Sustainable Flexible Learning

Sustainability:

Sustainability is the capacity to endure. In ecology, the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of sustainable biological systems. For humans, sustainability is the potential for long-term maintenance of wellbeing, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions.

The concept of sustainability is a broad, complex and highly controversial one. Sustainability requires us to understand the connections and dependencies that define our lives as a species on Earth. It requires us to understand the environment we live in, and the processes that make it work. It requires us to see systems as a whole, processes as interdependent structures, which cannot be taken and manipulated in isolation. We cannot, for instance, develop a system that takes in material and churns out a product, without answering questions like, "Where does the material input come from? How do we get it?” and, “Where do the products go?" It is the lack of such accountability that has left mountains of e-waste lining roadsides in poor communities in China. We need to address systems as a whole, understand the way our actions affect every aspect of the world around us.

Education for sustainability is about learning to think and act in ways that will safeguard the future wellbeing of people and our planet. Many contexts, topics or issues that students could explore have a connection to education for sustainability. There are opportunities in most areas for students to examine how the resources we use and what gets left over from living how we do affects the Earth. Teachers can introduce students to attitudes and values towards the environment and create opportunities to explore their own. Students will also have opportunities to take action on issues that are meaningful to them, exploring why this is important and the skills they need to be successful.

It is frequently stated that systems thinking and an interdisciplinary approach are essential themes of sustainable development and sustainability education (e.g. Cartese, 1992; President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD), 1994; Buckingham-Hatfield, 1996). Fulfilling this requirement will involve making connections between socio-politics, socio-economics and biophysics and something of a paradigm shift away from traditional disciplines towards more holistic ways of thinking. However, calls for an interdisciplinary approach may be largely rhetorical if new ways are not found to transcend conventional disciplinary structures and processes. There is a tendency for practitioners and policy-makers to retreat back to the single discipline, thus failing to capture the holistic nature of problems and their solutions (Clark et al., 1995). Although the value of sustainability is broadly acknowledged within the university community, interdisciplinary activities tend to be seen as secondary to discipline-based approaches (Cartese, 1992; Dyer, 1997) and there is a need to address perceived barriers among university officials that the topic of sustainability is too broad and incompatible with existing disciplinary "boxes" (Filho, 2000).

Education for sustainability can be assisted by an effective combination of mastery learning and discovery learning. A mastery learning environment is one where student responsibility and involvement are encouraged but where the teacher retains most control over curricular planning and sequencing (Carroll, 1963). Discovery learning emphasizes self-directed learning by students, with the teacher as a facilitator (Bruner, 1960; Rogers, 1969). The curriculum should facilitate mastery learning (through considerations of planned sequence, essential content, learning materials and format) while providing opportunities to benefit from discovery learning through curiosity, independence and enhanced personal meaning. However, there is an interaction between learning environment and anxiety, such that an open environment encouraging independent discovery tends to favour low anxiety learners, but high anxiety learners do better in a more structured setting. Therefore, to avoid alienating particular sections of the class it is advisable to avoid extreme teaching styles (Entwistle, 1981).

Since knowledge and understanding are both essential for educational progress, the curriculum should be based on firmly established anchoring ideas that relate to personal experience as far as possible "advance organisers" - (Ausubel et al., 1978). It is important to provide a clear structure, a logical progression and unifying themes, and to indicate these at the outset. However, surprises, problems and variety should also be built in so as to appeal to intuitive holists as well as serialists (Entwistle, 1981).

I found that my thoughts on sustainability and education are supported by an article written by:Warburton, K. (2003). Deep learning and education for sustainability. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 4(1), 44-44-56. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/205035337?accountid=39660.

There are various factors that affect the education system and adopting different strategies for providing education. Flexible learning is becoming the demand of the time because a truly effective learning environment is one that is fluid and responsive to the ever evolving needs of community members. The learning environment must limit the dependency on time and place for instructional opportunities to occur and must demonstrate relevancy for students. The environment created should be systemic and independent of changes in faculty and administrative personnel. There should be flexibility in providing access and study material according to the needs of the learners. We can become more sustainable practitioner by adopting flexible learning system in our education system…Supported by: Factors for success. (2006, Scholastic Administr@tor, 5(5), 30-30. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/199492202?accountid=39660

So, it is the need of the time to develop a relationship between flexible learning and sustainability. In my teaching of mathematics I would like to develop the concept of sustainability because mathematics is the only subject that has a direct or indirect relationship with all other subjects and concepts of life.

