Rhizomatic Learning: What is it?
This morning I came across Steve Wheeler’s post and his presentation: “It’s Personal: Learning Spaces, Learning Webs”
What really caught my eye are slides 15-19 where Steve refers to learning in terms of rhizomatic plant; a plant that has;
“no centre and no defined boundary; rather it is made up of a number of semi-independent nodes, each of which is capable of growing and spreading on it’s own, bounded only by the limits of its habitat.”
For those who don’t know Steve (shame on you) he is a pioneer in the realms of Personal Learning Networks (PLN) and eLearning, so the above shouldn’t come as a surprise. From a background of reading and liking Steve’s work the approach of a Rhizomatic Learning Environment (RLN?) is another small step on the road to identifying a working ‘environment’ that is both structured (for the educator and facilitator) and yet flexible (for the learners).
Nitin Parmar refers to rhizomatic learning as;
“The ‘rhizomatic model of learning’ lends itself to a curriculum that is no longer predefined by experts but instead evolves. It is the community that determines a flexible ‘model of education’ which spontaneously shapes, constructs and reconstructs depending on external environmental factors.”
I like the way these guys talk; it makes sense. It’s all about working out what is needed to fully engage all stake-holders in the learning process (student, educators, facilitators, etc) and ‘give them’ a system (or systems) that will ‘enable’ them.
Nice to see people talking about rhizomes, though I sometimes think people might get put off by the company they keep – there’s very much a ‘man the barricades and up against the wall’ feel to a lot of the stuff out there. Not these posts, though. As you say, “it all makes sense”.
It’s worth pointing to Dave Cormier’s original piece on (http://innovateonline.info/?view=article&id=550) Rhizomatic Education too. The key point from that paper for me is that the speed of conversion from information to knowledge is such that there is no longer any possibility of an independently verifiable canon in many subject areas.
The terms ‘possibility’ and ‘desirability’ often get conflated in such discussions. So I think it worth reiterating: the sheer amount of information that organisations have to deal with, and the speed with which individuals and networks are processing this information mean that many aspects of a ‘traditional education are not possible. This is radical by default.
(Although it would be disingenuous to deny that some people, probably including me, are changeophiles who like a bit of argy-bargy)
Here’s some more links:
The wikipedia page is good on comparing rhizomatous with arborescent. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizome_%28philosophy%29)
There’s a video here that kind of illustrates the rhizome concept a bit. Again, it’s by Dave Cormier. (http://rhizomatic.net/)
I’ve tried to read 1000 Plateaus, the text/book where the concept of rhizome originated, but it sits on my shelf taunting me. It’s very French and very post-modern.
Thanks.
Ruddy heck, that’s annoying. Half an hour writing a comment to be told ‘it’s a bit spammy’ and then the comment isn’t even there.
Tsk. I notice that most of the blog is not only spiced-meat and ham free but comment free.
Yours, extraordinarily cheesed off after enjoying a post and then being treated like a shill.
Simon – it seems there was something in your original comment that the auto-spam thingy found and didn’t like. It wasn’t me.
Not sure I understand what you’re trying to say about being meat, or ham free, but the comment-free bit is purely down to you, the reader – comments are here if comments are made (even if they get lobbed in the spam-bin).
Regards,
David.