Connectivism and its Critics: What Connectivism Is Not
sdownes on Sep 10th 2008
There are some arguments that argue, essentially, that the model we are demonstrating here would not work in a traditional academic environment.
- Lemire http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=46013
- Fitzpatrick http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2007/02/what-connectivism-is.html
- Kashdan http://ltc.umanitoba.ca:83/moodle/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=641
These arguments, it seems to me, are circular. They defend the current practice by the current practice.
Yes, we know that in schools and universities students are led through a formalized and designed instructional process. We understand that some studnets prefer it that way, that some academics are more comfortable with the format, that most institutions require the practice.
But none of this proves that the current practice is *better* that what is being described and demonstrated here. Our argument, which will be unfolded through the twelve weeks of this course, is that connectivism is at least as well justified and well reasoned as current practice. And the practice, demonstrated through this course, shows that it works.
Right now we are engaged in the process of defining what connectivism is. Perhaps it may be relevant for a moment to say what it is not.
George Siemens offers a useful chart comparing connectivsim with some other theories. http://docs.google.com/View?docid=anw8wkk6fjc_14gpbqc2dt
From this, we can see that, according to connectivism:
- learning occurs as a distributed process in a network, based on recognizing and interpreting patterns
- the learning process is influenced by the diversity of the network, strength of the ties
- memory consists of adaptive patterns of connectivity representative of current state
- transfer occurs through a process of connecting
- bets for complex learning, learning in rapidly changing domains
Now I would add to or clarify each of these points (that would be another paper. For example, I would say that the learning process is influenced by the four elements of the semantic condition (diversity, autonomy, openness, connectedness), that while memory is adaptive, it is not (necessarily) representative, and that learning, on this theory, isn’t ‘transfered’, but grown anew by each learner.)
But despite these clarifications, we can see pretty easily from this description what connectivism is not (and, mosre importantly, what it is not indended to be):
- learning it is not structured, controlled or processed. Learning is not produced (solely or reliably) through some set of pedagogical, behavioural, or cognitive processes.
- learners are not managed through some sort of motivating process, and the amount of learning is not (solely or reliably) influenced by motivating behaviours (such as reward and punishment, say, or social engagement)
- learners do not form memories through the storage of ‘facts’ or other propositional entities, and learning is not (solely or reliably) composed of mechanisms of ‘remembering’ or storing such facts
- learners do not ‘acquire’ of ‘receive’ knowledge; learning is not a process of ‘transfer’ at all, much less a transfer than can be caused or created by a single identifiable donor
- learning is not the acquisition of simple and durable ‘truths’; learners are they are expected to be able to manage complex and rapidly changing environment
The reason I take some pains here to describe what connectivism is not is that it should now be clear that none of these constitutes an argument against connectivism.
In one critique, for example, we read “I think this open ended process can lead to some educational chaos and we need to be careful of that.” (Kashan)
As we have seen in this course, the connectivist approach can pretty reliably lead to chaos. But this is because we believe that learning it is not structured, controlled or processed. And we expect students to be able to manage complex and rapidly changing environment – in other words, to be able to manage through just the sort of chaos we are creating.
Saying that “can lead to some educational chaos” is therefore not a criticism of connectivism.
To be sure, educational chaos does not work well in traditional learning and existing academic institutions. So much the worse (we say) for traditional learning and existing academic institutions.
One might ask, then, what we expect traditional learning and existing academic institutions to look like in a connectivist world. Well, some of that was touched on in my presentation to eFest (to be posted later) this week.
The model of learning we have offered through this course intersects with the traditional model at least through the definition and provision of assignements for evaluation. These, which are openly defined (everybody can see them), are applied to students who have registered for the course for grading and credit.
We have already spoken with some students about applying the learning done in this course for credit elsewhere. If, say, a person in another country completes our assignments, and they are graded by a professor in some other institution, then that is just fine with us, and has served our interest of providing more open access to education.
There is no reason for the *delivery* of instruction (whatever form it may take) to be conjoined with the more formal and institutionally-based *assessement* of instruction. Which means that we can offer an open, potentially chaotic, potentially diverse, approach to learning, and at the same time employ such a process to support learning in traditional institutions.
