Pedagogies of Emergent Learning

Abstract

We distinguish emergent learning from "teleological" learning, which is learning for the sake of passing pre-defined tests and goals. While teleological learning may succeed or fail, emergent learning is always going on in ways that move pass disciplinary boundaries and anticipated results. To advance a perspective on pedagogies of emergent learning we analyze selected episodes from a program for children who volunteered to enroll. The sessions alternated between the after school club they attended and an art museum. The program engaged the children in basket weaving, in the analysis of baskets exhibited at the museum, and with ways in which flat materials can be shaped in 3D space along distinct surface curvatures. These experiences have inspired us to outline two streams of pedagogical ideas that seem to nurture and go along with the unforeseeable paths of emergent learning.