The Ecology of Higher Education

Shows how ecological models of change can be applied to education.

Higher education needs to change, and it is already changing as a consequence of technology and the implementation of tools from artificial intelligence. There are natural processes of change that have been happening since the beginning of life on Earth, including ecological and evolutionary change. This book explores the value of adapting these processes to education, to show convincingly that educators have much to learn from paying attention to the emergent processes of ecology. Through examples that span a scale from individuals to communities, it provides examples and perspectives that can help change our thinking and enact practices that can enable all students to achieve greatness. Rather than directing education toward specific objectives, ecology shows that we can support students on unique educational journeys through an emphasis on student-centeredness, collaborative interactions, and building communities of people and ideas in the minds of students.

Author Biography

Andrew Martin is a professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and a Presidential Teaching Scholar at the University of Colorado in Boulder. His research spans orders of magnitude of biological organization, from microbes that cause infectious diseases to communities of species in terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments, to the formation and dynamics of social networks in the classroom.