I found this article in the Facebook Rhizo 15 MOOC discussion presented by Dave Cormier. This article looks at Vygotsky theories of learning as an interpretive lense for complexity theory applied to education. Dave Cormier looks at the rhizome as an example of complex learning…resilient without a starting point. Success is wandering.
Vygotsky has inspired generations of psychologists and educationists to reconceive learning and teaching. Yet existing sociocultural and activity theory, extensions of Vygotsky’s work, have not tended to frame learning as complex in the ways that Jörg has. Still, Vygotsky did share Jörg’s concern for the vast inefficiencies of traditional pedagogy, as well as his passionate belief that radically more effective instruction was possible: “We have given the child a pennyʹs worth of instruction and the consequence has been a dollarʹs worth of development. A single step in instruction can represent a hundred steps in development” (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 198). Enlisting Vygotsky to aid in the framing of a complex pedagogy seems eminently reasonable.
Here is a video from the Rhizo 15 MOOC asking for a practical guide, an artifact, on what rhizomatic learning means as a format for teaching and learning that embeds complexity and emerging technology including social media and mobile learning.
PSA also seeks to design an artifact in the form of a video to give to others that is useful for understanding what is learning today.