Emergent pedagogy: learning to enjoy the uncontrollable—and make it productive

Abstract

This essay reflects the shared experiences of four college faculty members (a biologist, a psychologist, a computer scientist, and a feminist literary scholar) working together with K-12 teachers to explore a new perspective on educational practice. It offers a novel rationale for independent thinking and learning, one that derives from rapidly developing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary inquiries in the sciences and social sciences into what are known as ''complex'' or ''emergent'' systems. Using emergent systems as a model of teaching and learning makes at least three significant contributions to our thinking bout teaching, in three very different dimensions. It invites us into an awareness that the brains of individual students and teachers operate as emergent systems that are neither possible nor desirable to control fully. It invites us to appreciate as well that the activities and benefits of a classroom are not all individual interactions between teacher and student. Interactions among students and teachers are collectively contributing to a somewhat unpredictable project with an insistently social dimension, which is in turn crucial to the individual achievements of all involved. Finally, emergent pedagogy encourages us to consider more carefully the relations between the individual classroom and the larger educational community of which it is a component, including a challenge to rethink the matter of assessment.

Collaboration and psychological ownership: how does the tension between the two influence perceived learning?

“…For this tool, many findings suggest that ownership overrides collaboration: students preferred not to engage in collaborative learning using Wikis, but rather continued to cultivate a practice of individual accountability and individual ownership (Ioannou and Artino 2008). When requested to collaborate by using Wikis, students tended to avoid changing other students' written documents (Dalke et al 2007). They often felt that it was inappropriate to edit others' work (Coyle 2007).…”

Teaching Teachers to Think Like Engineers Using NetLogo

“…In the third theme, researchers show extensive examples of K12 teachers encouraging the use of CS in curriculum and instruction (Basu, Dickes, Kinnebrew, Sengupta, & Biswas, 2013;Blikstein, 2013;Borgman, Abelson, Dirks, Johnson, Koedinger, … & Smith, 2008;Chiu & Wu, 2009;Clark, Nelson, Sengupta, & D'Angelo, 2009;Dalke, Cassidy, Grobstein, & Blank, 2007;Donnelly, Linn, & Ludvigsen, 2014;Grover & Pea, 2013;Hashem & Mioduser, 2011;Jacobson & Wilensky, 2006;Klasnja-Milicevic, Vesin, Ivanovic, & Budimac, 2011;Levy & Wilensky, 2009;Maroulis, Guimera, Petry, Stringer, Gomez, Amaral, & Wilensky, 2010;Pea & Collins, 2008;Pathak, Kim, Jacobson, & Zhang, 2011;Sengupta, Dickes, Farris, Karan, Martin, & Wright, 2015;Sengupta, Kinnebrew, Basu, Biswas, & Clark, 2013;Sengupta & Wilensky, 2009;Shen, Lei, Chang, & Namdar, 2014;Wilensky, Brady, & Horn, 2014;Wilensky & Papert, 2010). The Task Force on Cyberlearning identified "directions for leveraging networked computing and communications technology.…”

Wikis for group work: Encouraging transparency, benchmarking, and feedback

“…Many students do not feel comfortable editing their peers' work and may be reluctant to do so (Allwardt, 2011;Baltzersen, 2010;Cunningham, O'Donoghue, & Jennings, 2016;Dalke, Cassidy, Grobstein, & Blank, 2007;Foley & Chang, 2008;Grant, 2009;Ioannou & Artino, 2009;Kear et al, 2010;Lin & Kelsey, 2009;Lund, 2008), particularly without first discussing it with the group (Neumann & Hood, 2009;Robertson, 2008). Others do not feel comfortable having their work edited and critiqued by their peers (Karasavvidis, 2010).…”