Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Teachers College Educational ...

Exploration of concepts to facilitate diverse knowledge practices and
personal learning environments
Sabine Reisas,
University Kiel, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Institute of Educational Sciences,
Department of Media Pedagogy/Educational Computer Sciences,
Olshausenstr. 75, D-24098 Kiel, Germany,
Email: sreisas@av-studio.uni-kiel.de
Abstract: Developing new course concepts in higher education, which facilitate students
to analyze and reflect their existing knowledge practices, will be necessary to solve illstructured
tasks in knowledge intensive areas (e.g. collaborative scenarios or developing
interventions in educational settings). Therefore students are challenged to gain a wide
repertoire of diverse knowledge practices to operate flexible and self-determined and to
make their expedient contribution to the knowledge-based society. By considering the
needs and the existing personal learning environments of each student as a foundation,
the author aims to develop a concept which will encourage students to assume
responsibility for co-producing and negotiating new practices and refine their personal
learning environments. The paper describes in which settings the research takes place
and outlines a mixed-method approach to gain a deeper understanding of the implicit and
explicit context conditions.
In recent decades, due to technological changes, new trajectories are developing in knowledge intensive
areas such as higher education. It is assumed that existing practices of knowledge workers are
inadequate, so that there is a need for addressing the emerging requirements such as working in
interdisciplinary teams, continuous learning, flexibility, autonomy and responsibility for one`s own
productivity (Drucker, 1999). This demands modifications of course concepts in higher education to allow
students to develop a wide repertoire of diverse knowledge practices, which enable them to act selfdetermined
and adequately to increase the productivity in knowledge intensive areas. This is also
Wenger`s (2008) intention who understands socially negotiated practices as a fundamental goal of
learning to foster students to make a contribution to knowledge society. Propositions from an earlier study
(Reisas, Schaller, Allert, Richter & Lehmhaus, 2011) will be taken into account to investigate perceived
discrepancies and their influence on common knowledge practices and Personal Learning Environments
(PLEs) of students.
The author understands PLEs as an approach to address the aforementioned requirements and to
facilitate students to develop diverse knowledge practices. There are two different foci on PLEs: (a) a
more technology-oriented view and a more pedagogical-focussed perspective (Buchem, Attwell & Torres,
2011). This work conceives both perspectives as interwoven and understands PLEs as complex and
dynamic activity systems (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010), which are intertwined in a social, cultural and material
environment. It is assumed that a PLE and its interrelated components can be analyzed by the sociohistorical
activity theory framework by Engeström (Buchem, Attwell & Torres, 2011; Engeström, 2007).
Hakkarainen (2009) stated that assemblages of human activity are knowledge practices, which have a
social and an individual component. Based on Orlikowski (2007) “the social and the material are
constitutively entangled”. Which means that materiality and social practices are mutually dependent and
not only a cognitive aspect. The author understands that knowledge practices can`t be seen as separated
from PLEs, because there is an underlying element in consequence of socio-materiality and therefore
PLEs are practice-oriented.
We observed that the existing knowledge practices in seminar settings are of no advantages to students
in order to dissolve ill-structured problems. They have neither a wide range of practices nor are they able
to challenge their common practices, especially in stressful situations students rely on existing repertoire
of practices. For developing new concepts it is important to note that teaching and learning are based on
intentions and expectations, which have an impact on existing knowledge practices and PLEs, because in
each situation, practices are negotiated and socially constructed (Wenger, 2008). That’s why pedagogy
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