I am interested to know that Connectivism is a learning theory or not. Please give your arguments in support of your responses.
Dear Dr Husain,
Connectivism is a learning model and can by no means be regarded as an alternative to behaviorism, and cognitivism. It has contributed to the educational practices but it does not guarantee it being treated as a separate learning theory in its own right. Connectivism, however, has a significant role in learner-centered pedagogy fostering autonomy, and self regulation .
Gredler (2005) states the following criteria for theory :
Clear assumptions and beliefs about the object of the theory should be
highlighted; key terms should be clearly defined; there should be a
developmental process, where principles are derived from assumptions; and it
should entail an explanation of “underlying psychological dynamics of events
related to learning.” (cited in Siemens 2006b, p. 28)
Assumption and objectives of Connecitvism are not clearly defined in an harmonious consistent manner and I reckon it can not regarded as a developmental theory either.
What's more , I believe Connectivism does not qualify as a theory due to the fact that learning theory influence a whole gamut of educational practices encompassing curriculum development, materials development , assessment procedures, etc. Connectivism has not being strong enough to lead to such changes .
However, at the end of the day, we can't deny its important role in pedagogy of current digital world, technology , computer assisted and computer mediated communication and the ubiquity of social media.
A bit late, but we would like to say in response to your question: Oh, yes and no at the same time!
George Siemens idea of Connectivism has attracted over 3000 citations , on Google Scholar. It was introduced as a learning theory and not learning model. However, it is important to know that this "theory" is not on the mature stage; it is still growing.
We have been studying the core of Connectivism theory and knowledge network over the last year. During that period, we studied the subject from different perspectives: Artificial Intelligence, neuro sciences, mathematics, philosophy and others. Finally we come up with our understanding with the following state-of-the-art study:
AlDahdouh, A. A., Osório, A. J., & Caires, S. (2015). Understanding knowledge network, learning and connectivism. INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY, 3.
http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Oct_15/Oct15.pdf#page=7
Thank you Alaa for your contribution and your paper. I will read it with interest. I agree with you, that connectivism might be a growing learning theory. We have to go on as researcher to look if and what are the changing forces how we learn with the internet and all the new possibilities.
To continue the discussion on what connectivism is, I would like to share with you the result of my latest article.
Connectivism's theorists originate their thoughts to the idea of neural network (that human cognition raises from the neural connectivity in the brain). They also frequently refer to the progress that has been done in Artificial Intelligence (AI) field after adopting the idea of neural connectivity in a so called Artificial Neural Network (ANN). For example, George Siemens referred to the ability of technology to learn in his article "Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age". Stephen Downes frequently refers to the progress in ANN as if it was supporting connectivism's assumptions.
For this purpose, I conducted a deep analysis recent studies in ANN to see if the progress in ANN really supports connectivism's assumption. It came as surprise to me to know that ANN researchers actually use constructivism's principles to teach ANN. In fact, I found that AI researchers have used all former learning theories including behaviorism and cognitivism. But all these theories are used only when the knowledge is known. In the situation where knowledge is not known, the only chance is to use connectivism principles.
Hope my article serve those who want to understand this phenomena in deep.
Aldahdouh, A. A. (2017). Does Artificial Neural Network support Connectivism’s assumptions? International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 14(3), 3–26. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.545695
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