In this session we had a look at two additional theories of learning: constructivism and connectivism, to find out what they say about how we learn now and in the future. Additional readings include: Child Power: Keys to the New Learning of the Digital Century by Seymor Papert and Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age by George Seimens. Your homework was to blog your answer to the following question: Why do some people not consider Connectivism to be a learning theory?

1. The Future of Learning
Dr James Stanfield
Lecture 3: Theories of Learning Part II
Tuesday 15th October 2019

2. Plan of Action
Part I: Understanding Constructivism
Part II: Understanding Connectivism

3. Part I: Understanding Constructivism
People construct their own
understanding and knowledge of
the world, through experiencing
things and reflecting on those
experiences.

4. Lev Vygotsky (1896 – 1934), Russian Psychologist
• His work was banned by Stalin after his death
• Rediscovered after Stalin’s death in 1953 and translated into English in the 1960s
and spread to the West in the 1970s
• Best know for his Sociocultural Theory and ZPD
• Development and culture are closely linked
• Children construct their knowledge through social interaction with wiser
members of society
• Development cannot be separated from its social context
“Every function in the children's cultural development appears
twice, first on the social level and then on the individual level.
First between people and then inside the child . . All higher
functions originate as actual relationships between
individuals”. Vygotsky, 1978.
“It is through others that we become ourselves” Vygotsky, 1978.

5. • Centre is the level of the child’s actual development
• ZPD represents level of child’s potential
development
• Scaffolding – role of teachers and others supporting
child’s development and providing support
structures to get to the next level
• Gradual withdrawal of support as the child’s
confidence and knowledge increase
• Curricula should be designed to emphasise
interaction between learners and learning tasks
• Assessment methods should target level of actual
and potential development

8. • Born in New York to Jewish immigrants from
Poland
• The Process of Learning, 1960 - students are
active learners who construct their own
knowledge.
• Exploring, discovering, constructing
understanding
• The role of the teacher should not be to
teach information by rote learning, but
instead to facilitate the learning process.
For Bruner (1961), the purpose of education is
not to impart knowledge, but instead to
facilitate a child's thinking and problem-solving
skills which can then be transferred to a range
of situations – to create autonomous learners.
Jerome Bruner (1915 – 2016) American psychologist
'[Scaffolding] refers to the steps taken to reduce the degrees of
freedom in carrying out some task so that the child can
concentrate on the difficult skill she is in the process of
acquiring' (Bruner, 1978, p. 19).
McLeod, S. A. (2008). Bruner. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/bruner.html

9. Bruner’s ‘spiral curriculum’
“A curriculum as it develops should
revisit these basic ideas repeatedly,
building upon them until the student
has grasped the full formal apparatus
that goes with them.”
“We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught
effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at
any stage of development.” Bruner 1960

10. Seymour Papert (1849-1936)
A South African-born American mathematician, computer scientist, and
educator. After studying at Cambridge and Paris he worked with Jean
Piaget in Geneva and would later become the co-founder of the
MIT Media Lab.
• one of the first to recognize the potential of computers in children’s
learning.
• computer programming could provide children a way to think and learn
about their own learning (1968).
• computers should be used not just to deliver information, but also to
empower children to experiment, explore, and express themselves
• he was critical of the way children were separated into age groups
• he believed that subject knowledge was now less relevant and instead
there should be an increasing focus on learning how to learn
• he believed in giving children the power to control their own learning
• he supported the development of enquiry and project based learning
• he believed that teachers should do less teaching and act more of
a guide

14. Mindstorms, Seymour Papert, 1993
Seymour Papert’s Legacy: Thinking About Learning, and Learning About Thinking

15. Part II: Understanding Connectivism
Connectivism is a theory of learning in a digital age that
emphasizes the role of social and cultural context in how and
where learning occurs. Learning does not simply happen within
an individual, but within and across the networks.

16. George Siemens (1970 - )
• George Siemens is a writer, theorist, speaker, and
researcher on learning, networks, technology, analytics
and visualization, openness, and organizational
effectiveness in digital
• Behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism developed
in a time when learning was not impacted by technology
• Internet and speed new information being discovered
and documented
• Knowing how to find information is becoming more
important than knowing the information
• Emphasises the learners ability to navigate the
information
• Principles integrated from chaos, network, complexity,
and self organisation theories

17. Principles
• Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
• Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information
sources.
• Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
• Learning is more critical than knowing.
• Maintaining and nurturing connections is needed to facilitate continual
learning.
• Perceiving connections between fields, ideas and concepts is a core
skill.
• Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of learning
activities.
• Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and
the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a
shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong
tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the
decision.

20. Why do some people
not recognise
Connectivism as a new
learning theory?

21. Group 1: What is the concept of self organisation and how it
might apply to education/learning?
Group 2: What is the concept of emergence and how it might
apply to education/learning?
Group 3: What is chaos theory and how it might apply to
education/learning?
Group 4: What is complexity theory and how it might apply to
education/learning?

23. #edu8213