Purpose: This paper aims to provide an overview of the development of learning organization concepts from the perspective of Dr. Peter Senge and presents an interesting evolution of his systems oriented view of the learning organization field over three decades. Design/methodology/approach: Through a conversation with a thought leading scholar,…

Change is a constant presence within today's higher education institutions. Local faculty professional development opportunities may provide avenues for enacting these organizational changes through personal continuous improvement. While working to meet these organizational priorities, it is also essential that professional development must…

Many edusemiotic writers have begun to closely align edusemitoics to biosemiotics; the basic logic being that, if the life process can be defined through the criterion of semiotic engagement, so can the learning process (Stables in J Curr Stud 38(4):373-387, 2006). Thus, the ecological concept of umwelt has come to be a central area of…

Complexity Theory (CT) provides a useful framework for understanding Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Using an ecological model, CT studies the dynamic processes of change and emergent outcomes over time, tracing back how trajectories may have been affected by changes in and interactions among multiple variables and subsystems. Language learners…

Urie Bronfenbrenner is almost certainly best known for his theoretical writings about the ecology of human development. His interest in theory was not, however, separate from his practical concerns, particularly those related to early education and care of children and the families and teachers who interact with them. From the role that he played…

The rhetoric of the reading wars has become more than just an armchair academic debate, but is encoded now in the very laws, house and senate bills, and legislative policies of the majority of the states. In turn, these policies are powered by staggering sums of money such as the 90-million-dollar investment of Fulton County, Georgia in a revamp…

The International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) launched a global project in 2017 to infuse systems thinking into chemistry education, motivated in part by the desire to help equip chemists and citizens to better address the complex, global challenges our society currently faces. One important early outcome of the IUPAC Systems…

Language classrooms are complex systems, but theory often simplifies these processes making researching effectiveness difficult. Assemblage theory -- a theory of complexity in the social sciences -- allows us to examine complexity in the language classroom. In this paper, I present an account of the language classroom that captures the complexity,…

Collaborations and partnerships across disciplines are becoming increasingly recognized as valuable endeavors toward solving emerging global challenges in our rapidly changing world. Thus, it is crucial to create STEM educational strategies that infuse diverse and interconnected perspectives among scientists, policymakers, and the general public.…

James P. Lantolf is George and Jane Greer Professor Emeritus of Language Acquisition and Applied Linguistics and former director of the Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research at the Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is currently Adjunct Professor of Applied Linguistics in the same academic unit at Xi'an Jiaotong…

This paper focuses on the conceptual model of an academic course inspired by complexity theory. In the proposed conceptual model, the aim of teaching is to form a learning organization: a knowledge community with emergent properties that cannot be reduced to any linear combination of the properties of its parts. In this approach, the learning of…

Part One of this article ("Technology and Engineering Teacher," 75(4), December/January, 2016) presented a process that science, math, engineering, and technology teachers could use to collaborate and design integrated STEM courses. A conceptual framework was discussed that could provide a premise that educators interested in delivery of…

In this first of a two-part series, the authors report that STEM is still mostly science and mathematics, taught separately with little or no attention to technology and engineering. Where connections do get made to technology and engineering, too often they happen through several disconnected projects that lack coherence in content standards and…

This paper sets out to examine the situated nature of graduate attributes through using activity systems theory to explore their contextual nature. It builds on earlier work into graduate attributes by examining the reasons behind the significant variation in their interpretation, thus providing an analysis of the contextual nature of teaching and…

This paper discusses the pedagogical implications of Dynamic Systems Theory approaches to second language development. The main question addressed is whether it is possible to describe a learner's level of proficiency with a simple and unambiguous label, and if so, whether the CEFR can provide such a label. It is argued that considering the…