Footprints of Emergence: Assessing Emergent Learning

Nick - I agree. By adding intentionality to learning you are, by definition, creating a space where learning is no longer emergent.

I prefer the notion of assessing learning against self, but how could this work from a teacher/trainer's point of view? My experience has been to not focus on the learning but on the environment in which learning takes place. Others have spoken of complexity and complex learning environments so I won't reiterate them here. Instead I will say that I set the parameters for the learning - that is, the tools to be used (eg "In teams/individually, how many uses can you find for a paper cup?"), and milestones (eg "Must include at least one colour").

Undertaking a Ph.D is a good example of emergent learning. The individual sets the question (and quite often changes it as new knowledge is formed), identifies what is known, and sets out to bridge the gap between the two.

This concept has many benefits outside of the classroom. I am currently working on a major government project which, in simple terms, seeks to create knowledge as we are, er, creating knowledge. In other words, we are building the bridge as we are crossing it.

Re: Assessing Emergent Learning

by Nick Kearney - Tuesday, 30 November 2021, 2:32 PM

In other words, we are building the bridge as we are crossing it. In my doctorate I felt like the coyote most of the time, running across thin air (Where's that confounded bridge!!)

I have worked in a lot of fields, everywhere everyone is driven to innovate, to build that bridge and cross it at the same time, except education.

Ipsative as an educational innovation (in the public arena) seems weird, too resource intensive in times when education is not apparently worth the candle. But it could work in education, if teachers had manageable class sizes. That works, I have seen it work.