First Reflection

I found the difference between instructor-centered learning and student-centered learning very interesting.  It seems that with Instructor-centered learning there is a risk of students “zoning-out”, or losing focus, more so at least than if they were guiding their own learning.  However, when learning is student led, there is a higher risk of erroneous information being learned and never being corrected, resulting in a much less efficient learning outcome.  It seems that a mix of the two is best, with an instructor there to watch for wrong information being learned, but allowing a more active role by the student of teaching themselves the content, stepping in to clarify when a concept is too complex.  This also would vary significantly between subjects, like academic learning, cognitive processes, or athletic and physical activities.

The difference between synchronous learning and synchronous learning seems to be much more one of convenience.  In an ideal scenario, students would have all the time to dedicate to learning that was required, and different subjects would have ideal schedules for how to learn them (for example, learning a sport takes significant training, and you can’t do all of it in one day, but also can’t split it up into 5 minute increments over too long a period).  With working adults having drastically different schedules and availability, asynchronous learning helps each individual to accomplish the required learning activities within the time that they have available, without a need to excessively reschedule their lives.

With the advent of how accessible information is in our current day and age, along with the incredible amount of new information becoming available every year, connectivism seems to offer clear advantages over other more classical learning theories.  Other learning theories, like behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism have a clear focus on the ability to either internalize information, behave in a manner that expresses the learning of something, or an ability to externalize information already learned.  All three focus on the information permeating an individual, which is a process that can take a long time, time which renders information currently being produced as irrelevant more rapidly than allows it to be fully learned.  In connectivism, the focus is instead on how information can be gathered from different sources.  Classically, this would have made very little sense, in a world where information was largely stored on books and digital media didn’t yet exist.  However, nowadays, with the internet at our fingertips, the ability to quickly gather, interpret, and apply information is of incredible importance.  Connectivism focuses on information flowing, from sources to the right people needing it to carry out action in organizations.  Carrying vast amounts of information within one’s head is no longer an ability of value when compared to being able to call up necessary information, understanding it, and applying it.  I think connectivism is a valuable perspective to have going forward regarding how to interact with information.  However, our educational institutions are still behind when it comes to training connectivism, and many grading and teaching methods still rely on older perspectives of knowledge acquisition, which are not preparing people for the challenges they’ll face in the work environment upon graduation.