Designing for Emergent Learning

Re: Designing for Emergent Learning

by Barbara Berry -
Number of replies: 1

Hi Roy, 

Messy indeed and yes, this all makes sense ot me. The biggest issue we all face is imposing what we think will work on others and it usually doesn't hit the mark so acknowledging emergence and being able to recognize opportunities to all for emergence  is likely one of the biggest learnings for both learners and instructors especially within systems where "constraint" and overarching expectations seem to be the name of the game. 

Yes, the descriptions clearly are a way to open up the conversations among students and instructional teams and across the board.  I like to also think of this tool as having sociomaterial properties and thus is part of the process of discovery. 

speak with you again!

Barb

In reply to Barbara Berry

Re: Shadow courses?

by Roy Williams -

Barb, sorry you could not make the webinar, but the recording will be up soon I'm sure. 

I think there are many 'closet' opportunities for emergence (via online social media, but also via f2f meetings and encounters (which might be circulated via tweets and blogs) that we miss in our teaching.  Making people mindful of the opportunities, and the 'closet emergence' going on around us could open up things, even within the constraints of compliance that are imposed on us (and on students) - it really is possible (and desirable???) to encourage 'shadow courses' alongside formal courses, and to start to connect between  them. 

And yes on both counts - i) particularly if we all take 'description' seriously, footprints are an interesting way to start a non-judgemental conversation between members of an instructional team and students, conversations which are normally compartmentalised into 'us' and 'them' (and the 'evaluators'). 

And ii) footprints are definitely a sociomaterial part of discovery - in all its aspects: cognitive, affective, professional, and various 'communities'.  In our previous work on narratives, students definitely said the 'prompted narrative' exploration of their learning was a major part of what they learnt on their course, despite the fact that it had no formal relationship with their course, and didn't 'count' for any credits.