Abstract:

How do we prepare students for life in a world that is constantly being disrupted, for a life that is often lived on the edge of chaos?

This paper draws on ecological psychology, cognitive apprenticeship, distributed cognition, activity theory, and critical reflective practice and extends them through the application of a Complexity Science lens in an effort to answer this question.

The disturbance of an individual’s view of what should be, the breakdown of the expected, disruption that pushes a learner out of their comfort zone, can be a positive thing. Disruption can be a trigger for learning.

A complexity paradigm views the world as complex and unpredictable, often on the edge of chaos, and relationships as non-linear and dynamic. Complexity science can provide a paradigm for curriculum ecosystem design, and complexity concepts can provide meaningful descriptors of patterns that can emerge in such an ecosystem.

This paper focuses on the development of a Design Framework for Curriculum Ecosystem design. A framework that draws together the energy flows, dynamics, and evolving activity systems of a real world context, where learning is initiated by a learning trigger in the form of an authentic disruptive problem. It integrates scaffolded critical reflective practice, self organisation, relevant cognitive tools, and ongoing feedback loops.

This Curriculum Ecosystem Design Framework is a model for educational practice that can provide learners with the self-organisation skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary for living in a world constantly disrupted. It places the learner within a dynamic learning ecosystem that replicates the dynamics and energy flows of the real world with outcomes that are emergent, drawing order and innovation from the edge of chaos.

Keywords:

Disruption, complexity, reflective, cognition, problems, emergent, e-learning.