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Emergent-learning arrangements may represent an effective method for establishing reading prerequisite skills with children exhibiting academic deficits as they allow for maximum gains with minimal training (Critchfield Behavior Analysis in Practice, 11(3), 206–210, 2018; Sidman The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 25(1), 5–17, 2009). The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an emergent learning procedure to teach letter–sound blends to children at-risk for reading failure. Three participants completed simple discrimination training with compound class-specific consequences. The S+ included a correctly oriented lowercase letter blend and was presented with two incorrectly oriented versions of the same letter blend. Selections of the S+ resulted in the presentation of the compound class-specific consequence that included the corresponding printed uppercase letter blend and the dictated letter sounds. Following simple discrimination training, the emergence of six arbitrary relations was assessed. Small increases in performance were observed during initial equivalence tests. Following modifications to the baseline discrimination procedures, emergence of all targeted relations was observed in four of six evaluations across three participants. These findings serve as a demonstration of the potential utility of equivalence-based instruction to establish academically relevant skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard deep learning algorithms require differentiating large nonlinear networks, a process that is slow and power-hungry. Electronic contrastive local learning networks (CLLNs) offer potentially fast, efficient, and fault-tolerant hardware for analog machine learning, but existing implementations are linear, severely limiting their capabilities. These systems differ significantly from artificial neural networks as well as the brain, so the feasibility and utility of incorporating nonlinear elements have not been explored. Here, we introduce a nonlinear CLLN--an analog electronic network made of selfadjusting nonlinear resistive elements based on transistors. We demonstrate that the system learns tasks unachievable in linear systems, including XOR (exclusive or) and nonlinear regression, without a computer. We find our decentralized system reduces modes of training error in order (mean, slope, curvature), similar to spectral bias in artificial neural networks. The circuitry is robust to damage, retrainable in seconds, and performs learned tasks in microseconds while dissipating only picojoules of energy across each transistor. This suggests enormous potential for fast, low-power computing in edge systems like sensors, robotic controllers, and medical devices, as well as manufacturability at scale for performing and studying emergent learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to an invitation to integrate science and art pedagogy, science and dance students enrolled in specific disciplinary courses, collaboratively produced choreography based on scientific principles. This paper reports students' experience of this process. Science students reported an increased understanding of concepts, while dance students found inspiration for choreography within scientific concepts. Tensions and misconceptions were evident in the process with respect to disciplinary language, the notion of scientific thought, and the level of physical awareness. The relationship between movement and forms of knowledge production in science was investigated as well. The paper ends with recommendations for future classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A guarantee instrument is a credit enhancement tool that can enable philanthropies to unlock millions or billions of dollars for societal impact. The Community Investment Guarantee Pool, created in 2019 by a collaboration of philanthropies and allied impact investors, or guarantors, is a novel initiative that uses guarantees to leverage the balance sheets of foundations and other institutional investors for enhancing the credit of intermediaries in the affordable housing, small-business, and climate markets. This article describes the pool and shares early challenges and insights related to the underlying theory of change. The pool is using developmental evaluation and emergent learning to surface insights for philanthropic and other impact investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard emergency‐management procedures offer guidance on how organizations can improve their handling of all types of emergencies. However, such a generalization undermines uncertainties and oversimplifies the complexity of real work practices during an emergency response operation (ERO). The handling of the COVID‐19 pandemic highlights how uncertainty and escalating consequences reinforce the need for resilience in EROs. To illustrate the key elements of our suggested approach and its practical implications, we discuss the issues in light of a case study related to a COVID‐19 outbreak on a floating oil rig in the North Sea. The analysis reveals several instances of creative problem solving, and individual and collective efforts beyond the scope of the standard procedures. It also underlines how the shortcomings of resource allocation and over‐planning might lead to inflexibility, thus harming EROs' efficiency. Our analysis highlights that the key to resilient EROs lies in robust coordination, the ability to improvise, transparency, and trusting communication between the actors involved. Greater focus on network building—proactively maintained through regular training and exercise activities—strengthens resilience in