Short bio

Melanie McBride is a Canadian researcher-practitioner, adjunct professor at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), and founder of the Aroma Inquiry Lab at TMU’s Responsive Ecologies Lab (RELab). She is presently a Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI) on research grants investigating the multimodal affordances of specialized tools, materials, and environments for learning, creating, and communicating in domains of skilled practice. Her research program focuses on the ways (and self-taught) practitioners resource, structure, and evidence their learning and how these approaches differ from those of formal institutions.

My research program

My research program is focused on the ways that independent and self-taught practitioners organize, resource, and evidence their learning and how these more informal practices differ from those of institutions. This focus reflects my interest in the affordances of specialised materials, tools, and environments that contribute to tacit, and multi-modal learning that is authentically and ecologically situated in domains of skilled and physically embodied arts, crafts, and trades.

My theoretical orientation

My theoretical orientation to the material and ecological basis of knowing-as-doing (in contrast with social, affective, or cognitive theories learning) reflects anti-cognitivist James Gibson‘s ecological approach to perception as an activity that is entirely contingent on the material and in-the-world affordances of environments, substances, and physical phenomena, which he distinguished from, the still dominant, neuro-centric (i.e., cognitivist) paradigms of learning as a mental and machine-like processes of rote memorization of acquired knowledge. More critically, this orientation also calls attention to forms of physically applied, practice-based, materially/environmentally contingent, and authentically situated learning that are profoundly inconvenient for our information–centric and increasingly algorithmic notions of learning suited to ‘fast-credentialing.’

Doing as knowing

Building on my over 30 years of teaching at the secondary, post-secondary, graduate, and professional/trade education, I have directly observed the negative consequences of increasingly automated, algorithmic, screen-biassed, and ‘hands-off’ agendas for institutional education. Paradoxically, the argument that these technologically determinist educational programs are, somehow, more ‘innovative’ and ‘accessible’ than the more applied practice of doing-as-knowing/know-how, relies on contested and regressively cognitivist notions of teaching as transmission and curriculum as content that also underwrite the equally dubious premises of so-called machine ‘learning’ and the algorithmic turn in education, communications, and labour.

Current scholarship

My current publications and research examine the indirectly acquired educational ‘products’ associated with transactional, customer-service paradigms of educating contribute to the erasure of forms of experiential, directly acquired, tacit, and materially contingent learning that are authentically situated in real environments, with real tools, overseen by actually expert human (real) practitioners. I argue that the consequences of this ordering of indirectly ‘acquired’ information-centric content over authentically situated and directly experiential and practice-based learning, constitutes, what I have termed, “educational artifice,” which is to say, quite literally, the pretence of educating that de-skills learners, learning, and teachers through the imposition of unregulated algorithmic technologies that are premised on theft, labour violation, and environmental destruction.

The algorithmic turn in education poses an existential threat to human learning, human knowledge creation, and intangible human cultural heritage. These trends also threaten to eliminate more tacit, situated, and physically embodied subjects that are inconvenient to the algorithmic turn. This is especially the case for applied sciences, arts, trades, and athletics practices that require specialised environments, tools, materials (i.e., infrastructure and resources), along with actually-expert practitioners, to develop mastery. I argue that these practices constitute categories of risk for the pedagogical extinction of culturally-embedded intangible human heritage as well as subject-specific knowledge that is incompatible with fast credentialing.

Knowledge mobilization

To this end, myself and my colleagues are presently mobilizing our collaborative research and scholarship on informal learning in domains of physically embodied and multimodal practice, to develop a pedagogical tool-kit that champions authenticity in learning, teaching, and assessment in an age of artifice. Our work draws on varied domains of multimodal and physically embodied practice, from music education and fine hand tool woodwork to wine tasting and perfumery, to advance a more tangible and hands-on pedagogy of knowing as ‘doing’ and (skilled) making that begins with the real practices of real practitioners rather than scholarly fabrications of ‘making’ that are suited to the technologically determinist educational artifice of fast credentialing.

Over the past several decades I have mobilised my scholarly knowledge through peer-reviewed academic conferences, symposiums, colloquia, and guest lectures. I have also facilitated many hands-on workshops locally and internationally and participated in smell walks led by Dr Kate McLean in Marseille whose methodology inspired my own explorations of this unique practice with walks and workshops I facilitated in Toronto and Vancouver.

Building on my study of the use of aromatic materials in the contexts of education, communication, and arts and heritage mediation, I have designed and facilitated master classes on sourcing and learning aromatic ingredients as DIY reference standards. I have presented at Brock University’s International Cool Climate Wine Symposium, The Independent Wine Education Guild (IWEG), The Canadian Association of Sommeliers (CAPS), Soif Bar à vin, and guest speaker for wine education certification courses at George Brown’s Centre for Hospitality and Culinary Arts (CHCA). 

