Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Week 5: Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

The instructional strategies described in this weeks resources all deal with cooperative learning. Cooperative learning is one of the main components in the social learning theory. The social learning theory goes a step beyond constructionism, in my opinion. They both include creating an artifact, however with the social learning theory you must be able to converse with someone about that artifact and the knowledge you’ve gained.

The multimedia project described in this week’s resources is a great representation of cooperative learning and the social learning theory. Each small group of students worked together to learn a particular topic. They relied on each other to gather the information needed. This is the first demonstration of social learning. Next, they presented their videos to the class, which taught the class about their topic. This is the second display of social learning. By allowing students to teach each other so many things can happen. Students learn from their mistakes, get a break from the daily routine, work on their researching abilities, learn to work with others, learn how to teach others and gather an overall better understanding of the topic.

2 comments:

  1. I also really liked the idea of the multimedia project. I think projects like this really motivate students because it is first and foremost a fun project for the students, especially if they get to choose the topic for their project. Second, a student can be pretty passive when completing a work sheet, but laziness and lack of effort is very noticeable in a project like this, and most students don't want the grade associated with poor effort.

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  2. Thanks for sharing, I will bookmark and be back again


    Social Learning

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