As George has said, we are doing for the delivery of instruction what MIT OpenCourseWare has done for content. We have opened it up, and made it something that is not only not institutionally bound, but something that is, to a large degree, created and owned by the learners engaged in this instructional process.
There is nothing in traditional institutions – except, perhaps, policy – that prevents this model from working. The criticisms of this model that are based on pragmatics and pratcicality are not sound. They achieve their effectiveness only by assuming what they seek to prove.
Engagement with, and opposition to, the process described by connectivism will have to take place at a deeper level. Critics will need to show why a linear, orderly process is the only way to learn, to show why learners should be compelled, and then motivated, to follow a particular program of studies.
We are prepapred to engage in such discussions.
But a discussion rooted in the traditional institution must allow and acknowledge that connectivism, if adopted, would change existing institutions, and to base its reasoning in the desirability or the effectiveness of such changes, and not merely the fact that they haven’t happened yet.
Filed in Uncategorized | 13 responses so far
Wendy Drexler Sep 10th 2008 at 10:38 am 1
In my blog, I suggested that motivation be included as an influencing factor in connectivism. I’m talking about intrinsic motivation, not necessarily that which is formally required by an instructor. Learners may not be managed by a motivating process; however, individual motivation does play a part in the quality of learning in networked community. Wouldn’t you agree that the group learning potential is greater when individuals are motivated to actively contribute?
Geoff Cain Sep 10th 2008 at 11:55 am 2
The semantics of this defining process is going to get pretty thick. On one hand you say that connectivism IS “a distributed process in a network” but that it is NOT “structured, controlled or processed.” And that learning IS a: “transfer occurs through a process of connecting” and IS NOT: “learning is not a process of ‘transfer’ at all”. I half-heartedly agree with the statement “Learning is not produced (solely or reliably) through some set of pedagogical, behavioural, or cognitive processes.” with the caveat that any definition of how we learn implies a pedagogy. I know that learners do not learn in a systematic way. All that the traditional approach shows us is that the human animal is so adaptable that it can put up with nearly anything to get a college degree. I am teaching a class right now that is based on a leaderless organization model of teaching. The class is portfolio assessed and all of the learning takes place in small, collaborative groups via student-built networks. Connectivism describes why a class like this works.
Howard Johnson Sep 10th 2008 at 12:59 pm 3
This post reminded me of many of the problem associated with higher ed today.
*Tuition cost are too high!
*The current structure is not conducive to supporting a life course that may include 4 or 5 different career paths, in knowledge intensive environments, where lifelong intellectual growth is expected!
*If innovation is important to the economy, we must ramp up our intellectual infrastructure through community development and make it more accessible to all.
Can current pedagogy address these issues? I think experimental pedagogy is needed, just like this course is offering.
sdownes Sep 10th 2008 at 04:05 pm 4
To Geoff: it will become more important to continue to distinguish between some of George’s formulations, such as the one I cite earlier in the article, and my own formulations.
On the question of ’structured process’ – the implication here is that ’structured’ is a verb, not an adjective. Learning, networks, and everything else have some kind of structure, whatever it may be. But this structure, in the case of learning, should evolve naturally, and not be shaped – or ’structured’ – by some sort of learning designer.
On the question of ‘transfer’ – the use here is George’s terminology, taken from the chart he has adapted. I have been consistent in saying that learning is not the sort of thing that is transferred at all.
Finally, I certainly agree with this: “All that the traditional approach shows us is that the human animal is so adaptable that it can put up with nearly anything to get a college degree.”
Lisa M Lane Sep 10th 2008 at 11:29 pm 5
The current traditional university model is not inherently conducive to the adoption of connectivist learning, and yet it is possible to introduce it subversively as a pedagogical practice. For many of us, I suspect that is what we’ll be able to achieve, within the confines of policy, which determines the necessity not only for assessment but for certain types of assessments. I would be quite unhappy if I thought that connectivism could only succeed in a perfect world (like communism or capitalism). The more likely use is that elements of connectivism will be introduced in such a way that, while not creating the non-course-based, lifelong-learning world we wish for, can be a step in the right direction.
