ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the idea of learning ecologies and their connection to ecologies of professional practice in the context of therapeutic arts and arts therapies education and training. An effective educational process that aims to encourage and facilitate learning, development and creativity in others will blend the sources of motivation in activities that involve people interacting with others and the learning environment that has been created. Brook Baker was the first educational practitioner/theorist to explicitly develop a theory of ecological learning for the higher education environment. The value of developing the idea that learning is an ecological process is to seek a better explanation, and therefore consciousness of what learning to achieve something difficult in the world outside formal education is really like. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.