emergency‐management systems. All these traits link to the Norwegian term "samhandling," a notion which is here proposed to summarize and connect these resilience capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2019-2020, the PA Heart & Soul Learning Project sought greater clarity about the direct experience of participants in a humanities-driven community planning pilot in three Pennsylvania locations. The Learning Project concluded that an emergence-focused and humanities-driven approach can produce sustainable community plans informed by resident voices, particularly those who have been historically marginalized. Perhaps more important, allowing emergent learning to shape strategy led to stronger engagement by residents, improved funder-community relationships, and new ways of showing up for PA Humanities and its partners. This article presents researchers' findings about the impact of the model; describes how PA Humanities, a nonprofit partner of the National Endowment of the Humanities, is reformulating its community-building strategy based on these findings; and explores potential lessons for place-based grantmakers seeking inclusive, people-centered community change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: During transport to and from outdoor education field trips, students experience a period of togetherness and minimal imposed structure. Transport time also appears to align with Oldenburg's third places, where people spend time together without a particular agenda. Purpose: To examine educators' perspectives on the contribution that transport time makes to OE programs through an analysis featuring the characteristics of third places. Methodology/Approach: The perspectives of 16 outdoor educators (four each from New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, and Scotland) were gathered using a semi-structured interview protocol. Data were analyzed using a deductive process based on the third place characteristics; four unforeseen themes also emerged. Findings/Conclusions: Findings highlighted the centrality of conversation between students and between students and educators; the low profile of transport time; and a sense of excitement and fun. Students controlled the intensity of their "presence" through the use of devices (where allowed) and by selecting their sitting position in the vehicle. Implications: The findings show that transport time allowed students to have a broad variety of conversations that could be variously silly and fun, deep and introspective. Educators are encouraged to more carefully consider the contribution that transport time makes to their programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have examined Revans' problem-solving praxeology in many contexts but have not fully explored the concept in the case of physical co-location. Hence, we focussed on investigating Revans' conceptualisation in a co-located context by paying particular attention to the 'different forms of learning' that emerged from it. The research setting for this study involved two coworking spaces in Bangalore, India, whose constituents were co-located start-ups and established enterprises. Held from January to March 2020, the study involved conducting exploratory, semi-structured interviews with twelve firms. The findings suggested that in a co-located environment, a) firms learnt 'vicariously' from a rich, external knowledge base during the enquiry-led Alpha phase b) firms learnt 'experientially', through learning by doing and reflecting in the implementation-focussed Beta phase c) firms learnt through the process of 'emergence' that resulted from personal reflection and team interaction, in the revelatory Gamma phase. This study lends a novel direction in acknowledging that vicarious learning, that is, learning through the experience of others, serves as a starting point for problem-solving in a co-located context. We demonstrate that firms gain familiarity with the problem through vicarious sources, that is, from those experienced co-located firms who had journeyed on a similar path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do people need to learn to engage actively in social action for neighbourhood improvement or development? How important is emergent learning relative to planned learning in this context? Where does first-person knowledge fit into the body of knowledge required for success in bringing about change for the better in neighbourhoods through community-based projects? These are some of the questions raised by the development of a programme of knowledge and skills for active participation in community-based neighbourhood renewal projects. The programme was christened 'Action Learning Together' but was quickly abbreviated to the ALTogether programme. It was a programme that blended action learning with self-managed learning, that capitalised on the different knowledge and skills of different participants and that recognised that the knowledge and skills needed for each project were likely to be significantly different from that needed to tackle the projects of other participants on the programme. This paper focuses on the philosophy or theory underpinning the programme and issues raised in a number of areas including the relative weight attached to emergent and planned learning, the blending of action learning with self-managed learning and the applicability of self-managed action learning for social change in contexts like this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The risk and uncertainty of entrepreneurial activity is high, and failures are common. The existing literature has emphasized that serial entrepreneurs can learn from failures, but studies on how learning affects strategic actions in