Rita Kop Sep 11th 2008 at 06:18 am 6
You have opened a can of worms here Stephen. How can you say connectivism is unstructured and than teach on a course lead by experts (some of the nodes on the network; the teachers of the future?) who provide students with recommended texts, ask them to do some particular work, who steer them to resources, and still say this is connectivism?
Your argument about motivation is flawed. Of course people are either motivated or not motivated to listen to you, to take part in a course, or just to follow a stream of information on a network. They might not be motivated because the institution will provide them with a piece of paper in the end, but there is always a motivation. It is not just an issue of power by an instituion, it is also a matter of what best suits the learner. This is very much related to the level of autonomy a learner has. Bouchard’s research shows that motivation is one dimention related to choices that people make in their learning (http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/CASAE/cnf2003/2003_papers/paulbouchard-2CAS03eng.pdf). What I miss time and time again in your argument on connectivism is how different people have different levels of autonomy and subsequently have different levels of engagement and access than for instance a bunch of postgraduates who have worked their way through 18 years of education and development of critical engagement and independence. My research here in Swansea with adult students on an online course at the first level of Higher Education shows clearly that they want and need hand-holding by a tutor in their learning. Their level of confidence, independence at finding resources, language level and level of critical thinking all make that they want close contact with a knowledgeable other. Which makes me think the Community of Practice model might work better than a purely freeflowing connectivist model.
Prokofy Neva Sep 12th 2008 at 12:24 am 7
Re: “Yes, we know that in schools and universities students are led through a formalized and designed instructional process. We understand that some studnets prefer it that way, that some academics are more comfortable with the format, that most institutions require the practice.
But none of this proves that the current practice is *better* that what is being described and demonstrated here.
What’s suspect about your methods here is that you’re unwilling to just let the old institution *be*. You’re not content to just design some alternative and see if it works; you have to prove your new ideology is *better* and that the old way is *worse* and more — must be dismantled ruthlessly. Why?
It’s just too heavily doctrinal and therefore not compelling. If you truly built a better mousetrap, it will be self-evident and you won’t have to evangelize so much about it.
Re: “- learners do not form memories through the storage of ‘facts’ or other propositional entities, and learning is not (solely or reliably) composed of mechanisms of ‘remembering’ or storing such facts
- learners do not ‘acquire’ of ‘receive’ knowledge; learning is not a process of ‘transfer’ at all, much less a transfer than can be caused or created by a single identifiable donor”
These are religious doctrines that you believe, or don’t believe, because they aren’t “science” — they aren’t based on the organic functioning of the brain (that you’ve proved, anyway) and not based on anything really, but some other motivation you have.
So, what is that movitation? Why does storage bother you so much? Why does it seem to illegitimate to you for knowledge to be transfered or received?
I can only conclude (so far) that this is about a) social systems and property and power — storage is property, you are anti-property; storage is about capital; you don’t like capital b) transfer/receipt bothers you because it appears as some “power relationship” where one will dominate or colonize another.
These simply seem like ideological dramas that have been extracted from one area (politics, economics) and applied to this area of human activity, which is learning.
Tom Birk Sep 12th 2008 at 11:27 am 8
I wanted to challenge one point in the discussion. The presentation could be perceived as advocating a position argued in phenomenology as well as by some constructivists: there is no good structure because structure is imposed and created through the lens of the dominant culture (in this case that would be the institution I suppose) in an effort to advance its own idea of what is or should be. Following this logic then, some form of chaos is therefore positive in part because it has no structure. From my point of view, this is missing a key element of what I thought I heard Dr. Siemens say is an important element of connectivism, advancing knowledge. In this regard I see connectivism as actually bridging the major flaw in constructivist pedagogy.
Take the institution out of the equation for a moment. How does one learn? If we are out to develop means and methods for determining how best to equip the learner to learn more deeply, efficiently, adaptively, et cetera, I actually see connectivism and structure co-existing quite nicely. Examples? Complex pattern recognition; fuzzy logic; and cluster computing are perhaps some possibilities.
