Towards an Ecology for Connected Learning

Abstract

This chapter revisits PBL and examines new types or ‘constellations of PBL’ (Savin-Baden M, J Excel Coll Teach 25(3&4):197–219, 2014) that are being proposed to meet yet unknown and uncertain challenges of the twenty-first century and to develop a mode of knowledge creation, application and management that is suited for an ‘age of supercomplexity’ (Barnett R, & Coate K, Engaging the curriculum in higher education. Mc-Graw Hill Education, Berkshire, 2004). It then introduces an ecology for learning model that is underpinned by a student development worldview. We have adapted Bronfenbrenner’s ecology of human development (Bronfenbrenner U, The ecology of human development. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1979, 2005b; Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives on human development. Sage, Thousand Oaks, 2005b; Bronfenbrenner U,& Morris PA, The bioecological model of human development. In: Damon W, Lerner RM (eds) Handbook of child psychology, 6th edn. Wiley, Hoboken, pp 793–828, 2006) to imagine agile PBL operating in an ecology that positions students at the centre of multiple, evolving and interconnected environments, ranging from the proximal (micro-system) and the intermediate (meso- and exo-systems) to the distal (macro-system) (Bronfenbrenner U, The ecology of human development. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1979, 2005b; Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives on human development. Sage, Thousand Oaks, 2005b; Bronfenbrenner U,& Morris, PA, The bioecological model of human development. In: Damon W, Lerner RM (eds) Handbook of child psychology, 6th edn. Wiley, Hoboken, pp 793–828, 2006), where liquid knowledges and learning can be activated. This model allows us to reposition PBL-based learning as a ‘holistic’ approach to connected learning, in which boundaries between formal and informal learning environments, between work and study and between public and private spaces are continuously blurred, and they frequently morph into each other and impact on each other.