LEARNING FOR A COMPLEX WORLD: A LIFEWIDE CONCEPT OF LEARNING, EDUCATION AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
How we prepare students for the challenges that lie ahead of them as they grapple with a world that is becoming ever more complex, challenging, disruptive and uncertain, is the problem that unites all who are involved in education. This book argues that we can do more to help learners prepare themselves for the challenges that lie ahead by embracing a lifewide concept of learning and personal development. If lifelong learning occurs at different times in a person's life, lifewide learning occurs in different spaces and places simultaneously. Students' higher education experience may span three or more years in their lifelong learning journey but during that time they will inhabit many different spaces on and off the campus. In these different spaces they develop relationships, encounter different sorts of challenges, seize or miss opportunities, aspire to live a useful, productive and fulfilled life and seek to achieve their ambitions. By adopting a lifewide approach to education a university can help students be more aware of the significant learning and development they are gaining through such experiences and help them make their education more complete and relevant to their future life.
The book provides a rationale, underpinning philosophy, research base and practical examples of learning partnerships that enable lifewide learning to be recognised and valued by a university or college. It will appeal to anyone who is interested and involved in helping students maximise the learning and development they gain from their higher education experience. While the ideas and practices have been developed in a higher education setting they can be readily adapted to other educational contexts. To access the book click here
How we prepare students for the challenges that lie ahead of them as they grapple with a world that is becoming ever more complex, challenging, disruptive and uncertain, is the problem that unites all who are involved in education. This book argues that we can do more to help learners prepare themselves for the challenges that lie ahead by embracing a lifewide concept of learning and personal development. If lifelong learning occurs at different times in a person's life, lifewide learning occurs in different spaces and places simultaneously. Students' higher education experience may span three or more years in their lifelong learning journey but during that time they will inhabit many different spaces on and off the campus. In these different spaces they develop relationships, encounter different sorts of challenges, seize or miss opportunities, aspire to live a useful, productive and fulfilled life and seek to achieve their ambitions. By adopting a lifewide approach to education a university can help students be more aware of the significant learning and development they are gaining through such experiences and help them make their education more complete and relevant to their future life.
The book provides a rationale, underpinning philosophy, research base and practical examples of learning partnerships that enable lifewide learning to be recognised and valued by a university or college. It will appeal to anyone who is interested and involved in helping students maximise the learning and development they gain from their higher education experience. While the ideas and practices have been developed in a higher education setting they can be readily adapted to other educational contexts. To access the book click here
LIFEWIDE LEARNING, EDUCATION AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
The book is organised into four sections:-
A. Conceptual and synthesis articles
B. Biographical and autobiographical accounts
C. Research studies
D. Practice-oriented accounts
Published in 2012-13, it aims to strike a balance between academic scholarly and research-based contributions, and contributions authored by people who do not count themselves as academic but who can provide real-life stories that reveal their personal perspectives on lifewide learning and development. The book is free to download under a creative commons licence to anyone who sees value in these ideas.
To access the book click here
The book is organised into four sections:-
A. Conceptual and synthesis articles
B. Biographical and autobiographical accounts
C. Research studies
D. Practice-oriented accounts
Published in 2012-13, it aims to strike a balance between academic scholarly and research-based contributions, and contributions authored by people who do not count themselves as academic but who can provide real-life stories that reveal their personal perspectives on lifewide learning and development. The book is free to download under a creative commons licence to anyone who sees value in these ideas.
To access the book click here
LIFEWIDE LEARNING & EDUCATION IN UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES
This book is the proceedings of a conference held in 2014. It recognises and celebrates the many different ways in which universities and colleges are encouraging, supporting and recognising learning, personal development and achievement gained outside as well as inside the academic curriculum. The book contains thirteen descriptive accounts of institutional schemes and other approaches to support and recognise learners' lifewide learning and personal development, together with a small number of research and evaluation studies aimed at understanding how students are learning and developing through their lifewide experiences.
To access the book click here
Videos powerpoint presentations can be viewed on the 'Learning Lives' Conference website http://www.learninglives.co.uk/
This book is the proceedings of a conference held in 2014. It recognises and celebrates the many different ways in which universities and colleges are encouraging, supporting and recognising learning, personal development and achievement gained outside as well as inside the academic curriculum. The book contains thirteen descriptive accounts of institutional schemes and other approaches to support and recognise learners' lifewide learning and personal development, together with a small number of research and evaluation studies aimed at understanding how students are learning and developing through their lifewide experiences.
