Connectivism and Social Leaning in Practice

The instructional strategy cooperative learning relates to social learning by creating an environment where students are working collectively on an assignment or project that requires teamwork, discussion, and reflection of the new information or skills.  With this strategy students are accountable for their share of the work creating a sense of responsibility, and evolving their thinking process with partner or group members leading to a more trusting relationship, along with sharpened critical thinking skills.  In these situations students can also learn about one another’s interests, thoughts, ideas, families, and cultures which can create an even tighter bond.   Through these methods students also have the opportunity to reinforce their learning by reciprocal teaching and have a better understanding of knowledge by seeing information through someone else’s perspective.

Technology lends itself to social learning through collaboration tools and networking.  Students today are able to work together on a wiki, Power Point project, discussion board, webquest, online gamming; you name it the list goes on and on.  These tools allow students to work together, share their ideas, and reflect on their ideas and others’ thoughts.  They also make it possible for students to create or do sections of a task or project individually, or as a team.  The use of networking through social sites such as My Space and Facebook to name a few, permit students to collaborate, share ideas, resources,  and new information.