In his well-known book, As We May Think, Vannevar Bush proposed an early version of what we now call a learning management system. His idea was to create a memex, a personalized device that would allow an individual to store and recall all of the important information they had acquired over their lifetime. Bush’s vision was never fully realized, but the idea of the memex has been an important influence on the development of educational technology.
In recent years, there has been a growing recognition that the field of education needs to be more interdisciplinary. Research has shown that students learn best when they are able to see connections between different subject areas. Unfortunately, the traditional educational system often silos students and teachers into separate disciplines, making it difficult for them to see the relevance of what they are learning.
One way to overcome this problem is to expand the definition of learning. Traditionally, learning has been defined as the acquisition of knowledge and skills. However, if we broaden the definition to include the idea ofConstructing Knowledge, then we can begin to see how different disciplines can be interconnected.
Constructing Knowledge is the process of making meaning from information. It involves Active Learning, which is the process of actively engaging with information in order to understand it. Active Learning requires students to go beyond simply memorizing facts and figure out how to apply them to real-world situations.
The constructivist approach to learning, which emphasizes Constructing Knowledge, has been shown to be more effective than traditional instruction. By expanding the definition of learning to include Constructing Knowledge, we can begin to stimulate interdisciplinary research and help students learn more effectively.
In recent years, there has been a growing trend towards interdisciplinary research, as scholars from various fields attempt to come up with solutions to complex problems that cannot be solved by one discipline alone. However, this trend has been hampered by the fact that different disciplines often have different definitions of what constitutes “learning.” As a result, interdisciplinary research teams often find themselves working at cross-purposes, with each team member thinking that the other team members are not really doing anything worthy of the name “learning.”
One way to overcome this obstacle is to adopt a broader definition of learning that encompasses all of the various ways in which humans and other animals can acquire new knowledge, skills, and behaviours. Such a definition would need to include not only traditional forms of learning such as trial-and-error learning and conditioning, but also more recently-discovered forms of learning such as social learning and learning from electromagnetic fields. Once such a broad definition of learning is adopted, it will become much easier for interdisciplinary research teams to find common ground and cooperate towards solving complex problems.
