When:
Thursday, December 11, 2025 | 14:30-15:30
Where:
DC Faculty Lounge (ACG) with Online Attendance via Zoom
Organized by:
Frances Rich School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences & School of Psychology and Human Development
Deree – The American College of Greece

About the event

What does it mean to teach and learn in the “uncomfort zone”, those spaces of uncertainty, constraint, and rapid change that define online education today? This talk invites learning designers, graduate students and faculty from all disciplines to explore how such spaces can unlock new forms of creativity, connection, and co-learning.

Drawing on the personal creativity manifesto (Nerantzi, 2019) and key contributions from Craft (2008), Jackson (1996), hooks (1994), and others, we will examine how imagination and inventiveness help us make sense of our teaching experiences and shape our face-to-face, and online practices. We will look at how creativity can flourish within constraints, supporting educators’ motivation to design stimulating, open, and collaborative learning experiences (Nerantzi & Thomas, 2019; Atenas et al., 2025). Central to this are vulnerability and trust, which lay the foundations for meaningful relationships and vibrant learning communities (Brantmeier, 2013; Armellini et al., 2021).

We will discuss practical strategies and design prompts to foster creative engagement, build inclusive learning communities, and embrace uncertainty “at the edge of chaos” (Kleiman, 2011). We will also consider what the arrival of AI means for today’s education: how public AI and open practices can amplify learning (UNESCO, 2024) and how creativity may increasingly become a shared space between humans and machines (Celis Bueno et al., 2025; Mateson, 2025).

This event is open to educators and researchers across disciplines.

For inquiries, please contact: Dr. Maria Avgerinou, Director- MA in Learning Design and Technology at [email protected]

About the speaker

Prof. Chrissi Nerantzi (NTF, CATE, PFHEA)
Dr. Chrissi Nerantzi (NTF, CATE, PFHEA) is Professor of Creative and Open Education in the School of Education and Senior Lead for the Knowledge Equity Network at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. She also co-chairs the ICDE Open Education Network. A GO-GN alumna and an internationally recognised scholar in creative and open education, she has built a rich career as an educator, programmer, translator, academic development consultant, and educational innovator.

Dr. Nerantzi is an exceptionally active researcher who has led numerous open, cross-sector professional development and educational initiatives (created with and for educators and students across institutions and countries), which have endured over time. She is the founder of the internationally award-winning #creativeHE community. The open, collective project genAI, a #creativeHE initiative she coordinates, received the Open Education Excellence Award in the Open Curation/Repository category from OEGlobal. Her current open, interactive project, Learning with AI, invites students to take on the role of curators by collecting examples of how they use artificial intelligence in their learning journeys.

• Email: [email protected]

Website: Chrissi Nerantzi, my development space |  LinkedIn |  Googlescholar |  Researchgate | ORCID

The event is free and open to the students and faculty of ACG.