The Aroma Inquiry Lab

In 2013, I conceptualised a methodological framework for my doctoral research, which involved a sensory ethnographic study of aromatic materials for learning and cultural mediation [which you can read about here]. This research was the spark that led to the development of the Aroma Inquiry Lab, a satellite project within Toronto Metropolitan University’s Responsive Ecologies lab, which is focused on inquiry-based learning with and through materials, tools, and environments – from the inside out.

In contrast with the neuro-centric and mind-over-matter preoccupation with scent as a kind of Proustian playback device for memories and emotions, the aroma inquiry lab adopts an extra-disciplinary orientation to aromatic learning and making that is not tethered to specific academic or commercial domain (i.e., I do NOT research functional olfaction, sensory perception, or “affective” dimensions of smell). 

This is also reflected in the deliberate choice of the cultural term aroma, as opposed to scientific orientations to olfaction (or the commercially oriented fragrance), which reflects the physically grounded and materially contingent basis of scent as a resource for learning, communicating, and making.

From a pedagogical standpoint, the Aroma Lab is concerned with the kinds of literacies and skills that are acquired with and through materials (and environments) that I call “aroma inquiries.” This orientation emphasizes the kind of knowledge that is directly acquired through production (i.e., skilled practice, learning through doing, etc) as opposed to relating with scent at the site of consumption. The use of the term “inquiry” reflects my research on non-institutional and situated domains of informal and inquiry-based learning.

Practice-informed pedagogies

In addition to my scholarly research on aroma as a missing modality in education and communications, I have spent the past 10 years engaged in both independent and structured study of the material and ecological contingencies of aromatic learning and skilled practice. I have led workshops for academic symposia, Master Classes for the wine and spirits trade, wine education certification courses, and university oenology and viticulture programs. 

My current practice involves conventional, experimental, artisanal, and mixed-media scent applications, from the creation of aromatic reference standards for nose training to technical scent design. These projects include research projects, conference workshops, prototypes, and exhibits. I recently collaborated with the Art Gallery of Ontario to design four unique and historically-themed scents for the Making Her Mark Exhibit, which you can read about in my interview with Foyer Magazine.

Industry Background + Teaching

After completing my undergraduate degree, I studied online writing and information design at Centennial College with an interest in interactive storytelling. For many years I worked as a freelance writer, editor, and content producer for independent and national digital media, including interactive fiction for Toronto’s Trapeze Media, digital heritage stories for CBC’s award-winning Digital Archives, educational content for Toronto’s Mystus Interactus Exhibits, digital training content for government clients, and consulting and talks for magazine and digital culture non-profits, such as Magazine’s Canada. These industry experiences led to my first instructional appointments teaching post-secondary and post-graduate courses in interactive writing, new media, digital reporting, and professional communications at Centennial College’s School of Communications, Media and Design. 

Education

I have a B.A. (Specialist) in English literature from the University of Toronto, and a B.Ed. (Intermediate/Secondary) from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto), and later M.A. and Ph.D. from York University’s joint program in Communications and Culture.  After completing my doctorate, I was awarded a Post-doctoral Fellowship from the Faculty of Education, York University to examine the curriculum and pedagogy associated with aromatic literacy in wine education.

Educational Qualifications

• Ph.D., Communications and Culture, York University (2018)
• M.A., Communication and Culture, York University (2013)
• B.Ed., Bachelor of Education (Intermediate/Secondary), Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto (2007)
• B.A. Hons., Bachelor of Arts, English Literature, University of Toronto (2000)

Additional Training + Certifications

• Certificates in Natural Perfumery (Introductory and Intermediate). Between 2017 and 2019 I travelled to Berkeley California to undertake several intensive courses with American natural perfumer Mandy Aftel at her home studio, which included subsequent scaffolding to teach Aftel’s “Basic” natural perfume class (for beginners).
• Additional Teaching Qualifications (AQ): Media I and II, York University/Ontario College of Teachers (2009)
• Post-Graduate Certificate in Online Writing and Information Design, Centennial College, School of Communications (2001)
• Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) certified secondary school teacher (Ontario College of Teachers), 2008 [current status: “Inactive/Non-Practicing”]

Press
My work, ideas, perspectives are cited in scholarly articles and books, television, radio, and print media, interviews, and trade blogs.  Please see my speaking page for further detail, or visit my contact page for inquiries related to my research and practice. 

Please use my Contact form for academic and speaking inquiries.