To access the book click here
Videos powerpoint presentations can be viewed on the 'Learning Lives' Conference website http://www.learninglives.co.uk/
EXPLORING LEARNING ECOLOGIES second edition October 2019
In nature an ecosystem comprises the complex set of relationships and interactions among the resources, habitats, and residents of an area for the purpose of living. This applies to people as well as other organisms. The ability of people to learn underlies the success of our species and learning is the core purpose of the ecologies we create to achieve the things we value. The idea of learning ecologies developed through this book, provides a more comprehensive and holistic view of learning and personal development than is normally considered in higher education. A learning ecology provides us with affordances, information, knowledge and other resources for learning, developing and achieving something we value. It includes the spaces we create to think and our processes, activities and practices for acting. It includes our relationships, networks, tools and technologies we use and enables us to connect and integrate our past and current experiences and learning and provides the foundation for our future learning. The concept is relevant to the Social Age and the book will be of value to teachers and other education professionals who are helping learners prepare for the complexities, uncertainties and disruptions of their future lives.
FIRST & SECOND EDITIONS
In nature an ecosystem comprises the complex set of relationships and interactions among the resources, habitats, and residents of an area for the purpose of living. This applies to people as well as other organisms. The ability of people to learn underlies the success of our species and learning is the core purpose of the ecologies we create to achieve the things we value. The idea of learning ecologies developed through this book, provides a more comprehensive and holistic view of learning and personal development than is normally considered in higher education. A learning ecology provides us with affordances, information, knowledge and other resources for learning, developing and achieving something we value. It includes the spaces we create to think and our processes, activities and practices for acting. It includes our relationships, networks, tools and technologies we use and enables us to connect and integrate our past and current experiences and learning and provides the foundation for our future learning. The concept is relevant to the Social Age and the book will be of value to teachers and other education professionals who are helping learners prepare for the complexities, uncertainties and disruptions of their future lives.
FIRST & SECOND EDITIONS
ECOLOGIES FOR LEARNING & PRACTICE provides the first systematic account of the ideas of learning ecologies and ecologies of practice and locates the two concepts within the context of our contemporary world. It focuses on how individuals and society are being presented with all manner of learning challenges arising from fluidities and disruptions, which extend across all domains of life. This book examines emerging ways of understanding and living purposively in these new fluidities and provides fresh perspectives on the way we learn and achieve in such dynamic contexts.
Providing an insight into the research of a range of internationally renowned contributors, this book explores diverse topics from the higher education and adult learning worlds. With its proposals for individual and institutional learning in the 21st century and concerns for our sustainability in a fragile world, Ecologies for Learning and Practice is an essential guide for all who seek to encourage and facilitate learning in a world that is fundamentally ecological in nature. To access this bok click here |
LEARNING TO BE PROFESSIONAL THROUGH A HIGHER EDUCATION
For many of us our work constitutes the most important for learning throughout our life. This book was created by the Centre for Education and Training (SCEPTrE) at the University of Surrey between 2009-11. It formed an important part of SCEPTrE's research, scholarship and applied educational work on the ways in which undergraduate students developed themselves through a concept of lifewide learning, personal and professional development. The purpose of the book is to explore how people learn to be professional and to become the sort of professional they want to be by bringing together a range of perspectives on what being professional means, and different approaches that are used to prepare learners for the complexities of a life-time of learning in professional work environments. Lifewide Education has now assumed responsibility for maintaining and developing the book.
To access the book click here
For many of us our work constitutes the most important for learning throughout our life. This book was created by the Centre for Education and Training (SCEPTrE) at the University of Surrey between 2009-11. It formed an important part of SCEPTrE's research, scholarship and applied educational work on the ways in which undergraduate students developed themselves through a concept of lifewide learning, personal and professional development. The purpose of the book is to explore how people learn to be professional and to become the sort of professional they want to be by bringing together a range of perspectives on what being professional means, and different approaches that are used to prepare learners for the complexities of a life-time of learning in professional work environments. Lifewide Education has now assumed responsibility for maintaining and developing the book.
To access the book click here