Technical breakdown: <i>breaching experiment-workshops</i> in university lectures

This article explores the methodological design of breaching experiments, originally introduced in ethnomethodology as pedagogical tools for examining the maintenance of social order. Building on this tradition, I introduce a typology of breaching experiments and the idea of breaching experiment-workshops: collaborative, negotiated interventions that uncover how technical devices, and sociotechnical expectations mediate university lectures. Drawing on observations with two lecturers and subsequent efforts to design interventions in their teaching practices, I show how breaching experiment-workshops can surface the entangled roles of technology, disciplinary norms, and student expectations even when the breaches remain hypothetical. I argue that breaching experiment-workshops offer a valuable method for design researchers investigating human-technology relations by extending breaching into participatory, context-sensitive, and reflective co-design practices.