How would you describe the historical and theoretical trends in k-12 open and distributed learning? What did you already know, what do you know now based on the course readings and activities, what do you hope to learn?
Something I noted in terms of trends is the debate about where older theories about education fit into the evolving world of open and distributed learning. There is potential for an argument to be made that the newer tech-oriented open and distributed learning poses a “threat” to past philosophies, when I don’t believe that to be true at all. I mentioned in my pod’s annotation of Bate’s article about learning theories that I believe with the newer advancements and lean towards online learning (especially in the times of social distancing) we must learn to adapt valuable theories to fit an online platform. By saying that online learning poses a threat to past theories, it demonstrates a static mindset, implying there should be no need to improve. That mindset doesn’t benefit anyone in the education system; students and teacher alike. I think in our particular time of social distancing, we were forced to move online, and the lack of development in understanding how to effectively adapt to learning online has worked against us. No one quite knows how to conduct their daily life, particularly in regards to school. This is not by any means bashing educators, as they are doing their best to effectively teach in spite of everything, but it was the fact that teachers had not been given the proper tools to prepare, thus were thrown into a sort of online learning limbo. Bate’s goes over the 4 main theories of education:
- Behaviourism: Reward and punishment concept to effectively “train” students to learn effectively
- Cognitivism: Building off past schema to facilitate new learning
- Constructivism: Emphasizing social interaction to facilitate learning
- Connectivism: Diversification of learning patterns personalized to learners interests
Something I connected was the theory of connectivism (which is a new theory that is still in development) to our visit to NIDES, where they have a very new and innovative approach to K-12 learning. Their school goals are to create a personalized learning experience that best suit an individual’s interests, allowing them to excel in a way that is best for them. Students are able to complete cross-curricular projects that meet BC’s curricular standards for different grades, and students can complete standards for grades above is they so wish. It is a very open-minded approach to education, and allows for students to stay motivated because they are able to integrate things they are genuinely interested in into projects. It’s no secret that students will work harder on projects they are interested in, so I fully support this approach to education.
The other theories discussed I was familiar with, but I find the entire process of adaptation very interesting because it is the journey of creating something new with something known. Not only are we in the process of properly developing the theories themselves (such as the ongoing research on connectivism) but we are also inn the process of creating protocol on implementation. It’s a scary thought, but we are in the middle of sort of educational revolution in terms of redefining what open and distributed learning means in this day and age.