Expansive learning works in the realm of infinite probability, mobilizing creativity and problem-solving methodologies. Expansive learning arises in the theory of education in the late eighties, northern Europe, influenced by the then-psychology studies of the Soviet school (the historical-cultural stream of Vygotsky, Leontiev, Ilyenkov, and Davydov). A current that finds its welcome today in what we have been classifying as social neuroscience. In very simple terms, it is argued that learning as well as knowledge results from the biological structure of the cerberum and social activity (in the dialectic it was called historical-cultural). Mind and Brain, as Searle studied, are not of distinct objects, but interdependent.
The linear learning has as paradigm the learning of the Book. It is a learning of the known world. Part of the lived experience, integrates in the pre-existing human knowledge, building new knowledge from this base. It is an arborescent knowledge, evolving from a common trunk, illustrated by the tree metaphor, where each branch represents a scientific discipline, which clarifies a certain type of problems.
Studies based on this theory focus on several lines of research:
• Learning as transformation of the object;
• Expansive learning as movement in the proximal development zone;
• Expansive learning as a learning action cycle;
• Expansive learning such as border crossing and network building;
• Expansive learning as distributed and discontinuous movement and formative interventions.
Expansive learning theories aim to understand how learning develops as a lifelong process and help practitioners generate new learning, including the new issues facing humanity. For example, global warming, biological extinction, population growth, shortage of drinking water, etc.
The theory of expansive learning is formed from bottom-up and outside-in analysis, thinking of learning as networks of activity and communication system, interconnected with shared or partially and often contested objects. These are subjective objects that are analyzed by sensory experience, emotion, personification, identity and moral commitment, through the methodology of Intersubjectivity.
Bibliography
Yrjö, Engeström, Annalisa, Sannino (2010). Studies of Expansive Learning: Foundations, Findings, and Future Challenges, in Educational Research Rview, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 1-24.