New Program Planning Theory?

Program planning is about taking deliberate actions to make learning possible. In the past, program planning was seen as a primarily technical-rational process of determining the necessary ingredients, steps and intended outcomes of a structured, educational program. The underlying assumption that it was a rational process was soon dispelled by theorists who introduced the idea that program planning was a negotiated process influenced heavily by control and power issues. Some theorists addressed the power imbalances by advocating for a learner-centric model (e.g. Freire), while others (e.g. Cervero and Wilson) directly identified the political responsibility of the planner in negotiating with multiple stakeholders. Other challenges to the traditional, rational model of program planning came from other influences: feminism, postmodernism, critical theory, etc because planning does indeed occur within a given context.

Because context is so much of a factor in program planning, we need to take a look now at program planning in the new age of social networking, not because of the technology involved but because of new understandings we've gained from the processes involved with social networking. Specifically, the concept of connectivism should make us take a fresh look at program planning.

(more to follow)

The Medium and the Message

Having done some interesting reading on connectivism, emergent curriculum and chaos/orderliness, I'm now trying to figure out how to move ideas into practice. Some very useful principles are starting to gel:

- the idea of "flow", in which students are so deeply engaged in their task that they don't learn consciously

- the idea of "nodes" and "bridges", which are taking shape in my mind as conceptual and activity clusters linked by known and/or comprehensible elements (referring back to Krashen's "comprehensible input plus 1" language learning theory).

- the necessity for "large" and "small" workspaces (big picture ruminations and small picture detail work)

- the systems approach concept that unifies the part and the whole ... reminds me of Pi, the golden rule

- the concept of "foraging" which would allow students to rummage through related information and materials at their own pace and in their own order, while still contributing to the larger task at hand.

- the need for a home base and a unifying task (ultimate goal) with occasional "resting spots" to regroup, assess and determine next steps.

HOWEVER ...

I'm trying to find a technology that allows me to do this. I want a website that works in a circular fashion like the Prezi presentation software (although that's been frustrating to work with), so that I can build "nodes" and "bridges" but allow students to roam through information clusters, apply their new learning and then move on to the next information cluster in their own way. It's so clear in my mind ... why can't I find the software to do it?!

Paper and pen are linear. Most learning management systems are linear. WebCT, Angel and Desire2Learn are all linear. MySpace has an interesting notion of being able to add on pieces, but they're still linear and chronological. It appears that Moodle is as close as I can get. But Moodle doesn't allow me to form bridges. Or even to allow bridges to form on their own by frequency of student use. I need to be able to create initial "paths" through the content, in the way that the Prezi presentation software does. I want random entry points. I want to be able to place "doors" on a large "canvas", almost in the way that a computer desktop allows multiple entry points into files and subfiles. I just want them to be linked by bridges.

It makes me think of Jane Jacobs and her discussions about city planning. It reminds me of parks where people's feet carve the most logical walkways into the grass regardless of there the cement has been poured. NOT straight lines, but curved paths that are the closest, most logical distance between two points.

Connectivism according to George Siemens

http://www.connectivism.ca/

So this is where it starts for me, a dive into the heart of what George Siemens (coiner of the term “connectivism”) might think about connectivism these days. I don’t think I’ll tarry here for long, because there have been such juicy discussions with my thinker-friends on Facebook that I want to return to those, but it’s good to get a first-hand glance at what George is chewing on at the moment, written in his blog on November 10, 2009.

It appears that in his latest blog he’s summarized a few “thumbs up/thumbs down” kinds of things comparing the old and the new worlds of learning, and so I’ll bring them into my own blog here to get the mental juices flowing. As an aside, it strikes me as interesting that he’s based very much in the world of technology, while connectivism seems to me to be so much about ecology.

First off, GS seems to say that “connect or perish” will be the motto for the future. Organizing our world according to content (like Google) is outdated, whereas organizing our world according to connections (like Facebook) is where it’s at. Similarly, the overwhelming abundance of information (overabundance?) makes any attempts to control information futile. Finally, “complicated” is bad but “complex” is good. Our mission then, should we as educators choose to accept it, is to find a way to manage abundance and complexity (which seems like a contradiction when it is clearly unmanageable).

We have been kidding ourselves, he seems to say. Old ideologies for learning are based on the following (incorrect) assumptions:

1. 1. The learning needed by someone can be defined

2. 2. Control is needed to achieve required learning
3. 3. Students at similar stages need similar learning

4. 4. Coherence and structure are needed for learning

In fact, GS quite overtly states that a “failure to overcome ideologies is due to an inability, to date, of educators to rethink the learning model.” Hmmm. I believe the gauntlet has been thrown.

