Ecosystem Approaches in Education
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The document discusses applying ecological principles from natural science to social science, specifically in the contexts of adult education services and online professional networks. It introduces the communicative ecology approach and network approach as methods for analyzing these systems as ecosystems. The goals are to understand how knowledge is accumulated, transformed, and flows through the systems by mapping the networks of actors, ties, and communicative actions between actors. Case studies will examine how vulnerability characteristics may restrict access to adult education opportunities, and analyze content sharing and turn-taking in online professional network threads. Workshop activities will involve collecting and mapping data on these systems using communicative ecology and network analysis tools and frameworks.
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Ecosystem Approaches in Education
- 2. Goals of the workshop • Applying ecological principles from natural science in social science? • Two case studies: adult education services for vulnerable young adults; online professional networks • Methods: Communicative Ecology approach; Network approach • Data collection • Unit of analysis and data representation • Representation of results • Interpreting the results with ecological principles
- 3. Ecology/ecosystem – not just the metaphor but transferrable principles and processes • Main goal of ecosystems: to permeate the transformative flow, Ecosystem productivity as an ability to accumulate, transform • Means: Network of interdepending species and the environment – connectivity, distribution, clusters Information flow Knowledge transformation Knowledge accumulation in the system
- 4. The network structure • The permeability of a AE service ecosystem will depend on the connections between services that pass access to transformative learning opportunities and the emerging side-paths and hubs in this network that can redirect the flows.
- 5. Ecology/ecosystem – not just the metaphor but transferrable principles and processes • Means: • Diversity of species. Variation of specimen within species Species as kind of similar elements/ objects/ subjects
- 7. What this network can be in education? • Learning opportunities • Services to enable access to services • Different type of learners that need these opportunities
- 9. Ecology/ecosystem – not just the metaphor but transferrable principles and processes • Means: Communication and interactions. • Within and between species. • Mutual awareness. • Direct and indirect (signals in environment). Information, Signals, Meanings INFORMATION SOURCES AND THEIR ACCESS
- 10. Ecology/ecosystem – not just the metaphor but transferrable principles and processes • Means: • Coalitions, distribution, clusters of species and organisms • Mutualisms: synergy, parasitism, competition Synergy of services Competition of goals
- 11. Ecology/ecosystem – not just the metaphor but transferrable principles and processes • Means: • Accommodation to specific conditions, fitness to niches • Feedback loop to and from the niches • Successive stages of ecosystems, dynamically changing Niches as abstract needs’ spaces to be fit NICHE as fitness space
- 12. Context 1: Vulnerable Adult Learners’ Access to Education • Big question: What creates vulnerability to access HE education? • STEPS: Defining AE Service Ecosystem components and its niches not accessible to vulnerable subjects • What are available AE opportunities – courses etc.? (kind of species) • What are vulnerability characteristics (kind of niche dimensions, that describe variability of individuals)
- 13. Context 1: Vulnerable Adult Learners’ Access to Education • What are available services for adult learning targeting active citizenship? What are available services for vulnerable people? (kind of flow paths to be activated by individuals to access AE opportunities)? • What are mutualisms between AE and vulnerability services in Service ecosystem? (synergies as flow enablers, antagonisms as flow constraints)? • How can the AE opportunities be accessed in case of different (combined) vulnerability characteristics? ( who are restricted from AE?)
- 14. AE ecosystem example • Vulnerability is appearing as a lack to fit to certain ecosystem services and results in restricting AE opportunities. CARETAKER OF MINORS REGIONAL ACCESS LIMIT EDUCATIONAL DEFICIENCY LIMIT SOCIAL SERVICES: - CHILDCARE SUPPORT - FREE CHILDCARE CENTER AT AE AE SERVICES: - DORMITORY - SCHOLARSHIP - TRAVEL ALLOWANCE - VALIDATION OF INFORMAL COMPETENCES ETC. - TRAINING AT WORKPLACES SECONDARY EDUCATION ADULT GYMNASIUM SECONDARY EDUCATION BASED VOCATIONAL EDUCATION CITIZENSHIP SERVICES: - FREE LANGUAGE COURSES LANGUAGE DEFICIENCY ETC. BASIC EDUCATION BASED APPLIED UNIVERSITY SOCIO-ECONOMIC DISADVANTAGE opportunities services vulnerability characteristics
- 15. What data are available? • Service descriptions, interviews with adult educators and vulnerable young adults -> network • Considering AE opportunities as actors and • AE related service enablers/constraints as ties • Vulnerability characteristics as actors In the end of the workshop we try to search and map such data collectively • Open questions: • How to structure data? • What can be seen from data? • What are limitations of data visualization?
- 16. Context 2: Online professional networks • Sample of threads from professional networks in healthcare and construction • Unit of analysis: turn-taking in thread • Inductive codes for content categories • Frequency of ties between inductive codes in threads • SNA data of sequential turn- takings in threads Csv file Gephy.org Social Network analysis tool
- 17. Context 2: Online professional networks • Sample of threads from professional networks in healthcare and construction • Unit of analysis: turn-taking in thread • Inductive codes for content categories • Frequency of ties between inductive codes in threads • SNA data of sequential turn- takings in threads Pata, Santos, Burchert, 2016
- 19. Context 1: Vulnerable Adult Learners’ Access to Education • Big question 2: How knowledge of AE opportunities and the whole AE Service ecosystem is communicated to individuals with vulnerability characteristics? • Subjects: AE providing stakeholders, AE policy-makers, vulnerable young adults • Focusing particularly on communication subjects’ (WHO?), -places (WHERE?), -contexts (WHEN? WHY?), - content (WHAT?) and existing/missing communication flows to AE opportunities and services
- 21. Communicative Ecology approach • There is not a single, agreed upon communicative ecology model • A set of ethnographic tools to examine how a new form of media or technology may or may not be integrated into existing communication patterns • Qualitative methods: observation, interviews, diaries, artifacts, content analysis, participatory design etc.
- 22. Communicative ecology data • Scope of data collection: holistic, external overview/internal perspective, space bounded, time-scope • Mapping: drawing the conceptual maps and creating or collecting oral or written descriptions • Person-perspective mapping • Community perspective mapping
- 23. Communicative Ecology characteristics • Context-dependent: • anchored in geographical/digital location and may move seamlessly between these locations; • contextually defined affordances of places that may be fit for some but hinder others • Successive dynamically changing stages: • dependent of its inhabitants’ lifestyles, stages may be socio-culturally animated • Activity dependent: • work/formal/leisure/domestic/personal
- 29. Communicative Ecology characteristics • Three intricately entwined and mutually constitutive layers: • Social (social structures, networks), discursive (themes or content) and technological (communication media, devices and applications, communication models) • preliminary step isolated layers’ analysis • Dimensions: • global/local, networked/collective, online/offline
- 30. Context 1: Vulnerable Adult Learners’ Access to Education • Big question 2: How knowledge of AE opportunities and the whole AE Service ecosystem is communicated to individuals with vulnerability characteristics? • Holistic – to vulnerability characteristics, not to particular stereotypes? • Externally observed? • Places, activities as person-perspectives who has certain vulnerability characteristics • Ecosystem stages, time-scope as learning periods
- 31. Workshop activity in pairs • Find one AE opportunity type in basic, secondary, vocational or higher education level (e.g. read a curriculum syllabus) • Find what information is available about access/restrictive constraints to this AE opportunity (in syllabus, at webpage, at ministry page) • Find what social and other services are available to support vulnerable young people access to this AE opportunity (at webpage, at ministry page) • What vulnerability characteristics are considered in accessing this AE opportunity • From where was information found?