Abstract:
There has been concern in some teaching literature that the science behind learning has not
been easily accessible to, or well understood by teachers in general, despite it being an
arguably essential part of a teachers’ knowledge base. In addition, ecological or holistic
thinking is becoming established as a credible framework in many fields of inquiry but has
yet to make significant inroads into teacher education. This thesis brings these two strands of
thought and scholarship together – the science behind learning, and ecological thinking for
education. In this thesis I outline a comprehensive or holistic theory of learning and organise
the science of learning into an “ecological” frame, one that aims to make these knowledge
areas more accessible to teachers.
My study adapts Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological theory of human development to focus on
human learning by re-imagining the person level of Bronfenbrenner’s theory as an
Endosystem, and reinterpreting Bronfenbrenner’s Mesosystem level as including all flows of
information and all influences on learning within and between any level(s) of a learning
ecosystem or personal learning ecology. The study also provides a philosophical perspective
on theories of learning and an ecology of learning meta-theory, which could provide a place
for all learning theories within that ecology.
At a practical level, the purpose of this work is to offer to teachers a resource that provides
ready access to salient parts of the science behind learning, meeting a perceived need for this
information in a new way. A theoretically framed resource was therefore developed and
trialled in three schools in Northern New Zealand with six teachers. Data from their
experiences was gathered through interviews, observations, and supporting documents
gathered over 28 months and analysed thematically. The findings are reported in this thesis as
four qualitative case studies which provide evidence that while the ecological frame for
learning science is complex, teachers find it useful to organize their thinking and to make
progress in understanding how influences on learning interact for students in the classroom.
