scholarly journals Creative Forest: an emergent learning environment

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Renea Mackie
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environment ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Local Community ◽  
American Educational Research Association ◽  
Research Association ◽  
Traditional Role ◽  
Learning Space ◽  
Formal Concepts ◽  
Innovative Learning ◽  
Self Discovery

Creative Forest is an educational space that connects, facilitates and empowers learners in education, enterprise and local community. Using an ecosystem methodology that resembles a forest metaphor, learner’s co-construct networks, interact, collaborate, and seek out and share expertise as a way of transforming social and cognitive relationships and values that craft a future of learning that is distinctly different and unconstrained. Learners are integral to the operation and success of the learning community as a way of designing, managing and promoting individual or group/community design projects for either self-discovery and knowledge creation or creative and entrepreneurial endeavour. The essence of the ecosystem relies on a permeable structure that allows participants to reveal tactics to reinvent, subvert, and recontextualise the folds and refolding of the learning space for meeting the needs and understanding of encounters of everyday practice. Learners are central to the ecosystem. “Learning is usually a progressive change in what we know or can do” (Nuthall, 2001). For Creative Forest, learners is a term that applies to everyone, everyone is a learner, everyone is a teacher, and learning to do by doing.   Creative Forest is a reorientation in educational thinking that has challenged traditional, didactic education for its implied assumption of a separation between knowing and doing, where knowledge is treated as an integral, self-sufficient substance, theoretically independent of the situations in which it is learned and used. This assumption is in conflict with the social knowledge that emerges from learners’ interaction with each other and the Internet, which they use as a tool to reach out, interact, mentor and share experiences and knowledge. Given this situation, learning organisations are sometimes challenged to shift from their traditional role, perceived as the transfer of abstract, decontextualised formal concepts rather than personalised interconnecting socially constructed experiences (that promote critical learning and citizenship). Building a system that encourages students to co-construct, interact and collaborate on individually orientated projects shaped the foundation structure and supportive mechanisms for the development of Creative Forest.   This paper presentation will discuss a journey into building Creative Forest as an emergent innovative learning environment and talk through its application in education, business and community contexts. References   Nuthall, G, A. (2001) Student experience and learning process: Developing an evidence based theory of classroom learning. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Seattle.  

scholarly journals Bounded Community: Designing and Facilitating Learning Communities in Formal Courses

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brent G. Wilson ◽  
Stacey Ludwig-Hardman ◽  
Christine L. Thornam ◽  
Joanna C. Dunlap
Keyword(s):  
Learning Communities ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
American Educational Research Association ◽  
Teaching Presence ◽  
Learning Goals ◽  
Project Work ◽  
Research Association ◽  
Resource Base ◽  
Emergent Systems ◽  
Common Learning

<P>Learning communities can emerge spontaneously when people find common learning goals and pursue projects and tasks together in pursuit of those goals. <I>Bounded</I> learning communities (BLCs) are groups that form within a structured teaching or training setting, typically a course. Unlike spontaneous communities, BLCs develop in direct response to guidance provided by an instructor, supported by a cumulative resource base. This article presents strategies that help learning communities develop within bounded frameworks, particularly online environments. Seven distinguishing features of learning communities are presented. When developing supports for BLCs, teachers should consider their developmental arc, from initial acquaintance and trust-building, through project work and skill development, and concluding with wind-down and dissolution of the community. Teachers contribute to BLCs by establishing a sense of <I>teaching presence</I>, including an atmosphere of trust and reciprocal concern. The article concludes with a discussion of assessment issues and the need for continuing research.</P> <P>A version of this paper was presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), San Diego, April 2004. Please send inquiries to Brent G. Wilson ([email protected]). [Additional contact information: Brent's phone: 303-556-4363; fax 303-556-4479]</P> <P><B>Keywords:</B> learning community; instructional design; emergent systems; collaborative learning; teaching presence; sense of community</P>

scholarly journals How Do They Learn: Types and Characteristics of Medical Student Engagement in the Simulation-Based Learning Environment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yashuang Wang ◽  
YAN JI
Keyword(s):  
Student Engagement ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Learning Environment ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Interpersonal Relationship ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Learning Space ◽  
Simulation Based