References:

·         Ausubel, D.P., Novak, J.S. and Hanesian, H. (1978), Educational Psychology: A Cognitive View,

·         Carroll, J.B. (1963), "A model of school learning", Teachers College Record, Vol. 64, pp. 723-33.

·         Cartese, A-D. (1992), "Education for an environmentally sustainable future", Environmental Science and Technology, Vol. 26 No. 6, pp. 1108-14.

·         Entwistle, N. (1981), Styles of Learning and Teaching, John Wiley, Chichester.

·         Filho, W.L. (2000), "Dealing with misconceptions on the concept of sustainability", International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 1, pp. 9-19.

What We Learnt From Flexible learning and how we apply this in Our Teaching:

Learning in the 21st century requires relevant and empowering experiences for all young AIbertans. There is a need to broaden what students learn, when rhey learn, where they learn, how they learn, and the rate at which they progress in achieving learning outcomes. Personalized learning involves the provision of high-quality and engaging learning opportunities that meet students' diverse learning needs, through flexible timing and pacing, in a range of learning environments with learning supports and services tailored to meet their needs (Alberta Education 2010, 14).
The concept of personalized learning to describe a setting in which various learning environments and technology platforms for learning are used to achieve flexible timing and pacing of instruction is described in Inspiring Action on Education (2010), Alberta Education's vision for policy directions, legislative change and transformational shifts for education in the province: (McRae, P. (2010). What does more flexible teaching and learning look like? ATA News, 45(8), 3-3. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/822914045?accountid=39660)

Flexible learning is not a new phenomenon. Students in higher education have for a long time chosen from a variety of courses, studied their textbooks in a variety of locations and times, and selected from a variety of resources in the library. Learning also takes place outside of the explicit course settings, as students interact with others or take part in events such as guest lecturers or debates or use built- in tutorials to help them learn how to use a software package. But the term flexible learning is the focus of a new wave of interest. ‘There must be more flexibility to meet the needs of the learner, through adaptability to different learner needs, learning pattern and settings, media combinations’(Van den Brande,1993:xxi).

 No flexibility option is very simple to carry out in practice .If an institution wishes to commit itself to flexible learning; it needs to make explicit choices as to which flexibility dimensions it will focus upon and what range of options will be feasible to offer within these dimensions. These dimensions include (collis, 1998b): Improving flexibility in location, programme, type of interactions, forms of communication, and study material etc.

Just as flexible learning is difficult to describe and multidimensional, it is also complex to implement it in practice from the perspective of the instructor, learner and educational institutions. Also it is very important that who wants flexible learning: full-time students, working persons or learners having little expenditure.

There are main four key components of flexible learning in higher education:  Institution, Implementation, Pedagogy, and Technology. So, defining the term flexible learning in a way that can be made concrete within of the institutional framework that will shape and steer it, implementation strategies that will make it happen, pedagogical approaches that will give it learning value and technology that serves as its tool. So, knowing about flexible learning will help me a lot in my further studies and with this approach everyone can be a learner at any stage of his age.

Flexible learning is learning with a no. of choices in terms of time, content, instructional approach, entry requirements and delivery of studying material. These are the main five dimensions of flexible learning:

The five dimensions of flexibility (Source: Collis and Moonen, 2004)

It is really very necessary to use flexible learning in our life whether we are student or lecturer because today is the time when everyone is quite busy with their schedule and we cannot make anybody fix for a particular time .So it is the necessity of the time to use the flexible approach in our life to get the best of the time. Being a Mathematics Teacher Flexible Learning has become more important to me.Before this I was of the view that in mathematics only Face -To-Face Teaching and Learning is the most effective but after studying about Flexible learning I came to know about Online, Distant and Blended Learning and How these Types of Learning can be as effective as face to face learning and even more than that. I want to use this flexible approach in my further studies and teaching.