subsequent entrepreneurship activities are rare. This paper uses the strategic incrementalism perspective to focus on emergent learning and changes in strategy for serial entrepreneurs with failure experience. The empirical results demonstrate that with more intensive emergent learning, serial entrepreneurs make more substantial strategic changes in subsequent entrepreneurship endeavors, and entrepreneurial performance can moderate such relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We evaluated long-term emergent social learning processes within transboundary river basin management in the Zambezi basin. • We found the concept of learning space helpful to evaluate long-term emergent social learning processes and outcomes. • Emergent processes in the Zambezi basin were key in the development of formal structures for basin-wide management. • Emergent processes are relevant for expediting formal processes by stimulating physical and structural learning spaces. Social learning in collaborative processes is considered important for addressing complex natural resource dilemmas and for supporting multi-actor interactions in joint problem framing, and the co-construction of solutions. While social learning is often presented as a normative approach for stimulating shared understanding among multiple actors, little is known about how long-term emergent social learning processes occur. In this paper, we analyse a long-term emergent social learning process within transboundary river basin management. To this end, we apply the concept of the learning space - meaning arenas for interaction, deliberation and re-framing - as a lens for evaluating emergent social learning processes. Results show that in the Zambezi Basin, social learning in emergent processes occurs in stages and is triggered by various factors that result in collective outcomes throughout the process. Emergent social learning processes were triggered by structural reorganization processes, natural calamities, the influences of cooperating partners and international frameworks. Over time, the spaces for interaction and deliberation led to the reframing of basin management practices and the subsequent development of new institutions. In addition, social learning outcomes included increased relational capacities of national and regional actors and trust, but also mistrust and power issues. While emergent long-term processes are difficult to evaluate, our findings reveal that the concept of the learning space provides a structure for assessing long-term emergent social learning process outcomes, and thus, can provide a broader understanding of processes needed in designing long-term management practices or institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present research was to clarify further the necessary and sufficient conditions that establish derived stimulus relations. Under more complex conditions (i.e., training involving four, four-member stimulus classes), past research has demonstrated that untested stimulus relations did not emerge when recently trained relational responding was extinguished. The present research examined whether such emergence was more likely under less complex conditions. In experiment 1, untested equivalence relations emerged in extinction using a training structure with three, three-member classes. In experiment 2, untested symmetrical relations emerged in extinction using a training structure with four, four-member classes. The necessary and sufficient conditions that establish derived stimulus classes seem to depend on environmental complexity. Presented are the implications of these findings for conceptualizing derived relational responding as a generalized, or higher-order, response class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study set out to explore the use of the Internet in peer-to-peer learning environments within vocational education and training and to investigate whether this approach could replace traditional teaching and learning. A mixed methods design, including classroom observations, design experiments, interviews and questionnaires was adopted. Although this study represents a mid-term report on work in progress only, a number of observations can nevertheless be made about the process of conducting research within Further Education (FE) colleges. Whilst, traditionally, the pursuit of research is not a priority within FE colleges, this study has encouraged lecturers in Highbury College, Portsmouth, United Kingdom to trial a research-based approach to curriculum development. They have worked as co-researchers in the study from the conceptual phase to implementation. This paper outlines the process of conducting research in partnership with Business lecturers at Highbury College. It presents preliminary findings based on the researcher and lecturers’ reflections on the research methodology and process followed over a period of 9 months.

Initial research on learning in massive open online courses (MOOCs) primarily focused participation patterns and participant experiences. More recently, research has addressed learning theories and offered case studies of different pedagogical designs for MOOCs. Based on a meta-analysis and synthesis of the research literature, this study develops a conceptual model of prominent theories and applications of MOOCs. It proposes a continuum of MOOC learning design that consolidates previous theories into a tripartite scheme corresponding to primary types of MOOCs including content-based, community/tasked-based, and network-based applications. A series of MOOC hybrids are analyzed to demonstrate the value of this model while also clarifying appropriate applications and significant design challenges for MOOCs.

