At the Sourdough School, we embrace the BA – the Japanese learning centre concept – for a share space building a centre for knowledge creation. The building of the Sourdough school has been a lifelong commitment from Dr Kimbell and symbolising our absolute commitment to an entirely different, transdisciplinary, and interdisciplinary style of learning.
Our community thrives on this diverse, integrative approach to education, preparing learners not just for baking bread but for a life enriched with continuous, holistic learning, and this is integrated into our values and the way we bake eat and share bread with respect and acceptance of diversity.
Trasndiciplinary is a powerful way to address complex real-world problems
The website and the way we structure the courses are intentionally challenging conventional linear learning styles. The course structures include tasks, and the interactions through the learning experience, and the application of knowledge to a personalised recipe as your graduation is a practice known as transdicilpinary. The resources, self assessments, tasks outside of baking, self reflection, flavour wheel, loaf record sheets and live discussion are the educational scaffolding grounded in systems change, that enable successful transdisciplinary learning, acknowledged as being a particularly powerful way to addressing complex real-world problems
At The Sourdough School, we take a unique and holistic approach to teaching that sets us apart from traditional cookery schools. Our teaching style is a blend of online learning and hands-on experiences at the school, allowing students to acquire both theoretical knowledge and practical skills in a supportive and engaging environment.
Practice before you come to bake.
Before attending The Sourdough School, students are encouraged to learn the basics of sourdough baking through our comprehensive online resources. This ensures that you have a solid foundation in the fundamental techniques and principles of sourdough bread-making before they arrive at the school.
During our courses at The Sourdough School, students have the opportunity to watch and learn through participative demonstrations, where they can observe and engage with the process of sourdough baking in real time. This immersive experience allows students to connect with the dough and the process on a deeper level, absorbing the tacit knowledge that is crucial to mastering the art of sourdough.
In addition to hands-on demonstrations, students also attend lectures that delve into the science, nutrition, and environmental aspects of sourdough, further enriching your understanding of the subject. Throughout the entire learning journey, students are supported by an interactive online forum where they can ask questions, share their experiences, and connect with fellow sourdough enthusiasts.
Our teaching style at The Sourdough School is designed to be relaxed, engaging, and collaborative, fostering a sense of community and shared passion for the craft of sourdough baking.
Transdisciplinary Learning at The Sourdough School
The Sourdough School prides itself on its user-friendly website, designed for seamless navigation on laptops, featuring intuitively organised menus by topics. While the step by step guide adheres to a linear structure to meet and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) requirements, the heart of our learning philosophy lies in encouraging instinctive, transdisciplinary learning.
This approach deviates from traditional linear, ontological, and epistemological educational structures. It is holistic, and approaches the Baking as Lifestyle Medicine through a dynamic curriculum with weekly lessons in diverse formats, fostering a conversation about systems change. This holistic view of education is echoed by Gaikwad, Choukade, and Sonawane (2022), who emphasise the innovative thinking and problem-solving skills fostered by a transdisciplinary learning approach in education.
Our ‘living life as enquiry’ methodology, though unconventional to some educationalists, is our chosen path. We believe in its practicality and relevance in real life, an idea supported by Kamrozzaman et al. (2019), who advocate for the integration of TRBL (Transdisciplinary Oriented Research-Based Learning) in higher education to enhance graduate marketability and skills development (Kamrozzaman, Badusah, Ruzanna, & Norman, 2019).
In an era where AI can replicate lessons and computers can generate recipes, our course has been created on an epistemological syllabus that places you, the learner, at the forefront of the experience. This involves interactive learning through watching, reading, listening, and then personalizing this experience through the art of baking, eating, and sharing bread. As a transdisciplinary view in education encourages a shift from viewing learning as a product to seeing it as an innovative and dynamic, integrative process beautifully reflected in this PhD by Helene Wilkinson.
Living Life as Enquiry –
On of the most powerful influences on the approach we take to teaching is First Person Action Research: Living Life as Inquiry is a book written by Judi Marshall that reflects on the nature of inquiring action and provides an accessible introduction to self-reflective practice. It explores the principles and practices of self-reflective practice and illustrates with reflective accounts of inquiry from the author’s professional and personal life. The book also considers action for change in relation to issues of ecological sustainability and corporate responsibility
Further personalising the learning journey, we offer options like DNA tests with Dr. Kimbell and the team, or gut microbiome tests, to explore individual reactions to bread – epitomising the personalisation of bread and learning. Barrett et al. (2019) highlight the importance of educational scaffolding in transdisciplinary learning, particularly in addressing complex, real-world problems, aligning with our philosophy of integrating practical experiences like blood sugar balance into the learning process (Barrett et al., 2019).
Our structured modules for the Bake for Health and the Personlisation of Bread Modules encourage delving into library topics of interest, embodying our belief in the integration of tacit knowledge (mode 1) and explicit knowledge (mode 2). This approach is not just about learning recipes but understanding the science, art, and community behind bread-making. Biberhofer and Rammel (2017) underscore the value of experience-based learning approaches in transdisciplinary education, aligning with our ethos of engaging with the subject matter beyond traditional learning methods (Biberhofer & Rammel, 2017).
