Abstract:

This research analyzed the construction of knowledge within a Self-Organized Learning Environment (SOLE) mediated by digital technologies, where learning takes place in an autonomous and self-organized way, through inquiry, digital mediation and minimal instructional intervention. Among the aspects that were studied was the ability to represent and understand concepts associated to the school´s curriculum, and representation pertinence and accuracy of these concepts when using particular learning tools such as: infographics, conceptual maps, mind maps, digital presentations and written summaries. The students' ability to understand and represent this information was assessed by analyzing the complexity, the degree of veracity and congruence of the elaborated learning products, as well as the diversity, creativity and pertinence of the employed representational formats and the degree of correspondence with the students´ expected academic level. Evidence from this study shows that secondary school students are able to understand and accurately represent knowledge within the expected academic level of complexity by means of self-learning and self-organization, when given the tools to research and analyze curricular information in a consistent way. It was further observed that with time and practice students construct more complex and valid representations of their autonomous learnings. However, a learning progress discontinuity was perceived when students were switched from paper based representational tools to digital instruments and software, in which the complexity and creativity of the represented knowledge depends on the mastery of the digital tools, but not so the understanding of the concepts studied. This research involved 150 low-income secondary school students, male and female, from a public school in Mexico City.

Keywords:

Knowledge representation, autonomous learning, self-organization, secondary education, digital technologies.