Initial studies of learning in massive open online courses (MOOCs) primarily focused on participation patterns and participant experiences. More recently, research has addressed learning theories and offered case studies of different pedagogical designs for MOOCs. Based on a meta-analysis and synthesis of the research literature, this study develops a conceptual model of prominent theories and applications of MOOCs. It proposes a continuum of MOOC learning design that consolidates previous theories into a tripartite scheme corresponding to primary types of MOOCs including content-based, community/tasked-based, and network-based applications. A series of MOOC hybrids are analyzed to demonstrate the value of this model while also clarifying appropriate applications and significant design challenges for MOOCs. Results indicate that hybrid design may support the greatest diversity of learners and scaffold engagement with networked and emergent learning contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instructional designers plan current student experiences that promote future com-petence. There is a wide agreement that current instruction should allow students to "go beyond the information given" by demonstrating novel understanding. Less clear is what instructional efforts yield what specific emergent knowledge. Under these conditions, emergent learning remains an untestable, and therefore unscientific, concept. We describe a framework that creates emergent learning in both novice and experienced learners, and in many academic subjects, specifying preconditions that will yield specific emergent learning outcomes, and thereby promoting a desirable level of prospective precision in the planning of future student competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is ironic that the management of education has become more closed while learning has become more open, particularly over the past 10-20 years. The curriculum has become more instrumental, predictive, standardized, and micro-managed in the belief that this supports employability as well as the management of educational processes, resources, and value. Meanwhile, people have embraced interactive, participatory, collaborative, and innovative networks for living and learning. To respond to these challenges, we need to develop practical tools to help us describe these new forms of learning which are multivariate, self-organised, complex, adaptive, and unpredictable. We draw on complexity theory and our experience as researchers, designers, and participants in open and interactive learning to go beyond conventional approaches. We develop a 3D model of landscapes of learning for exploring the relationship between prescribed and emergent learning in any given curriculum. We do this by repeatedly testing our descriptive landscapes (or footprints) against theory, research, and practice across a range of case studies. By doing this, we have not only come up with a practical tool which can be used by curriculum designers, but also realised that the curriculum itself can usefully be treated as emergent, depending on the dynamics between prescribed and emergent learning and how the learning landscape is curated.

Emergent learning describes learning that occurs when participants interact and distribute knowledge, where learning is self-directed, and where the learning destination of the participants is largely unpredictable (Williams, Karousou, & Mackness, 2011). These notions of learning arise from the topologies of social networks and can be applied to the learning that occurs in educational institutions. However, the question remains whether institutional frameworks can accommodate the opposing notion of “cooperative systems” (Shirky, 2005), systems that facilitate the creation of user-generated content, particularly as first-year education cohorts are novice groups in the sense of not yet having developed university-level knowledge. This paper theorizes an emergent learning assessment item (Flickr photo-narratives) within a first-year media arts undergraduate education course. It challenges the conventional models of student–lecturer interaction by outlining a methodology of teaching for emergence that will facilitate student-directed and open-ended learning. The paper applies a matrix with four parameters (teacher-directed content/student-directed content; non-interactive learning task/interactive learning framework). This matrix is used as a conceptual space within which to investigate how a learning task might be constructed to afford the best opportunities for emergent learning. It explores the strategies that interactive artists utilize for participant engagement (particularly the relationship between the artist and the audience in the creation of interactive artworks) and suggests how these strategies might be applied to emergent generative outcomes with first-year education students. We build upon Williams et al.’s framework of emergent learning, where “content will not be delivered to learners but co-constructed with them” (De Freitas & Conole, as cited in Williams et al., 2011, p. 40), and the notion that in constructing emergent learning environments “considerable effort is required to ensure an effective balance between openness and constraint” (Williams et al., 2011, p. 39). We assert that for a learning event within a Web 2.0 environment to be considered emergent, not only does there need to be an effective balance between teacher-directed content and student-directed content for knowledge to be open, creative, and distributed by learners (Williams et al., 2011), but there also need to be multiple opportunities for interaction and communication between students within the system and that these “drive the emergence of structures that are more complex than the mere parts of that system” (Sommerer & Mignonneau, 2002, p. 161).

