Complexity and Education: From Theory To Practice and Back Again

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Complexity and Education From Theory To
Practice and Back Again
Kristopher Wells (kwells_at_ualberta.ca) Andrew
Breckenridge (h_hornblower_at_hotmail.com) University
of Alberta
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Complexity and Education
Emerging Trends
US Department of Education Report
(Sanders McCabe, 2003)

• Uses of Complexity Science
• Emphasis on the need to move beyond a
  reductionistic paradigm
• Cite the importance of complexity and a nested
  systems-thinking approach to help lead and
  organize 21st Century organizations
• Explore the implications for the use of
  complexity science in understanding the
  complexities of the educational system

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Complexity in Government
US Department of Defense

• Network Centric Warfare
• Robust self-forming networks based on linked
  information-decision-action-networks

• Advanced Research Projects Agency

- non-linear generation of ideas
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Complexity in Education

• Center for Connected Learning Computer-based
  Modeling
• Chaos Complexity ARA Special Interest Group
• National Science Foundation
• - Report Complex systems education Cognitive
  learning and pedagogical perspectives

Authors identify the need to create a new
framework for transforming education in the
United States
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Complexity and Education

• Theoretical orientation
• reconceptualization of education from a
  complicated to a complex and emergent process
  (Davis, 2004 Davis, Sumara, Kapler, 2000
  Doll, 1993)
• transformative potential that complexivist
  principles can offer to educational research and
  practice

• Conceptual lens
• complexity is already present in classrooms
• how might we prompt educators to enact
  complexivist principles in their current
  pedagogical practices research engagements

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Collectivity in Action
Complexity Education Website www.complexityanded
ucation.ca
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Complexity in the Classroom Building a web(site)

• A collaborative effort
• As class project we collaboratively built the
  website www.complexityandeducation.ca
• The website was built with the intention of
  providing a meeting space for educators who are
  oriented towards or informed by complexity
  science
• Working group was established and students
  regularly met and, with the professor, discussed
  the direction and potential content of the
  website
• Decisions were always brought before the group
  so that they could be discussed

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• Engaging the work
• Each contributing author took up a task ranging
  from the coordination of areas such as the
  glossary to the writing of summaries for various
  learning methodologies
• All contributors also participated in the
  development of large projects such as the
  annotated bibliography and the glossary
• The completion of the glossary also entailed
  comprehensive collaboration between authors as
  the terms were regularly debated, revised and
  edited by the group

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Constructing the Webliography

• Working together A collaboration of peers
• Everyone made initial contributions
• Finding fertile soil Building on the
  foundations of others
• The websites provided a means by which the web
  of complexity theory and education could be
  expanded
• Managing the initial development
• The initial development was significantly faster
  than anticipated and many more sites existed than
  initially thought
• Good roots create a lifetime of growth
• - Many people continue to refer sites

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• Completing the web(site)
• After each portion of the website was completed
  it was submitted to the the group for review and,
  upon consensus, was incorporated into the website
• The individuals responsible for specific areas
  of the website remain active in the
  maintenance/growth of their contributions
• Educators continue to provide feedback to help
  the website evolve to meet their pedagogical and
  research needs

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Safe Caring Schools in a Complex World A
Guide for Teachers
Alberta Teachers Association The Society for
Safe and Caring Schools and Communities (SACSC)
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SACSC Philosophy

• Comprehensive violence prevention initiative
  designed to model and foster socially responsible
  and respectful behaviors, so that learning and
  teaching can take place in a safe, caring, and
  inclusive environment

Complexity Booklet

• Challenge traditional theories of learning
• - Conceptualize the brain as ecosystem, rather
  than computer or empty vessel
• Develop a complexivist framework to help
  reorient understandings of the learner,
  teacher, and classroom as part of a nested
  system

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Complexity of Bullying

• fire wire patterns of behaviours
• learning is associative rooted in experience
• reinforce proactive engaged approaches to
  learning
• move away from understandings of classroom
  management, best practices, and
  zero-tolerance approaches
• building resiliency plasticity
• diverse experiences create the opportunity for
  an increased flexibility of response

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Internal Diversity
Prompting Complexity
Enabling Constraints
Decentralized Control
Neighbouring Interactions
Internal Redundancy
(Davis, 2004 Davis Simmt, 2003)
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Complexity Current Issues in Education
Knowledge Now Knowing is doing

• knowledge is relational
• The issue is not where knowledge is located, but
  what counts as knowledge

Engaging Interest Knowing is being

• we are our experiences
• the need for mindful and engaging educational
  experiences can lead to the rise of an
  intelligent classroom/collective

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Experiential Learning/Skill Practice Knowing is
becoming

• individual competency is necessary for the
  emergence of complex possibilities
• need for diversity among a systems/classrooms
  agents

New Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes Knowing is
belonging

• decentralized control and neighboring
  interactions help to open up spaces where
  students can feel they fit into a grander unity
• students who feel that they belong will be
  responsible to/for one another and become more
  capable of ambitious learning

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Practical Application Knowing is doing, being,
becoming, belonging

• all human social relationships occur in webs of
  interrelationships. Life is complex. The
  question, therefore, is not of the presence of
  complexity, but rather harnessing it for learning
  experiences
• at the heart of every complex classroom is a
  safe, caring, and inclusive environment that sees
  all students and teachers as valued and valuable
  members of the learning community

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UofA Complexity Education Seminar Group
(whose collaborative efforts lay behind the
Glossary, Annotated Bibliography, Webliography,
and Complexity Booklet) Susan Bowsfield
Andrew
Breckenridge Brent Davis Khadeeja
Ibrahim-Didi Mijung Kim Tammy Iftody Angus
McMurtry Immaculate Namukasa Jérôme Proulx
Kristopher Wells Sun Joo Hur (assisted with the
Complexity Booklet)