Integrating Life-Informed Complexity for Practical Professional and Higher Education

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This session demonstrates how incorporating life-informed complexity into adult learning practices enhances the practicality of professional and higher education. Often misunderstood as a utilitarian pursuit of means-to-ends compatibility, practicality can lead to instrumentalized learning. Yet, true practicality means directing attention to the consequence of inquiry (Dewey, 1908/2007), inherently resisting the fascist desire that homogenizes diverse ways of knowing and reduces complexity (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994). We propose learning practices that prioritize life-informed complexity in various education contexts, including incidental and formal learning in higher education, as well as medical and engineering education. Our goal is to restore the genuine meaning of practicality enabling learners to resist the perpetuation of oppressive tendencies like cynicism towards systemic change.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Complexity Theories in Education

Chair

• Aliki Nicolaides, University of Georgia

Discussant

• Sean Justice, Texas State University

Papers

• "Figuring It Out on the Fly” Learning Through Complexity in Clinical Practice During COVID-19 - Henriette Lundgren, University of Georgia; Dimitrios Papanagnou, Thomas Jefferson University

• “I Am Going to Sound Like a Hippie, But”: Desiring Difference for Sociotechnical Engineering Education - Ahreum Lim, Arizona State University

• Capturing the Wholeness of Learning Process in Complex Environments: A Fractal Analysis - Jill Jinks, Stetson University; Karen E. Watkins, University of Georgia

• Facilitators Fostering Half-Baked Knowledge: World Building in a Graduate-Level Course - Neal Herr, University of Georgia; Trisha Barefield, Kansas State University; Aliki Nicolaides, University of Georgia