This paper describes emergent learning and situates it within learning networks and systems and the broader learning ecology of Web 2.0. It describes the nature of emergence and emergent learning and the conditions that enable emergent, self-organised learning to occur and to flourish. Specifically, it explores whether emergent learning can be validated and self-correcting and whether it is possible to link or integrate emergent and prescribed learning. It draws on complexity theory, communities of practice, and the notion of connectivism to develop some of the foundations for an analytic framework, for enabling and managing emergent learning and networks in which agents and systems co-evolve. It then examines specific cases of learning to test and further develop the analytic framework.The paper argues that although social networking media increase the potential range and scope for emergent learning exponentially, considerable effort is required to ensure an effective balance between openness and constraint. It is possible to manage the relationship between prescriptive and emergent learning, both of which need to be part of an integrated learning ecology.

This study set out to explore the use of the Internet in peer-to-peer learning environments within vocational education and training and to investigate whether this approach could replace traditional teaching and learning. A mixed methods design, including classroom observations, design experiments, interviews and questionnaires was adopted. Although this study represents a mid-term report on work in progress only, a number of observations can nevertheless be made about the process of conducting research within Further Education (FE) colleges. Whilst, traditionally, the pursuit of research is not a priority within FE colleges, this study has encouraged lecturers in Highbury College, Portsmouth, United Kingdom to trial a research-based approach to curriculum development. They have worked as co-researchers in the study from the conceptual phase to implementation. This paper outlines the process of conducting research in partnership with Business lecturers at Highbury College. It presents preliminary findings based on the researcher and lecturers’ reflections on the research methodology and process followed over a period of 9 months. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to report on the nature of student learning resulting from an open facilitation approach to solo activities. Three key moments of facilitator intervention were identified at which the facilitator was encouraged to take a step back from directing the experience. They are the pre-activity brief, the mid-activity visit and the post-activity review. Findings suggest that participants' learning focused on their raised self-awareness and social relationships. Raised spiritual awareness was also identified and this was closely linked to a connection with the landscape and eco-system. Evidence was also identified for emergent learning to have occurred that is not normally identified in the solo discourse. The findings suggest that participants on solo activities do not require a facilitator to tell them what they should be learning and that they will identify for themselves outcomes that are personally meaningful and important. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: This article reports on efforts to create an administrative structure for learning and teaching multimodal composing that depends not on the leadership of a new media writing expert but on the collaboration of relative novices organized according to principles of emergent learning. Based on four years’ experience in a grant-funded program that supports new media composing in multiple disciplines, I report on the benefits of a bottom-up, emergent approach while raising questions about the long-term sustainability of such an approach. I conclude by describing efforts to create more top-down support for new media composing, while remaining committed to serving the teachers and students who are the real agents of change. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Emergent learning describes learning that occurs when participants interact and distribute knowledge, where learning is self-directed, and where the learning destination of the participants is largely unpredictable (Williams, Karousou, & Mackness, 2011). These notions of learning arise from the topologies of social networks and can be applied to the learning that occurs in educational institutions. However, the question remains whether institutional frameworks can accommodate the opposing notion of "cooperative systems" (Shirky, 2005), systems that facilitate the creation of user-generated content, particularly as first-year education cohorts are novice groups in the sense of not yet having developed university-level knowledge. This paper theorizes an emergent learning assessment item (Flickr photo-narratives) within a first-year media arts undergraduate education course. It challenges the conventional models of student-lecturer interaction by outlining a methodology of teaching for emergence that will facilitate student-directed and open-ended learning. The paper applies a matrix with four parameters (teacher-directed content/student-directed content; non-interactive learning task/interactive learning framework). This matrix is used as a conceptual space within which to investigate how a learning task might be constructed to afford the best opportunities for emergent learning. It explores the strategies that interactive artists utilize for participant engagement (particularly the relationship between the artist and the audience in the creation of interactive artworks) and