Individual | collective dialectic of free‐choice learning in a community‐based mapping project

Abstract

In this article we describe an instance of free-choice learning in the context of an eelgrass mapping and stewardship project (the Project) that covers over 500 kilometers of coastline in British Columbia, Canada, and involves 20 volunteer groups. In this ethnographic case study we sought to (a) explicate the relationship between individual and collective learning in this free-choice setting and (b) understand how a network of Project participants could both constitute a free-choice learning setting and support such a setting. We articulate a dialectic relationship between individual and collective learning, which, unfortunately in our view, has not yet been explored in educational research. In this relation, collective learning fosters individual learning and vice versa, whereby individuals produce resources in action and as outcomes of their activities. These resources expand the action possibilities of the collective, and thus constitute learning. The stability of the network of Project participants, which brings about and supports collective and therefore individual learning, rests on the flexibility of the Project that enables local innovation and tailoring of mapping activities as well as access to expertise and tools produced by other groups and Project partners. The possibilities that arise in the Project for local people to participate in relevant ways constitute free-choice learning settings.

Regional Collaboration for Sustainability via Place-Based Ecology Education: A Mixed-Methods Case Study of the Upper Valley Teaching Place Collaborative

“…The fact that each of the five programs in the Collaborative offers PD that reflects common tenets of PBEE via pedagogically and geographically variable programs means that teachers in the Upper Valley region have a richer array of options for customizing their PBEE learning. This is consistent with research from Boyer and Roth [35], who contend that EE collaborations aid in accessibility as participants have options for enrollment in a program that suits their particular needs. This balance between collaborative and individual program identity was found to be an important aspect for program sustainability in other contexts as well (e.g., [10,14]).…”

Learning and teaching as emergent features of informal settings: An ethnographic study in an environmental action group

“…In a previous work, we elaborated this relation within the larger coastal community eelgrass-mapping project (Boyer & Roth, 2005). We showed how the resources and learning of one individual community led to expanded learning opportunities for the collective and, in turn, the collective provided resources for learning at the individual community level.…”

Environmental education in action: a discursive approach to curriculum design

“…More specifically, the present work is embedded in the trajectory of the research group of the authors as they study learning and knowing science from a sociological perspective at the level of a local quasi-rural community (e.g. Lee & Roth, 2003a, b), in an eelgrass mapping project (Boyer & Roth, 2005) and in environmental education programmes designed and delivered to school children (Roth & Barton, 2004). It is within this context of past and present research that our data emerged.…”