Deep Learning Ecologies: An Invitation to Complex Teaching and Learning

A healthy ecology supports the growth and the regeneration of plants and animals, just as a deep learning ecology supports human learning. But teachers who want to set conditions for transformative learning face countless obstacles. This little book can help! Each module invites you to consider an aspect of a deep learning ecology and offers a useful tool that can help you set conditions for deep learning. You are invited to connect theory to practice by engaging in iterative cycles of inquiry called Adaptive Action as you ask three questions: 1) What's happening? 2) So what does it mean? 3) Now what is the next wise action? Based in the principles of the field of human systems dynamics (HSD), the foundation of this book stands in a paradigm of teaching and learning that recognizes the "human nature" of learning. Having worked with Glenda Eoyang, the founder of the field of HSD, Patterson and Holladay have first-hand knowledge and experience applying these principles in classrooms and schools. Their work goes beyond merely describing the phenomenon of system-wide learning, however. The models and methods in this book offer deep insights about seeing and understanding the system around you. Then those models and methods inform your planning and action to shape the patterns of learning in your human system. Leslie Patterson, PhD, spent her early career teaching young people to read and write. Then she moved to the university level, teaching teachers about shaping literacy among learners. She integrates her work on literacy with HSD-based principles of systems-based reform. Royce Holladay, MEd, went from classroom instruction to administration in public education. She worked for 13 years as a district-level administrator working on school reform from administrative, organizational, and policy perspectives. Together Patterson and Holladay offer a whole-system approach to school reform. From the boardroom to the superintendent's office to the principal's office to the classroom--they have experience and expertise in using HSD to shape patterns of teaching and learning at all levels of a school district. This book has answers you can use. Take advantage of all it offers in understanding and shaping patterns of teaching and learning in human systems.