Ecological learning design approach

There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds. Gilbert K. Chesterton

Agenda

•  I will elaborate the structure, func+oning principles and produc+ve learning poten+al of learning ecosystem, using some examples of my earlier studies.

•  Secondly, I will claim that the modeling of a func@oning learning ecosystem, presumes considering ecosystem principles in design and the learning design process to take the meta-‐design approach.

Learning design concept

•  Learning design concept relates with the learning design product, the learning design process and the considera@on of certain learning theories that define what triggers learning, how does learning take place, and what is the result of learning.

•  All these learning design aspects of learning design can be approached ecologically, and if doing so we can ini+ate, manage and appropriate learning ecosystems, -‐situa+ons and -‐behaviors that are actual in the modern society.

Learning ecosystem components

•  Various actors (teachers, experts, learners) and the socio-‐technical system

•  use available resources (people, ar@facts, tools) to provide a variety of learning services, that

•  afford certain teaching and learning purposes and

•  actualize teaching and learning purpose niches as affordance spaces

•  that give fitness constraints to the learning services.

Actors, learning services and –niches in the professional community training

Teacher’s and domain experts “views” to blog posts, comments and forum were categorized as ViewT and ViewO.

Teacher’s combina@on ac@vity in forum-‐ CT Domain expert’s combina@on ac@vity in forum -‐ CO.

Teacher’s socializa@on ac@vi@es in forum – ST Domain expert’s socializa@on in forum -‐ SO

Teacher’s blog entries E(Entry)T Teacher’s comments in blogs E(Comment)T Domain expert’s comments in blogs E(Comment)O

Tammets, K; Pata, K; Laanpere, M. (2013). Promo@ng Teachers’ Learning and Knowledge-‐building in the Socio-‐technical System. The Interna@onal Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 14(3), 251 -‐ 272.

Services of the support niche

Services of the resource-‐provision niche

Services of the monitoring niche

Communi@es in learning ecosystems

•  are temporary coali+ons deno@ng the services and actors at present in the learning design

•  that can successively change during the life@me of a design product usage

Succession of niches at different phases of the elearning course

Pata, K. (2009). Revising the framework of knowledge ecologies: how ac@vity pa_erns define learning spaces? . Niki Lambropoulos & Margarida Romero (Toim.). Educa@onal Social Socware for Context-‐Aware Learning: Collabora@ve Methods & Human Interac@on. (241 -‐ 266).Idea Group Reference

Learning flows

•  The main form of ecosystem existence is through trophic chains of species that transform energy and ma_er composing and decomposing energy rich products, thus enabling the one-‐direc@onal trophic flow through the ecosystem.

•  In learning ecosystems the relevant concept to trophic flow is a learning flow.

Networks and learning flows

informa@on

knowledge

We may assume that in any learning design the purpose of the learning services is to compose such networks of trophic chains that enable users par@cipa@ng in the learning flows that transform the informa@on to knowledge.

The learning flow

•  The learning flow is powered by the proac@ve crea@on of learning services and the a_en@on, considera@on, communica@on and usage of available learning services that teachers, learners and the socio-‐technical system as the agents provide.

•  There are always relevant goals, resources and required support that may replace in the learning ecosystem purpose niches some of the missing services and allow the con@nuous learning flows.

Pruning homogenous communi@es

•  Maintaining homogenous communi@es such as ideal teacher-‐planned sets of learning services needs constant care

•  few learning services prescribe limited learning paths in order to maximize the produc@ve learning flows for medium learners that don’t exist.

Succession of wild communi@es

The natural learner-‐created communi@es, are based on the richness of constantly changing learning services that can replace themselves in the trophic networks, that guarantees be_er self-‐regula@on but also the

succession of the service-‐community in @me.

Maintaining semi-‐natural communi@es

In the learning ecosystems that inhabit semi-‐natural communi+es where both the teacher-‐ and learner-‐created learning services could co-‐exist, the former could be used to maintain the richness of wild services and keep

it in a state where succession is under control.

Learning ecosystem concept I

The community of learning services of the learning design ac9vated by different actors, the users of this learning design, and the informa9on and knowledge circulated within the learning design altogether form the learning ecosystem.

The network structure •  The permeability of a learning ecosystem to learning flows will depend on the connec@ons between services that pass learning flows and the emerging side-‐paths and hubs in this network that can redirect the flows.

Mutualisms

•  The mutualisms such as symbiosis (mutual benefit of using resources and living spaces) are one way how in natural ecosystems species get the compe@@ve premise.

•  Mutualisms between different types of learning services are very important also in learning designs.

The learning flow in the professional community training

The domain experts had more direct influence on the reflec@ve discussions in the forum, and they could indirectly influence teachers to comment their peers’ reflec@ons that in turn prompted individual reflec@ons in the weblog.

Tammets, K; Pata, K; Laanpere, M. (2013). Promo@ng Teachers’ Learning and Knowledge-‐building in the Socio-‐technical System. The Interna@onal Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 14(3), 251 -‐ 272.

Communica@on

•  In natural ecosystems there is communica@on between the individual species as well as the cross-‐species communica@on that has influence on trophic circula@ons (for example certain signals from species may be read by other members of the species or across species to get advantage in finding food or escaping for predators).

•  The learning services in learning ecosystem must be aware of each other and able to communicate in order to orchestrate their ac@on.

•  Communica@on direct and indirect (through signals and traces lec in the environment) can be used for swarming for learning in learning ecosystems

The learning process in the learning ecosystem

•  Learning as an orienta+on and adapta+on to the learning flows of the crowd to be led to the flow experiences (ecosystem stabiliza@on factor).

