Aaron Doering

Aaron Doering (born 1971 in Good Thunder, Minnesota) is an American educator, explorer, author, public speaker, and adventure learning pioneer. He is a full professor at the University of Minnesota, and a co-founder and director of the Learning Technologies Media Lab. In addition, Doering holds the Bonnie Westby-Huebner Endowed Chair in Education and Technology at the University of Minnesota, is a laureate of the humanitarian Tech Awards, and is a fellow for the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment.[1] He is also a fellow for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.

Biography

Early life

Raised on a farm in southern Minnesota, Doering’s early ties to the land fueled a lifelong passion for the environment and for education.[2] He studied geography and worked as a middle school teacher prior to obtaining his PhD in Learning Technologies, and from there moved on to teach, design online learning experiences, and conduct research at the postsecondary level. Doering has shared that he believes our personal actions have a huge impact on our environment and that we need to be cognizant of how we're all interconnected.[2] His design and research projects, teaching, and expedition work all speak to these concepts.

Expeditions

Doering has delivered free online education programs on sustainability and climate change to millions of students worldwide through adventure learning expeditions such as Arctic Transect 2004, the GoNorth! Adventure Learning Series (completed between 2006 and 2010), Earthducation (begun in 2010 and ongoing), and North of Sixty° (expedition completed in 2013).[3]

Doering has a particularly long and rich connection to the Arctic. He has completed education-related dogsledding and pulking expeditions throughout the region at least annually since 2004, tied to issues such as climate change, sustainability, and Arctic culture. These expeditions have taken him across many regions of the circumpolar Arctic, including the Northwest Territories and Nunavut in Canada; Fennoscandia; Greenland; Chukotka in Russia; and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, USA.[3]

In addition to expeditions in the Arctic, Doering has been traveling to climate hotspots around the globe as part of the Earthducation project. Earthducation is centered on studying intersections between education and sustainability by working together with individuals, communities, and organizations worldwide to create an ecological narrative of educational beliefs. To date, Doering and the Earthducation team have traveled to Burkina Faso, Africa (2011); northern Norway in Europe (2011); Australia (2012); Peru and Chile in South America (2012); Alaska, USA, and the Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada, in North America (2013); and Nepal, Asia (2014). The final Earthducation expedition will take the team to Antarctica.[4]

Adventure Learning

Adventure learning (AL) is a hybrid distance education approach defined by Doering in 2006.[5] AL provides students with opportunities to explore real-world issues through authentic learning experiences within collaborative online learning environments, and is anchored in experiential and inquiry-based learning.[5] It includes educational activities that work in conjunction with the authentic experiences of researchers in the field. For example, within an AL program, the curriculum, the experiences and observations of the researchers, and the online collaboration and interaction opportunities for participating learners are delivered synchronously so that learners are able to make connections between what is happening in the real world and their studies, and then reflect on those events and present potential solutions to issues that are raised.[6]

Other Research & Projects

Doering’s academic writing focuses on how adventure learning impacts the classroom experience; on designing and developing online learning environments; and on K-12 technology integration. He's published over 60 journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings, and is co-author of the bestselling textbook Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching, and co-editor of the forthcoming The New Landscape of Mobile Learning: Redesigning Education in an App-based World. [1]

Along with Earthducation, other current projects that Doering is leading include GeoThentic, WeExplore, and North of Sixty°. GeoThentic is an online scaffolded learning environment that helps teachers integrate geospatial technologies in the K-12 classroom for learning geography. WeExplore is a new project that encourages learners to become explorers in their respective geographic locations and to then share their explorations with the world through a socially networked and user-driven adventure learning environment. The mission of North of Sixty° is to create a global tapestry of climate stories, weaving together the history and culture of Arctic communities worldwide and preserving the voices and ecological knowledge of generations.[7]

Learning Technologies Media Lab

In 2010, Doering and two of his colleagues at the University of Minnesota, Charles Miller and Cassandra Scharber, founded the Learning Technologies Media Lab, with the support of the College of Education and Human Development. The mission of LTML is to create and inspire opportunities for global collaboration in addressing humanity's most pressing educational, social, and environmental issues by designing and evaluating innovative technology-mediated solutions for learners, educators, researchers, and organizations.[1]

Awards & Honors

References

  1. 1 2 3 ”About the Lab.” Learning Technologies Media Lab. University of Minnesota.
  2. 1 2 ”Lead Explorers.” Earthducation. Learning Technologies Media Lab. University of Minnesota.
  3. 1 2 Aaron Doering’s personal website, chasingseals.com
  4. ↑ Earthducation. Learning Technologies Media Lab. University of Minnesota.
  5. 1 2 Doering, A. (2006). "Adventure learning: Transformative hybrid online education." Distance Education, 27(2), 197-215.
  6. ↑ Doering, A., & Veletsianos, G. (2008). Hybrid online education: Identifying integration models using Adventure Learning. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 41(1), 101-119.
  7. ↑ Learning Technologies Media Lab. University of Minnesota.

Select Bibliography

External links

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