It was stated above that connectivism is “doing for the delivery of instruction what MIT OpenCourseWare has done for content. We have opened it up, and made it something that is not only not institutionally bound, but something that is, to a large degree, created and owned by the learners engaged in this instructional process.” I too believe that connectivism has that potential. What I do not believe, and I am not certain that Dr. Siemens does either, is that we abandon what all that we know about how people learn in order to have chaos be a requisite outcome.
Charles Sep 13th 2008 at 05:43 am 9
Structure and chaos are both essential for a complex system to exist. It’s not in chaos that one learns but on the “edge of chaos.” Csikszentmihaly’s work, for instance, shows that learning occurs best when one’s skills and knowledge are challenged enough to motivate but not overchallenged so as to frustrate. And we could consider language as an example. Without the structures of syntax, morphology, …, we would not be able to communicate with one another.
On the notion of transfer, at the individual level, nothing is transferred because individuals construct their own meaning. There’s no telepathy or ethereal pipes connecting brains. But if we look at the level of the system and consider the flows of knowledge/practice, then we can say that learning is transferred between individuals in networks.
Eyal Sivan Sep 14th 2008 at 09:56 am 10
I agree the arguments are circular.
It reminds me of something I read from Frege, where he stated that demonstrations cannot prove the validity of their own assumptions, because they already assume what they set out to prove.
Or as McLuhan used to say to his critics: “Are you trying to tell me that my whole fallacy is wrong??”
And I don’t why the critics keep assuming that Connectivism means everybody is the same and all opinions are equal. From my perspective, nothing could be further from the truth.
Prokofy Neva Sep 15th 2008 at 01:32 am 11
Eyal, because they undermine traditional authority, and challenge any sort of structure, they essentially say that everything must be dumbed down. They can’t concede hierarchies. And yet hierarchies are demonstrable, necessary, and good in education as in the rest of life.
If there is no ethereal transferral (and there isn’t), why are the pipes being privileged as more important than the content?
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Jenni Parker Sep 19th 2008 at 04:42 pm 13
Dave Cromier’s statement (Week 1 UStream) that Connectivism is “trying to describe the world as it is, not trying to create a new world” resonated with me. I am not an academic so I am not interested in whether it is a theory, an approach or whatever else it may be called, however the “theory” (for want of a word) of Connectivism resonates with me. When I first read about it I thought yes, that is what I do, I connect to people and/or computers to gather information to learn how to do something (eg: learn a new computer program) or to acquire knowledge to enable me to make an informed decision (eg: purchase a new car – identifying potential pros & cons for my needs).
I agree with Howard that Higher Ed today has problems and does not meet all of our needs…so we need to experiment with other ways of learning.
Prokofy Neva’s statement “What’s suspect about your methods here is that you’re unwilling to just let the old institution *be*. You’re not content to just design some alternative and see if it works; you have to prove your new ideology is *better* and that the old way is *worse* and more — must be dismantled ruthlessly.” provoked a number of thoughts
1/ why would we “want” to let the old institution be? The world is changing, change is inevitable. If the education system has problems & is not meeting our needs – why let it be?
2/ I get the feeling that George & Stephen are not looking for a total overhaul of the system (maybe I’m wrong here…) but a way to include distributed learning as another means of assisting people on their learning journey.
3/ On a number of occasions I’ve heard George say that the previous acknowledge learning theories are not “wrong , better or worse”, but that Connectivism is more insync with needs of learners today.
I am interested in creating a course where Connectivism can be incorporated. Not necessarily a purely Connected course but one with a mix of learning theories.
Therefore I am interested to see/hear your response to Rita’s comment “How can you say connectivism is unstructured and than teach on a course lead by experts….to steer them to resources, and still say this is connectivism?”
I have also delivered courses for adult learners and more often than not found that they want and need hand holding. Most just want the facts / knowledge / and/or skills to get the job done. Maybe the new Gen Y and future learners are/will be different, I don’t know as I don’t have any experience in this area.
I am enjoying the diversity of views and the different perspectives and hopefully learning from them all.