Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

Connectivism and Social Learning are two learning theories that can be found in many classrooms. With Connectivism, Dr. Siemens describes it as "knowledge residing in the patters of how different concepts are networked." This means that knowledge is gained based on making connections from prior knowledge and new information. Those concepts then create a network of their own to help an individual fully understand its meaning. Social learning is a theory a theory that bases learning on collaboration between peers. They are able to share ideas and help each other come to a complete understanding of a concept.

I have always used collaboration in my classroom, this year more than others. I feel that because everyone comes from different upbringings and different backgrounds, their views on topics are going to be different. I like for my students to be able to discuss their ideas and come up with one common idea. By doing this, they are all using their prior knowledge to construct new knowledge.

One strategy that I really liked from this weeks readings in the book Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, was the strategy of having a website that the kids create. I think that this is a fun idea because they are building something together, but learning at the same time. I feel that at times students really need to learn to turn to each other for help when learning something new. Creating a website will most likely be new to a lot of 4th grade students, so therefore they are going to be learning together. Dr. Orey said that by using social learning students are able to "bounce ideas off one another, validate their answers, and build confidence." I agree with this because I have seen that this is what comes out of cooperative learning.

A strategy that I use in my classroom for cooperative learning is called Expert Groups. This is very similar to the Jigsaw method of learning. One student from each table group becomes an expert on one topic, then it is up to them to teach their teammates about their one topic. After we have gone through all of the experts, we play a game where I call on random individuals to answer questions. The experts have their notes in hand, and the notes are not allowed to leave their hands. Therefore, if someone in their group, who is not the expert, gets called on, that person needs to turn to the expert for help. It is a great strategy because not only does it teach them how to collaborate with each other, but it allows for the expert to gain confidence because he or she knows the information and gets to teach it to others. This can be very powerful, especially for those students who do not have a lot of confidence in themselves.

Connectivism and Social Learning are two theories that cannot be left out of a learning environment. They work well with the other learning theories, but there is something more powerful to these. They allow students to rely on each other for help and for sharing knowledge. They allow students to have conversations to come up with solutions. Most importantly, they allow students to be actively engaged in conversations while constructing their own knowledge.