Abstract
The argument of this theoretical paper is that the existence and availability of suitable digital curriculum resources, accelerated by the recent pandemic, have required a revision of the pedagogical landscape in terms of ways in which students can be empowered to (co-)design their own curriculum trajectories. For this purpose, I argue, students need to be supported in considering many connections, to arrive at coherent trajectories. Based on complexity thinking and curriculum design with digital resources, I propose the concept of connectivity as a crucial principle for creating coherent curriculum trajectories. If students are to become the co-designers of their own curriculum, they need a frame that raises their awareness about the many connections to be made and that supports their capability for actually realizing them. Drawing strongly on my own work and related work by others, I analyse and illustrate the connections made by students, teachers and curriculum designers in their design of mathematics tasks, lessons and learning trajectories with digital resources. Results show that connections can be made at several levels, namely, at a social level, at a material level, at programme level, and at a didactical level. Leaning on systems thinking, connections can be systematically considered, which is likely to help students to enhance the coherence of their designs. I contend that a student-designed ‘connected curriculum trajectory’ is likely to become the focus of future research activities in innovative learning environments: this endeavor would connect aspects of curriculum, mathematical content, learning strategies of students, and the use of new technologies.
Highlights
While I am writing this article, the whole world is still struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, which is changing the perceptions of policy makers and teachers concerning how education should be designed and provided
In order to be able to answer the research question, I selected three studies in which I have been involved, on the basis that they corresponded to the three areas I intended to explore with respect to connectivity: (1) student design of their own study paths with digital tools (Pepin & Kock, 2019, 2021); (2) design of classroom activities and lesson design (Pepin et al, 2017b); and (3) curriculum resources that support student learning (Gueudet et al, 2016)
I analyzed the studies with respect to the following questions: What kinds of connections were made to enhance student learning? Which resources were used for making connections? Second, I made comparisons across the studies, for the purpose of answering the research question: In which ways can connectivity support students indesigning their mathematics curriculum in innovative learning environments, and how can it support student interactions with resources in order to ensure curricular coherence?
Summary
While I am writing this article, the whole world is still struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, which is changing the perceptions of policy makers and teachers concerning how education should be designed and provided. In universities of technology in which it has been decided to move towards more Challenge-Based (CB) education, interdisciplinary groups of students work on authentic engineering tasks (Kohn Rådberg et al, 2020) In this type of education students have to become self-regulated, and they have to be able to identify and select the resources necessary for the problem at hand, in order to work on the challenge. Teachers need to be professionally supported (e.g., with such frames), to be able to support students in their endeavors to develop their own active, self-regulated and collaborative ways of studying and learning, and to coach students through an innovative curriculum. I answer the research question and present my conclusions
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