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GLOSSARY INQUIRY: CLASSROOM
For complexivists, the classroom is considered a collective learner, not just a collection of learners.
The conventional understanding of classroom is as a space that contains individual learners to whom a teacher imparts knowledge. In contrast, for complexivists, the classroom is defined by the dynamic relational qualities between and among students, teachers and larger systems such as the community, culture and biosphere.
Indeed, the classroom collective itself can be seen as self-organizing, adaptive and thus complex learning system. Interactions between students and the teachers give rise to an emergent classroom dynamic that cannot be reduced to the characteristics of the individuals within that class. (That is why, for example, a teacher can get along with individual students but still say that the class as a whole “behaves badly”.) Unfortunately, this classroom dynamic often centres on matters of discipline or social positioning/fitting in. The goal for complexivists in education is to prompt classroom dynamics to focus on or engage with the subject matter. Harnessing classroom dynamics in this manner creates the opportunity for rich collective and individual learning.
See related terms: Learning, Learner, Nestedness, Complex System, Culture, Self-Organization, Adaptation, Emergence, Conditions for Emergence.