•  Learning with the forward-‐looking a?tude for seeking chances and opportuni+es in the unan@cipated ecosystem (ecosystem evolvement factor).

•  Both are related with ecological encultura+on the process by which a person becomes acquainted with a given community of prac@ce, and part of the environment becomes encultured, becoming poten@ally meaningful for certain purposes rather than others.

The result of learning in the learning ecosystem

•  Ecological encultura+on of our surroundings (people, resources, tools, concepts etc.) is one of the results of learning in the learning ecosystem.

•  Gejng flow experience is another result of learning in the learning ecosystem, since culture (the flows of thecrowd) reduce anxiety and minimise the dimens@ons to be focused at

What triggers learning in the learning ecosystem

•  Learning ecosystem is responsive •  Increased possibility of gejng the flow experience because of the availability of the flows of the crowd

•  Learning ecosystems possess high environmental unan@cipatedness in respect to what learning opportuni@es they afford.

Learning ecosystem concept II

Learning ecosystem is an emergent and dynamically evolving system that is formed as a result of mul9ple self-‐directed actors’ ecological encultura9on of some environment for increasing its produc9vity for learning.

Produc+vity of the learning ecosystem is its ability to accumulate informa@on to knowledge in @me – meaning how much users can be engaged in certain @me period by the learning services into the produc@ve learning flow.

Transla@ng ecosystem principles to learning ecosystems

•  The learning flow through open learning ecosystem – the created learning services, and actors’ a_en@on to services create the trophic networks that enable transforming informa@on to knowledge and cause the learning flows

•  The feedback loop to and from the learning ecosystem -‐ the teaching and learning services must be adap@ve to the ecosystem purpose niches, and these niches as affordance spaces would be changing as a result of those services in @me.

•  The communica+ve interac+ons in the ecosystem – the mutual awareness and direct and indirect (as traces or signals lec in the environment) communica@on between learning services and actors enable new learning behaviors (such as swarming – following the crowd) which intensify the learning flows within the ecosystem.

Ecosystem principles that guide the ecological learning design process

•  I. Involve teachers/experts and learners to create learning services (experts should champion this ac@vity)

•  II. Map the learning ecosystem services created by different users to the teaching and learning purpose niches. This should be mapped in different @me periods of the learning design usage.

•  III. Map the learning flows that use these learning services

•  IV. Incorporate learning analy@cs tools for dynamic learning flow visualiza@on (e.g. visualizing flows in distributed resource networks)


•  V. Increase the permeability of the learning ecosystem to the learning flows by: –  allowing the variety of services to emerge in each purpose niche

–  sustaining learning flows by having replacement services in each purpose niche that enable switching from one hub to another and keep the learning flow going

–  increasing aggrega@on and clustering of services to promote switching, communica@ng between them

–  suppor@ng coali@ons between learning services for synergy –  promo@ng awareness, connec@vity and communica@on between learning services -‐ add elements that improve the awareness


•  VI. Involve experts/facilitators crea@ng service hubs for channeling the learning flows and crea@ng a_rac@ve “crowded” points for redirec@ng the learning flows and enabling chance seeking

•  VII. Use learning analy@cs as emergent scaffolds that guide learners to the learning flows of the crowd

•  VIII. Increase aggrega@on and clustering of learning contents and -‐services for promo@ng communica@on, emergence and evolvement of crowd flows.


•  IX. Involve experts/facilitators in seeding learning ac@vi@es into the learning ecosystem that are based on self-‐organiza@on, chance-‐seeking, swarming

•  X. Use learning analy@cs that base on ecosystem principles to evaluate the learning design as a whole and provide feedback to the cultures of par@cipa@on for informed design decisions.

The ecological learning design

•  The ecological learning design is the meta-‐design process where par9cipatory cultures use ecosystem principles for enculturing for themselves responsive learning ecosystems that maximize for each of them possibili9es for flow experiences promoted by the learning flows of the crowd or provide them opportuni9es for discovering chances.

Future work •  Mapping different learning ecosystems through the learning

service approach and inves@ga@ng what the success factors in learning ecosystem design and usage are.

•  Inves@ga@ng empirically, how to do the transi@on towards the produc@ve learning ecosystems.

In digital learning ecosystems research, more a_en@on must be put on: –  Exploring, how to ini@ate and maintain the meta-‐design of

learning ecosystems, and how analy@cs could be used for fuelling the learning ecosystem design through cultures of par@cipa@on

–  Methodologically, deciding which learning analy@cs can be collected, and how such empirical data can be used for valida@ng, which ecological design principles can promote produc@ve learning ecosystems.

References and acknowledgements •  I am building my ideas on the papers about the digital learning

ecosystems (see McCalla, 2004, Fischeman & de Deus-‐Lopez, 2008; Gütl & Chang, 2008; Uden, Wangsa & Damiani, 2007; Lukin, 2008; Pata, 2009a,b; Whelan, 2010; Reyna, 2011; Briscoe, Sadedin & DeWilde, 2011; Laanpere, Pata, Normak, Põldoja, 2012), ecological cogni@on (Bardone & Pata, in progress) and ecological learning design (Young, 2004; Kirschner, Strijbos, Kreijns, Beers, 2004; Fischer, Giaccardi, Ye, Sutcliffe & Mehandjiev, 2004; Bishop, 2007; Hagen & Robertson, 2009; Fisher, 2012; Normak, Pata, Kaipainen, 2012).

•  Many interes@ng discussions with my colleagues Mart Laanpere and Emanuele Bardone have contributed to this ecological learning design approach.

Images from Flickr Crea@ve Commons resources, the aithors are acknowledged

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Ecological learning design approach