suggests how these strategies might be applied to emergent generative outcomes with first-year education students. We build upon Williams et al.'s framework of emergent learning, where "content will not be delivered to learners but co-constructed with them" (De Freitas & Conole, as cited in Williams et al., 2011, p. 40), and the notion that in constructing emergent learning environments "considerable effort is required to ensure an effective balance between openness and constraint" (Williams et al., 2011, p. 39). We assert that for a learning event within a Web 2.0 environment to be considered emergent, not only does there need to be an effective balance between teacher-directed content and student-directed content for knowledge to be open, creative, and distributed by learners (Williams et al., 2011), but there also need to be multiple opportunities for interaction and communication between students within the system and that these "drive the emergence of structures that are more complex than the mere parts of that system" (Sommerer & Mignonneau, 2002, p. 161). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes emergent learning and situates it within learning networks and systems and the broader learning ecology of Web 2.0. It describes the nature of emergence and emergent learning and the conditions that enable emergent, self-organised learning to occur and to flourish. Specifically, it explores whether emergent learning can be validated and self-correcting and whether it is possible to link or integrate emergent and prescribed learning. It draws on complexity theory, communities of practice, and the notion of connectivism to develop some of the foundations for an analytic framework, for enabling and managing emergent learning and networks in which agents and systems co-evolve. It then examines specific cases of learning to test and further develop the analytic framework. The paper argues that although social networking media increase the potential range and scope for emergent learning exponentially, considerable effort is required to ensure an effective balance between openness and constraint. It is possible to manage the relationship between prescriptive and emergent learning, both of which need to be part of an integrated learning ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we offer a non-typical snapshot of interaction from the field of Reality TV fandom to explore new ways of conceiving the relationship between empathic response, ethical awareness and emergent possibilities for learning as conditioned by online participatory cultures. We provide a limit-case analysis of an instance of situated ethical action among members of the fan forum Television Without Pity (TWoP) to explore the context-sensitive and unpredictable nature of learning in fan communities characterized by collective (no one knows everything), participatory (everybody knows something), and emergent (arising in the interactions between the knower and the world-to-be-known) forms of knowledge. We suggest that learning in the context of this participatory fan culture involves an ongoing willingness to respond to triggers, make discernments and articulate perspectives within a virtually real community of others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ways that social work practice learning, through community development projects, can help take forward the local sustainability agenda. The first part establishes links between three pedagogic areas: education for sustainability, student learning in the community and social work practice learning. The second section presents a case study of a small-scale, sustainability initiative at the University of Plymouth, UK. The paper negotiates an inherent tension between a broad and all encompassing conceptualisation of education for sustainability, and the specific approach to professional training prescribed for social workers and teachers. The tension mirrors the multi-leveled dimensions of the sustainability initiative under discussion. The case study considers the emergent, methodological approach to learning that was adopted. Prescribed outcomes were actively resisted and the paper argues that this approach carries merit. In closing, aspects of partnership working amongst the community development agencies and university, and future trajectories of the project are elucidated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study focuses on the observation of learning processes as they emerge in the context of conversations among two students in three successive tasks designed to foster conceptual change in proportional reasoning. The three tasks were set according to a pre-test treatment post-test paradigm. In the pre-test and the post-test tasks, the two students solved individually several items in the presence of an experimenter. In the treatment task, the two students worked as a dyad to solve similar items; they used a balance to check their conclusions and subsequently continued solving the items when the weighing did not match their expectations. We adopt a micro-genetic approach and develop new analytical tools to observe what happened in the conversation (both socially and cognitively). Throughout the three successive tasks, we observed the interplay between tools, peers, experimenter, and task demands and how they are managed through the rules of conversation. We identified four processes that involved the emergence of new high-order strategies from coordinated actions distributed among peers, the guidance of the experimenter in coordinating actions, and ways the participation in solving a previous task was actualized in a successive one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]