Is Rhizomatic learning a model useful to PSA in understanding the construction of knowledge?
The MOOC “Open Education” is an OpenLearn Course found on the Open University site. This is a Master’s level course spanning 7 weeks/60 hours. Since the MOOC is now complete, badges are not available, but the content remains available. Part of the content includes a topic called “Pedagogy in Open Learning” with an activity on Rhizomatic learning presented by Dave Cormier. I also found a Facebook discussion connected to the MOOC with current posts.
Another learning theory closely associated with MOOCs and open education is that of rhizomatic learning. This invokes the biological metaphor of a rhizome, likening learning to the roots of a plant.
The roots can spread out laterally and horizontally, consisting of a series of nodes, with no distinct centre, beginning or end, and no defined boundary – the only restrictions to growth are those that exist in the surrounding habitat. Rhizomes resist organisational structure and chronology and instead grow and propagate in a ‘nomadic’ fashion.
Seen as a model for the construction of knowledge, rhizomatic processes hint at the interconnectedness of ideas as well as boundless exploration across many fronts from many different starting points.
The rhizome work develops a metaphor proposed by French post-modern theorists Deleuze and Guattari (1987), but Dave Cormier has done most work on this as a theory in modern education. Cormier suggests that rhizomatic learning is a means by which learners develop problem-solving skills for complex domains.
I can dig it Kris…interconnectedness of ideas is present in our very use of language, which is a social construction combining all the speakers into one functioning unit, wherein communicable meaning can exist and be shared.
True enough, it’s very hard to describe what a excellent DLE might be, without some of that “boundless exploration across many fronts from many different starting points. It would be good to have a term or concept, like Rhizomatic Learning to refer to when we try to discuss this unwieldy topic.