Connectivism

I like the concepts introduced in the two connectivism articles we read this week by George Siemens. We learn by networking and using technology to find what we need when we need it. That certainly supports some of the work my company is doing around Performance Support and Communities of Practice. But to call it a separate learning theory just doesn't sit right with me.

To me, networking and using those connections are tools to help me learn. But it doesn't really speak to how I learn (making meaning, building on prior knowledge, etc.). To me, those are the learning theories of Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism. Networked learning can be added as a tool to any of those learning theories.

I do think it's important to keep up with technology and integrate it into our learning, but I think those theories have held up well over the years. When considering how Constructivism relates to Connectivism, I see those groups of people in the network and some of those electronic tools that Siemens discusses serving as the More Knowledgeable Other for how I construct my own meaning. When considering how it impacts Cognitivism, I see some of those tools assisting in supporting my knowledge retrieval, so I don't have to store as much knowledge in my own brain, but know where to find the information at the moment of need.

Siemens says:  "The pipe is more important than the content within the pipe. Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today. ... As knowledge continues to grow and evolve, access to what is needed is more important than what the learner currently possesses."  I can completely relate to this statement that we need to evolve our learning and the knowledge workers of today need to be able to adapt and change and learn new and better ways of doing things in the future. But that still doesn't address how we learn. The only way we can learn what we need for tomorrow is to have a good basis of knowledge now, so we can add to it and continue building on it and making connections.

Communities of Practice

After completing some of the readings, I realized how many communities of practice I have been part of, or have seen others benefit from.

1. Quilting Camps. I am not a quilter, but I have several relatives and friends who are. They look forward to their quilting camps like they were going to Disneyland or something. They are able to share patterns and techniques with like-minded people, and connect throughout the year when not meeting in person at the camps. 
2. Dog rescue/ownership. This is one I had not considered before the reading, but when reading the definition from Etienne Wenger, it meets the criteria: a domain of interest (dogs and dog rescue), a community of people involved in that domain sharing information engaging in discussions, and attending events, and we are practitioners - we share resources, stories, tools. We lean on each other for support or ideas if our dog gets sick or if we are experiencing a behavior problem and need help addressing it. We reach out to others to foster dogs in need or solicit donations to pull dogs from shelters. In engaging in these ongoing discussions through the rescue's facebook page, we continue to learn from other practioners. 
3. Articulate User Community. This is a community of practice of made up of users of a particular eLearning software suite. The company set up the website with discussion boards, forums, and links to resources. While the moderators are the company employees, and there are "experts" who can help, many members of the community contribute templates, work products, ideas, and help others figure out solutions to problems they post about in the forums. 
4. Work community website. At work, my company began a community website called "Connect". All employees have access to it, and there are different subgroups for different interests. Some are related to work functions and processes, but others revolve more around outside interests, like those who are runners or skiers, or those who own pets or are into gardening. It was designed to bring together people from all over the country and our international locations to share best practices and reduce waste and duplication of efforts. Documents and processes are posted and shared. But it's also meant to instill a sense of community where people can learn from each other in many different areas. 

Communities of Practice can be found everywhere, and this is just a small sampling of the ones that came to mind in my world. 

Memory Palace

This ties back to Cognitivism from last week, but I watched this Ted talk today and thought it was interesting. It's about the concept of Memory Palaces and how they help people remember. Also, I had no idea that there were competitive memorization contests!

Experiential Learning

I mentioned in class that I didn't quite understand why Kolb's Concrete Experience learning step was associated with feelings. Kristen's explanation of it being about fully "experiencing" the situation with all your emotions made sense to me.

Today, one of my dogs, Kisses, went in for surgery. She had two tumors removed. They had taken fluid from both, but they weren't sure if they were cancerous and said they'd know more once they got them out and sent them to pathology. But it was fairly unlikely that they were cancerous based on the needle aspirations they had done.

I got home from class and my husband updated me on her surgery. One tumor came out cleanly with no issues, but due to the location of the second one near vital organs, they weren't able to get the margins they had hoped for. While they won't know the pathology results for several days, the doctor said that what they saw did not look great, and now estimates it to be more likely that it's cancer.

Semira said today that we may react differently when the subject matter or situation is emotionally fraught, like a cancer diagnosis. And I can definitely see that. While trying to comfort my hungry, confused dog wondering why she has a cone and is banished to a crate instead of being able to snuggle with us on the couch, I thought about the learning that I was experiencing.

