Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education
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Complexity, Complexity Reduction, and ‘Methodological Borrowing’ in Educational Inquiry
No full textComplex systems are open, recursive, organic, nonlinear and emergent. Reconceptualizing curriculum, teaching and learning in complexivist terms foregrounds the unpredictable and generative qualities of educational processes, and invites educators to value that which is unexpected and/or beyond their control. Nevertheless, concepts associated with simple systems persist in contemporary discourses of educational inquiry, and continue to inform practices of complexity reduction through which researchers and other practitioners seek predictability and control. In this essay, I examine a number of theoretical, practical and historical dimensions of complexity reduction in education and their implications for inquiry and action. I focus in particular on the ways in which some education researchers have reduced the complexity of the objects of their inquiries through ‘methodological borrowings’ from other research endeavors, such as borrowing a version of ‘evidence-based’ research from medical science, and borrowing the ‘triangulation’ metaphor from surveying
On the Recursion between Teaching and Learning
No full textNew curriculum reform looks at the relationship between teaching and learning from new perspectives. Contrary to the traditional linear view of instruction, teaching and learning encourage ongoing recursions in the perspective of complexity theory. The recursion is embodied in different aspects: in essence, it is mutual understanding between teacher and student. As a result, it leads to the continuous transformation of the roles of teacher and student. In this sense, the relation between teacher and student becomes dynamic, while the teacher’s authority becomes relative
Complexity and the Culture of Curriculum
No full textThis paper has two main foci: (1) the history of curriculum design, and (2) implications from the new sciences of chaos and complexity for the development of new forms of curriculum design and teaching implementation. Regarding the first focus, the paper posits that there exist—to use Wittgenstein’s phrase—‘family resemblances’ between Peter Ramus’ 16th century curriculum design and that of Ralph Tyler in the 20th century. While this 400-year linkage is by no means linear, there are overlapping strands from Ramus to Comenius to the Puritans to colonial New England to Horace Mann to Ralph Tyler. What unites these strands, all belonging to the Protestant Methodization movement that swept across northern Europe into colonial America and the USA, is the concept of Method. Taylor’s ‘time and motion’ studies set the stage for Tyler’s Basic Principles of curriculum design—those starting with set goals and concluding with measured assessment. The second focus draws on the new sciences of chaos and complexity to develop a different sense of curriculum and instruction—open, dynamic, relational, creative, and systems oriented. The paper concludes with an integration of the rational/scientific with the aesthetic/ spiritual into a view of education and curriculum informed by complexity
Turning to the Pedagogy of “Listening”
No full text“Lecturing” pedagogy puts teachers’ lecturing at the core of education. Both knowledge and norms become the “goods” waiting to be transmitted to students. This pedagogy keeps a control- based axiology and mirror-based epistemology. The “listening” pedagogy puts teachers’ listening and mutual listening between teachers and students, among students as the core of education. On the level of axiology, it makes “good listeners” i.e. persons with freedom as the aim of education, who integrate morality and creativity. On the level of epistemology, it sees educational process as the cooperative creation of knowledge. On the level of methodology, it integrates listening, description, interpretation, and action as a whole. In today’s China, educational fields should turn to the paradigm of a “listening” pedagogy
Fitting Teacher Education in/to/for an Increasingly Complex World
No full textOriented by complexity thinking and informed by a selection of “game-changing” research findings in the educational literature, we describe a set of innovations to a teacher education program. These innovations include broad awareness of theories of learning, specialization across levels, integration of pre-service and in-service offerings, a developmental curriculum, and deep partnerships with schools
