CCK08 – Networks and Groups
The question of distinguishing groups and networks has actually been coming up in the SL Cohort for a couple of weeks now. I think we had already meandered our way to the autonomy idea that both Stephen and George mentioned. The passion v. reason dichotomy that Stephen wrote about was something I hadn’t thought of, although I though George made a good point about different levels of control being appropriate to different goals.
Stephen seems to criticise most current educational models as being too “group”. My initial reaction was to think that many students don’t have the comfort level with working autonomously that a more “networked” model requires. Then I thought about Montessori. If you can do it with four and five year olds, why not with less well prepared adults? Is there anyone out there in CCK08 who’s familiar w/ Montessori and ready to tackle how that model might be applied to novice older learners?
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[...] friend, http://connecteded.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/cck08-networks-and-groups/#comment-33 My experience is that instructing four to five year olds is somewhat different from the adults. For [...]
I have some experience of Montessori from my own kids’ experiences in pre-school and kindergarten. The thought had already occurred to me that it represents an approximation of some aspects of connected/connective learning. Except it involves a very heavy socialization, which is something Stephen in particular appears to wish to associate with groups rather than networks. So I’m not certain how well it fits, but I’d be interested in trying to work it through with you.