Learning in Unbounded Landscapes ̶ Conceptualizations and Design From an Ecological Perspective (original) (raw)

Learning ecologies in the digital era: challenges for higher education

Publicaciones, 2020

The immersion of society in the digital age has decisively influenced people's ways of behaving, in the field of work, economy, entertainment and teaching. Higher education is undergoing a great transformation due to the technological development in which we are immersed, and these continuous changes have shown the need to keep us updated permanently, thus adopting the idea of lifelong learning. Each person and each professional has a wide and diverse range of possibilities to be trained and to learn, which requires individuals to take more and more control over their own learning process. The concept of learning ecologies provides a framework of analysis to know how we learn, and what contexts and/ or elements we use to train ourselves, in order to provide us with new learning opportunities. Being aware of the elements and / or contexts that make up our learning ecologies can be a very useful strategy to help us update ourselves in a self-directed and effective way. This has led us to carry out a bibliographic study aimed at identifying some of the aspects that characterize the new ways in which we learn, which will allow us to understand the role that the university should play in today's society.

An ecological perspective on learner-constructed learning spaces

British Journal of Educational Technology, 2019

This paper argues for the need to develop a relational, emergent and plural understanding of learning spaces. We take an ecological perspective on learning, which allows us to conceptualize learning spaces as (co‐)constructed by learners; emerging through learners' practices, interactions and activities; and facilitated by pedagogical arrangements. In the co‐construction of spaces for learning, tapping into various ecologies of resources—whether intellectual, relational or digital material—becomes an organic, iterative, agentic endeavour for learners. This paper proposes a set of principles to synthesize this conceptualization and facilitates an understanding of such emergent learning spaces. An empirical illustration extracted from a collaborative student project in software engineering education contributes to grounding the conceptual argument and provides a clarifying example. Ultimately, this contribution suggests that in order to support the emergence of learning spaces that are resource‐rich and conducive to learning, educational contexts and pedagogical arrangements must provide both the framing conditions and also the flexibility and permeability required to access the wider ecologies of resources made available through digital technologies.

Harnessing contextuality: A sustainable ecological model for distance learning in a complex world

Are our current educational approaches adequate to help us adapt to the fast-changing and complex world we live in? As humans, we evolved as a cooperative and collaborative species but, owing to various factors, we learned to tame and rule the world and in the process created a super-complex and unpredictable society. Our traditional education systems evolved to deal with a predictable world, but are no longer adequate, and we now have to adapt. In distance learning there are opportunities to create a learning environment that is more conducive to learning, especially if the contextual diversity of students is actively used as part of the learning ecology. What we need is the ability to adopt complex thinking and deeper levels of learning that are contextualised in our knowing, our lives, our communities and our planet. We need a new ethos that is built on openness and respect for conflicting opinions, where teachers enable deeper learning through networking, encouragement and openness. We need an education system that enables us to have a deep ecological connection in this world. Can we create a system of learning, or a learning ecology, that can sustain our human species on this planet?

Learning System Development - A Review of Approaches to Rethink Learning in Different Contexts

2018

Learning systems during last decades are about to transform from isolated and specific singular ego-systems [30] with closely defined and clearly measurable learning-inputs and – outputs into networked environments for guidance and innovation, to develop holistic competences and to create future as social development. Connecting interdisciplinary contexts, larger amounts of very heterogeneous learners from formerly independent cultural contexts and developments, and building on technology and digitalization, they become a specific cultural space and environment of their own [36]. Traditional learning-scenarios are called into question and new cultures of learning are formed. Also, boundaries between science and organizations weaken and dissolve. This paper pursues to use the potential of combining theories of learning and change, to analyze innovative learning-approaches, to separate the contrast of incremental (sustaining) versus disruptive innovations and to use examples from the ...

Techno-andragogic Ecosystem Model for Active Learning

Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality

In this era, digital transformation in work processes and new generations such as millennials and centenarians are having an impact of change on organizations. Therefore, it is necessary that those responsible for the training areas look for new pedagogical approaches, such as active learning, for the design of training programs. The traditional instruction, both for e-learning and face-to-face environments, has ceased to have a value in the development of the competencies that promote lifelong learning. The development of competencies based on the lifelong learning concept is part of the agenda for 2030, according to UNESCO, and should also be in the priorities of experts in the design of training programs for adult learners using e-learning environments. The purpose of this document is to introduce a doctoral thesis research plan, and its current status for the creation of a model of a technoandragogic ecosystem for active learning with diverse architectures integrated into e-learning models that enhance the development of competences. Therefore, the context and motivation of this doctoral thesis is presented, a review of the literature of the primary constructs to be analyzed, the proposal of a mixed method with a sequential concurrent design with predominant approaches in two phases of the investigation: QUAL-QUAN and QUAN-QUAL, which will identify the most effective architectures to promote lifelong learning. The research findings could generate guidelines to incorporate in the design of the ecosystem model to be proposed.

Revisiting learning in higher education—Framing notions redefined through an ecological perspective

This article employs an ecological perspective as a means of revisiting the notion of learning, with a particular focus on learning in higher education. Learning is reconceptualised as a process entailing mutually constitutive, epistemic, social and affective relations in which knowledge, identity and agency become collective achievements of whole ecosystems. This conceptualisation implies that learning involves a trans-contextual and multimodal process, in which both learners and their social and material environments change. This article examines the implications of an ecological perspective on framing notions central to learning and current educational research, namely (a) knowledge co-construction and epistemic agency, (b) the role of (material) knowledge resources in the learning process and (c) the trans-contextuality that characterises learning in today's knowledge society. The discussion concludes by identifying prospects that an ecological perspective offers to education and research on learning in higher education. The insights emerging from this reconceptualisation imply changes in the ways we can enhance and analytically account for the transformative potential of education. They also indicate the necessity for further advancing our understanding of learners' ways of assembling the epistemic spaces necessary to engage in meaningful learning, their agency in this process and their relationship with the (social and material) environment.