So what does he suggest? More from his blog …

Education has had enough theorizing (yes, I get the irony). Let’s throw in a dash of pragmatics and see where we end up. In fact, let’s start at the smallest element in the learning process: a connection. Instead of trying to squeeze curriculum into a myriad of epistemological views and adding a splash of psychology and sociology, I suggest we zero in on connections. Biologically, learning is as simple as the firing of neurons. At a conceptual level, learning involves the connecting/weighting/strengthening of links between concepts and ideas. At a social level, learning involves interacting with other individuals (and increasingly, technological agents). How are connections formed? What does a particular constellation of connections represent? How important is technology in enabling connections? What, if anything, is transferred during an interaction between two, three, or more learners? What would learning look like if we developed it from the world view of connections?

These are, indeed, the questions to which I want to find answers.

And so it all begins ...

THE IDEA

Chaos and order, complexity, emergence, connectivism … what is it about these concepts that intrigues me so much? And why do I believe that deepening my understanding of these concepts will have a powerful effect on my work as a curriculum developer and program planner? Maybe even on my understanding of what it takes to encourage/accelerate/support learning in myself or others?

It would be impossible now to retrace the steps of my enticement into the tangled web of these topics, but I do know that when I finally realized that I had arrived in the “web” I found other great topics that intrigued me: quantum physics and Buddhism, the magic of pi, the golden rule and its presence in musical harmonies, architecture and biology. Even Jane Jacobs’ ideas about city planning and economics ended up there. I read about anthills and electronic “flocks”, heard about the Butterfly Effect and wondered about string theory, listened to monks and checked out the “perfect” dimensions of the Parthenon. And somehow the interwoven nature of it all made some kind of intuitive sense to me. The delicate balance between delicious chaos and comforting patterns appealed to me. And certainly, my mind felt most awake when it was straining to catch a glimpse of the connection – connectedness – connectivity of it all.

At some point I began to wonder if this was how I learned. How other people learned. Not school learning, but the kind of learning that humans do when they’re left to their own devices and need to figure something out. When they explore and observe and try out things, falling down and getting up and trying again. It seemed to me that this kind of learning, the effort to have meaning emerge out of chaotic not-yet-knowns, was particularly rejuvenating and deeply relevant. It felt “true”, and I wanted to be part of it and wanted to help create it.

That in turn began to lead me to musings about programs and courses that I was developing in the world of adult education. Some of them were for language and literacy learners, but others were for teachers or program planners. Didn't they all deserve to be treated as if they could be in charge of their own learning? It began to occur to me that the way I worked while planning programs also needed to shift to reflect my views as much as the content and activities of my programs did. I needed to let go of outcomes more often, accept the rising and falling of group efforts, leave breathing room for erring and correcting, for finding and connecting. In short, I wanted to live and work what I believed.

Trying to gradually articulate - through praxis - what I believed about learning and program planning, I arrived again and again at the notion of “learner-centred”. But there I got stuck, because I could not reconcile the fact that I, as teacher or planner, was still deciding who was learner and who was teacher/planner. I still had control, and it seemed to me that to really be true to my beliefs, I needed to give up that control completely … or at least to a much greater degree. When I go about my life and experience those lovely moments of connection-making between previously-disconnected ideas that have been rumbling around in my head, I certainly didn’t have a teacher or program planner telling me what to do next to reach that juicy conclusion. So, what was making me think that I needed to provide that to others?

That remains an unresolved question for me. However, this much has become clear and will be explored in this blog: I think that understanding chaos and order, complexity, emergence, connectivism will lead me to some new understandings about learning and program planning. By understanding how things connect, and by developing faith in that interconnection, I will learn how to stop seeing myself as a “teacher” and planner of programs “for” people, and begin to move more firmly into the direction of … what? I’m not sure yet what that would be called. But I’ll find out. And I having a hunch I’ll be more “learning-centred” at the end of it.

THE PROCESS

I’m going to look up, read or re-read articles and websites and other sources of inspiration about the topics I’ve loved.

I’m going to create a repository of links to what I find on this blog, so that other educators who are interested in exploring this can dig around in it.

I’m going to open the blog to other people’s ideas.

I’m going to try to apply what I read to what I do.

I'm going to "muse on the butterfly" and watch where the musings take me and any other people along on the journey.

I welcome you to join me.