Terry’s Blog

George Siemens’ ideas on connectivism as the process that underpins a particular pedagogy and model of learning that fits well with the potentiality of certain internet social technologies has given me a very useful platform for thinking about educational design. On broadly constructivist lines, students already have an internal network of knowledge with which new knowledge must negotiate – new learning connects with and modifies existing knowledge. Another idea George introduces that I think is crucial for designing for learning is the notion of an educational ecology, a learning ecology. I see this as a reminder that learning is a process of interchange with an environment and that the interchange between ‘organisms’ and ‘environment’ sustains and modifies both.

George talks about students’ internal knowledge networks being interconnections of nodes of different types, some central and strong and others weak and peripheral, even to the extent of being dissonant in some ways. Existing knowledge is held at different levels of consciousness - some is explicitly known and can be articulated fairly easily, but some knowledge is less well known in the sense that it is less consciously used, is more tacit. Some knowledge is conceptual, some practical, and the two types are often linked via practices which merge both conscious and subconscious forms. And often consciously held beliefs and knowledge depend upon rarely inspected assumptions but only make sense because of those assumptions. (I need to sort this out a bit: I have suddenly introduced the word ‘beliefs’).

Part of an educational strategy I think this points to is to help students become more consciously aware of their existing network of knowledge, what is central, what peripheral, what conscious and explicit, what is relatively unconscious and implicit, what assumptions much of it depends on, what nodes of the network are loosely attached possibly because they tend to be dissonant, and so on - students as ‘knowledge engineers’, mining their own knowledge network(s).

In the context of teaching the sociology of the environment, I am trying to visualise and list the various sorts of knowledge that students will have already that the ideas and content of the module can explicitly link to. The following is a very provisional list. Practically any item on the list could be expanded into extensive sub lists. (Attempting this has put me very much in mind of the sort of mind mapping processes that Tony Buzan writes about. I think this is worth a look as Buzan’s model of the learning process seems to rest on something very close to connectivism. There may be some useful mileage in this).

Elements of students’ prior knowledge relevant to the environment, environmental issues and problems and the connection between individuals and society and the environment:

• Sociology; relation of individual and society, individuals and societies the product of socio-historical processes
• The nature and logic of capitalism
• competition, destructive innovation (Joseph Schumpeter), built in obsolescence, profit motive, competition, free markets, exploitation of natural and social resources
• The nature of industrialism
• Processing and transformation of materials, production, marketing, waste and pollution, industrial production in the context of a capitalist economic system
• Culture
• consumer society, consumerism, status by material possessions, conspicuous consumption, leisure and holidays, marketing
• Globalisation; relations between developed and less developed nations, ‘mercantile colonialism’, global systems of production and consumption, globalisation of western culture and life styles
• Identity formation, life style, class, status, relations of production,
• Environmental social movements and interest groups
• Ideologies and political systems
• Everyday experience of: consumerism, fashion, the ‘manufacture’ of identity and desire, transportation systems travel, cars, cheap flights, shopping, food, clothing, gadgets and gizmos etc., the affects of advertising
• The news media on environmental issues, radio, TV, WWW
• Exposure to local issues, ideas of parents and friends

And I am sure a great deal more, representing a massive resource of existing knowledge that can have explicit connections made to it by systematic sociological and scientific knowledge re: the environment. So I need concrete strategies (exercises, assignments, activities, etc.) to exploit this, bring it to the surface and connect to it.

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