Community of Practice on Blended Transformative Learning

“Sustainability-oriented ecologies of learning are blended learning spaces where multiple actors having different backgrounds co-create sustainability organically using a variety of tools, relations, and forms of learning” (Wals, 2020, p. 61). “An ecology of learning is a networked, facilitated, and mediated configuration of formal and informal forms of learning aiming for and embedded in a change challenge. A sustainability-oriented ecology of learning essentially comprises a vital coalition of multiple stakeholders engaged in addressing a common challenge and/or realising a common vision, using a blend of learning processes in order to bring about a real, meaningful, and responsible change” (Wals, 2020, p. 64). Blended learning also means combining place-based and online learning opportunities.

“Transformative learning involves experiencing a deep, structural shift in the basic premises of thought, feelings, and actions. It is a shift of consciousness that dramatically and permanently alters our way of being in the world. Such a shift involves our understanding of ourselves and our self-locations; our relationships with other humans and with the natural world; our understanding of relations of power in interlocking structures of class, race and gender; our body awarenesses; our visions of alternative approaches to living; and our sense of possibilities for social justice and peace and personal joy” (O’Sullivan, Morrell & O’Connor, 2002, p. xvii).