coordinator	St Francis of Assisi Regional Catholic Primary School
Qld	Kym Thomas	Classroom Teacher	St Thomas More Sunshine Beach
NSW	Liliana Ructtinger	Senior Research Analyst	School Infrastructure NSW
Tas	Liz Foo	Graduate Officer	Department of Education
NZ	Nardia Turner	Teacher	Stonefields School
WA	Tilly Caddy	Landscape Architect	Four Landscape Studio
Tas	Tim Hodge	Capital Project Manager	Department of Education

To develop these principles and build on our preconceived assumptions on curiosity, NoTosh helped us understand the different levels of effective learning and how we need to communicate, listen and understand to get to the important elements of communication. As we shared ideas on the practise of curiosity, it was really interesting to see the overlaps and commonalities of people’s thoughts and experiences and how curiosity can be encouraged in learning settings. This led the team on to the develop some experiments that tested our assumptions on curiosity. So if a Mayfielder asks you to help them with some experiments please get involved – you will be helping us gain a better understanding of creativity and curiosity.Our first workshop was a great session, as the team got to know each other virtually, starting with sharing their influences and passions through the lens of a six-word memoir. Working together for the first time without the advantage of face-to-face contact has meant we have had to collaborate a little differently and it has been great to see everyone take up the opportunity to share in a new way. Working with our workshop facilitators NoTosh, the group started to concentrate on some potential Design Principles that might spark and develop curiosity in learning settings.

The Mayfielders have just completed their second online workshop deep diving into the world of creativity and how to set a creative context for creativity to bloom within any learning environment. There are a lot of exciting concepts coming out of their investigations and we look forward to sharing more of these with you as time goes on.

The 2020 Mayfielders have been working hard exploring this year’s themes and stretching their imagination and skills.  So if you see them out and about at an LEA event, please say hi and welcome them to our community. And stay tuned for more feedback from their investigations coming soon.

Dani Martin

Mayfield Project Chair

Senior Architect, Hayball