I definitely felt (feel) strong emotions about this, and am reflecting on the issue and what it means for our family, both emotionally and financially. I am taking tomorrow off work to look after Kisses to make sure she doesn't strain herself or try to lick her wounds. I have conceptualized some of my learning so far, like how she can get her head out of the Elizabethan Collar and that the bubble collar we got for her doesn't really work and she can still reach her wound. So we have put both collars on, since she can't get the cone off with the bubble collar blocking the way. That's the Active Experimentation. And I'm sure over the course of the next few days, we'll be learning more about the surgery recovery process, reflecting on it, making conclusions, and acting on the new learnings.

This is not an experience I would like to ever have to go through again, and I hope that the pathology results come back negative so our journey ends here. But that may not be the case, and we will learn, reflect, conclude, and apply throughout the process.

Preparing for the Constructivism Class

This week, my team will be presenting and facilitating the class on Constructivism. I'll refer back to one of my posts during Spring Break, where I was reading all the initial material and finally starting to see practical applications of the theory.

Since then, our team has done a lot (A LOT) more reading and discovery about the theory, and I have a better grasp of what Constructivism looks like in practice.  Though, I do still see a lot of overlap in the theories. When the Cognitivism group presented last week on Social Cognitivism, I looked at my teammate, Andy, and asked - what's the difference between this and Social Constructivism?  He quickly pulled up a comparison on his phone, and he'll actually speak about that a little bit tomorrow in our presentation, but the lines can definitely get blurred. In Constructivism, the learner "makes their own meaning" out of what they see and experience and do. In Cognitivism, our brain works to make meaning and connect to past experiences as well. Sounds pretty similar to me. I think there are definitely elements of Cognitivism in Constructivism, which is why Piaget and Dewey (Cognitivists) are considered to be some of the founding thinkers of Constructivist theory. It just builds a little more on it.

I'm excited and nervous to present tomorrow. I don't consider myself a teacher or facilitator and am not in my comfort zone when speaking in front of groups. But I think we are prepared and ready, so away we go!

Cognitivism

I am fascinated by the brain and the many functions it performs. It seems to be so capable and ever-expanding!

I have done some readings into Cognitive Load, and completely agree to the theory that we can only take in so much at one time. I cannot read one thing while trying to listen to something else. I tried this today on the train, unsuccessfully. I usually listen to music on the train while I read the morning paper. But for my other course this semester, we are tasked with listening to some podcasts. I downloaded one on my phone and thought I could listen to it while mindlessly playing a game on my phone. But I couldn't navigate off the podcast screen to play a game or the audio would stop. Plan foiled!

I was left with listening to a podcast interview with nothing to look at, so inevitably I scanned the headlines in the paper. Attempting to read while paying attention to the podcast was futile. I do think I could have played Words with Friends or Farm Heroes Saga while listening, though, if only my phone would cooperate!

I have definitely used some of the suggestions from Cognitive Load research in my training:  Don't talk over content while asking the student to read text on the screen. Support visuals with complementary audio since people can process visual and auditory messages at the same time, etc.

It surprised me how many divisions of the brain there are, or hypotheses into how the brain works and retrieves information.

• Sensory/Short-term/long-term
• Encoding/storage/retrieval
• left brain/right brain
• reptilian/limbic/neo-cortex

Which one is "right"? Or are they all "right"? There has been so much research into the brain and memory and learning styles and intelligence, but the authors of one of our books basically concluded that all the research so far is just hypothesis and nothing is definitive. I guess it's interesting to think about all these different theories and hypotheses, but a little disappointing that we cannot point to one theory or process to help guide us in helping people learn and remember our training. 

Behaviorism

I have mixed feelings toward Behaviorism. On the one hand, I am on board with Behavioral Objectives, and my company uses Behavioral Interviewing to see how past behavior will impact the candidate's performance in a potential future role. I use positive reinforcement training on my dogs, which condition them to act in certain ways (If you sit, you get a treat).  I even use it on my toddler (If you hit or kick, you get a time out.  If you put all your toys away, you can pick an extra story before bedtime). I think observable behaviors are easy to quantify, and you can train people to change their behaviors, for the most part.  But I don't know that I agree with it as an overarching learning theory.

Psychologist John Watson said:
"Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select -- doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors."
--John Watson, Behaviorism, 1930

While I agree that infants can be conditioned and trained in one way, adult learners have a wealth of experiences and influences and free will to refuse to change their behavior. Subjective criteria such as emotion, moods, motivations, and diverse thoughts and opinions can influence how one reacts to certain stimuli.

It makes me think about movie characters like Jason Bourne (I think - I may have my movies mixed up). While he was a trained operative, at some point he decided to break from the controlling forces and realized that he had free will and did not agree with their approaches.  You can condition someone all you want, but at some point, they may encounter a situation that causes them to question why they are doing something and can choose another way. Behaviorism is not foolproof and doesn't take individuality into consideration.