Half an Hour: Connectivism as Learning Theory - 2 views
shared by Carlos Magro on 21 Apr 14
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Connectivism as Learning Theory
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Here is their effort to prove that connectivism is a learning theory
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"Connectivism has a direct impact on education and teaching as it works as a learning theory. Connectivism asserts that learning in the 21st century has changed because of technology, and therefore, the way in which we learn has changed, too.
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Not too long ago, school was a place where students memorized vocabulary and facts. They sat in desks, read from a textbook, and completed worksheets. Now, memorization is not as prevalent because students can just “Google it” if they need to know something."
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Though this is not very accurate,
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What is a Learning Theory
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theories explain
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Explaining why learning occurs has two parts:
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They're not taxonomies, in which a domain of enquiry is split into types, steps or stages
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Theories answer why-questions
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They identify underlying causes, influencing factors, and in some cases, laws of nature.
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first, describing what learning is, and second, describing how it happens
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The question of how learning occurs is therefore the question of how connections are formed between entities in a network
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A learning theory, therefore, describes what learning is and explains why learning occurs.
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What is Learning?
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According to connectivism, learning is the formation of connections in a network
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in behaviourism, learning is the creation of a habitual response in particular circumstances
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in instructivism, learning is the successful transfer of knowledge from one person (typically a teacher) to another person (typically a student)
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in constructivism, learning is the creation and application of mental models or representations of the world
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Thomas Kuhn called this the incommensurability of theories.
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The sort of connections I refer to are between entities (or, more formally, 'nodes'). They are not (for example) conceptual connections in a concept map. A connection is not a logical relation.
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A connection exists between two entities when a change of state in one entity can cause or result in a change of state in the second entity."
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How Does Learning Occur?
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They're not handbooks or best-practices manuals
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In both cases, these networks 'learn' by automatically adjusting the set of connections between individual neurons or nodes
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In behaviourism, learning takes place through operant conditioning, where the learner is presented with rewards and consequences
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In instructivism, the transfer of knowledge takes place through memorization and rote. This is essentially a process of presentation and testing
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In constructivism, there is no single theory describing how the construction of models and representations happens - the theory is essentially the proposition that, given the right circumstances, construction will occur
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four major categories of learning theory
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which describe, specifically and without black boxes, how connections are formed between entities in a network
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Hebbian rules
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the principles of quality educational design are based on the properties of networks that effectively respond to, and recognize, phenomena in the environment.
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Back Propagation
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Boltzmann
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what is knowledge a connectivist will talk about the capacity of a network to recognize phenomena based on partial information, a common property of neural networks.
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Additionally, the question of how we evaluate learning in connectivism is very different.
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a connectivist model of evaluation involves the recognition of expertise by other participants inside the network
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Contiguity -
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autonomy, diversity, openness, and interactivity
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where learning is
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the ongoing development of a richer and richer neural tapestry
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the essential purpose of education and teaching is not to produce some set of core knowledge in a person
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but rather to create the conditions in which a person can become an accomplished and motivated learner in their own right
