Classroom Ecology

Ecosystem: ‘environmental systems and subsystems’ a network of component parts

and processes on the scale of the environment.
…tend to be composed of living organisms, chemical cycles,

An organised system of environmental and organismic components and their

programmatic behavioural control mechanisms

Structures: patterns of connections and storages (of patterns of connections)

Functions: flows and changes of state as energy flows through network structure
Processes: points of energy transformation (intersections of energy flows)
Recycle of materials: energy carriers between stores (components of organisations)
Information feedbacks: energy quality (organisation) feedback (stability)

STORES: accumulated traces of transformations of materials into products,

e.g., Paper, pen and textbook etc., into notes, drafts, essays, etc.
e.g., Essays, criteria and computer etc., into grades, reports, feedback
Base energy quality: participant attendance?
FLOWS:

Features of ecosystems:
SOURCES: A set of driving energy sources (energy signature)
NETWORKS: A web of components (feedback loops)
EMERGY: Convergence of successive energy transformations (quality chain)
VARIANCE: Increase of time constant and spatial size (variation filters)
OSCILLATION: Pulsing controlled by terminal consumer (oscillatory period)
ORGANISATION: Storage of mass and information
RECYCLE: Recycle of materials
FEEDBACK: Feedback control of a switching nature (temporal/spatial programs)
COOPERATION: Interaction of flows reward contributors (maximum power)
COMPETITION: Parallel components adjusting relative loadings (maximum power)
COUPLING: Coupling of producers and consumers

SOURCES: participants, community, administration/parents

NETWORKS: accumulated stores of products minus transformed products (off-task
activity, on-task activity, unassessed notes, assessed notes, assessment results, reports,
textbooks, worksheets, criteria)
EMERGY: **
VARIANCE: **
OSCILLATION: teacher (timetable)
ORGANISATION: **
RECYCLE: **
FEEDBACK: **
COOPERATION: **
COMPETITION: **
COUPLING: achievement and assessment
 CLASSROOM ECOLOGY

Forcing Functions: Sources of

Components: Stores of Different Energy Quality – Products and Processes.

It is tempting to identify individual participants (students and teachers) as the primary

components of a classroom ecosystem. However, it may be more productive to
identify ecosystem components by distinguishing different species of products and
processes that are contributed to by these participants. If a description of the trajectory
of an individual participant becomes necessary, the species of products contributed to
by that participant can then be distinguished. The emphasis on selecting classroom
products is to identify processes as transformations of products of one quality into
products of one or more other qualities.

For example, one species of products might be ‘those accomplishments of students

that have been submitted for assessment’ as opposed to those that have not. The
process of submission here transforms one species of products (non-submitted
accomplishments) into another species (submitted accomplishments). Furthermore,
these different species of products embody different qualities of energy. Energy is
directed to the development of a product (non-submitted accomplishments) and is
progressively transformed into the organising of basic materials (text, pens, paper
&c.) and activities (reading, writing, keeping &c.). This organising contributes to the
production of certain other products (non-submitted accomplishments). When these
products are transformed (submitted for assessment), they are no longer available (in
that form) to be submitted for assessment (in that manner). An essay may be handed
back to a student for improvements, but the essay they receive has now been upgraded
to an essay-to-be-improved (with a higher energy quality than the original essay). In
this way it ‘carries’ the energy applied by the teacher in interpreting assessment
criteria: This energy is not in the paper or in the text, but rather it is in the
organisation of materials and activities that embody any process (e.g., submission for
assessment), as distinguished from a background of other processes.

Processes as Transformations of Species of Products

Some processes take the products of other processes and transform them into new
products: new products are not created, old products are not destroyed; but old
products are transformed into new products. Thus, a book is not destroyed when it is
read, but it is transformed from a ‘book not-read by a reader’ to a ‘book read by that
reader’. Similarly, an essay is not destroyed when it is graded, but it is transformed
from one not associated with a grade to one that is graded. Grades for individual tasks
are not destroyed when they are used to generate a report; they are merely
transformed into those used to generate one or another report. These transformed
products may be considered to have ‘left’ one store and ‘arrived’ at one or more
others.

Educative classroom ecosystems could then be characterised by particular

organisations of processes among these products.