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Why African educators need learning ecosystems
Posted by Janice Scheckter 
on
01 August 2022, 12:45
SAST
During times of crisis, such as the ones we have been experiencing during 2020, learning and development custodians were challenged as, overnight, many learning platforms were simply no longer available.
But there’s a stronger motivation for learning ecosystems.
We need to think about providing continuous learning frameworks for our educators. While curricula may remain unchanged for periods of time, there is learning beyond the curriculum. Our research at A Better Africa, which is at times anecdotal, indicates burning educator challenges such conduct in the classroom. Added to this is the introduction of future fit skills that will support areas like critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving, among others.
We think of learning ecosystems as symbiotic environments where people interact with content, technology, and of course each other.
The traditional learning ecosystem focuses on five building blocks: people, content, technology, data, and governance, but we believe that it’s more than people but about the community. Learning ecosystems should be a place where ideas and knowledge can be shared.
Learning for educators cannot only be about professional development and updates on the curriculum. Research shows that teachers are feeling poorly resourced and learning ecosystems, curated to include content that covers many of the current learning gaps for teachers, can address some immediate needs.