Abstract Background Student engagement can predict successful learning outcomes and academic development. Expansion of simulation-based medical education will bring about challenges to educators and require them to help medical students to engage themselves in a simulation-based learning environment. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with ten medical students to explore their learning types and characteristics in the simulation-based learning environment. The interpretative phenomenological methods were used to analyze the data. Results The interviews were thematically analyzed to form three types of student engagement in the simulation-based learning environment: reflective engagement, performance engagement, and interactive engagement. The analysis also identified eight sub-themes: active, persistent, and focused thinking engagement; problem-oriented thinking engagement; active “voice” in class; strong emotional experience and disclosure; demonstration of professional leadership; interaction with realistic learning situations; support from teammates; and friendship-like lecturer-student interaction.Conclusions The findings explain the mechanisms behind student engagement in the simulation-based learning environment from two perspectives: the two-way construction of individuality and space in learning along with the interdependence of the learner and the learning community. That is, expanding the learning space centering around “inquiry” helps strengthen reflective communication and dialogue. It also facilitates imagination, stimulates empathy, and builds an inter-professional learning community. In this way, medical students are expected to learn from the two-way transmission of information, cultivate and reshape the interpersonal relationship, so as to improve engagement in the simulation-based learning environment.

Experiential Space

2012 ◽  
pp. 266-277
Author(s):  
Chris Cheers ◽  
Chen Swee Eng ◽  
Glen Postle
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Learning Environment ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Learning Environments ◽  
Problem Based Learning ◽  
Learning Space ◽  
Construction Of Knowledge ◽  
Particular Solution

The description of learning environments as physical or virtual spaces focuses on the tools and infrastructure that support learning as opposed to the learning interactions. The authors of this chapter advocate the view that to maximise the potential of any learning environment, educators need to understand how students learn in the first instance and then design the learning environment based on these insights. Throughout this chapter, formal learning is conceived as an individualised experience within an organised learning community, and as such, it is suggested that this learning environment is described as an experiential space. Within this chapter, an approach to designing an experiential space that uses problem based learning to engage students and facilitate their active construction of knowledge is described. The Holmesglen built environment degree program is used as a case study to illustrate a particular solution to designing an experiential learning space.

scholarly journals How Do They Learn: Types and Characteristics of Medical Student Engagement in the Simulation-Based Learning Environment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yashuang Wang ◽  
YAN JI
Keyword(s):  
Student Engagement ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Learning Environment ◽  
Learning Community ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Interpersonal Relationship ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Learning Space ◽  
Simulation Based

Abstract Background Student engagement can predict successful learning outcomes and academic development. Expansion of simulation-based medical education will bring about challenges to educators and require them to help medical students to engage themselves in a simulation-based learning environment. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with ten medical students to explore their learning types and characteristics in the simulation-based learning environment. The thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Results The interviews were thematically analyzed to form three types of student engagement in the simulation-based learning environment: reflective engagement, performance engagement, and interactive engagement. The analysis also identified eight sub-themes: active, persistent, and focused thinking engagement; self-directed-learning thinking engagement with the purpose of problem solving; active “voice” in class; strong emotional experience and disclosure; demonstration of professional leadership; interaction with realistic learning situations; support from teammates; and friendship-like facilitator-student interaction.Conclusions The findings explain the mechanisms behind student engagement in the simulation-based learning environment from two perspectives: the two-way construction of individuality and space in learning along with the interdependence of the learner and the learning community. That is, expanding the learning space centering around “inquiry” helps strengthen reflective communication and dialogue. It also facilitates imagination, stimulates empathy, and builds an inter-professional learning community. In this way, medical students are expected to learn from the two-way transmission of information, cultivate and reshape the interpersonal relationship, so as to improve engagement in the simulation-based learning environment.

scholarly journals Redefining the learning space: Developing peer mentoring in the enterprise curriculum

2020 ◽  
pp. 095042222098126
Author(s):  
Andrew P Hird
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environment ◽  
Peer Mentoring ◽  
Learning Space ◽  
Hygiene Factors ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Considerable Strain

This account of practice seeks to demystify the entrepreneurship classroom and to provide practical insights into the successful introduction and embedding of a multi-level peer mentoring scheme. Over a 5-year period, peer mentoring has been embedded in an undergraduate enterprise curriculum. This has posed challenges to a number of taken-for-granted assumptions about the enterprise classroom. The role of the tutor in the classroom was redefined; the roles of both colleagues and students were questioned. The accepted rules and norms of the learning environment were placed under considerable strain. It was found that both colleagues and students had very clearly defined expectations of one another and their respective roles: these proved difficult to change. The article recounts the journey, and how the organisers learned to accept and embrace the difficulties faced. Hygiene factors such as timetabling and communication were highly important in allowing the interactions to take place, as were socialisation and facilitation. The mistakes made are also recounted so that they can be avoided by other practitioners.

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