Monastery of Saint Naum, Lake Ohrid, Macedonia
I married an art historian who studies architecture from the Byzantine Empire. I had the opportunity to travel with my husband for two summers while he did fieldwork in Greece, Cyprus, and Italy. Our days were filled with visits to ancient sites, where I walked around cavernous churches adorned with brilliantly-colored mosaics and compact, sacred spaces with softly-lit frescoes stretching from floor to ceiling. I learned about these places in a visceral, embodied manner, comparing one space to another based on how I experienced each one. In doing so, I created my own body of knowledge about these spaces. But, there were times when my husband traveled and I couldn’t join him, like when he visited sites near Lake Ohrid, Macedonia. Even though I was supremely disappointed not to be experiencing these sites myself, I was still able to learn—by connecting to another learner, my husband.
These two examples demonstrate how a learner may create knowledge via experiential learning or connectivist learning. David Kolb (1984) theorized that adults use their own lived experiences to generate knowledge by completing a four-stage learning cycle. Once an adult has a concrete experience, like visiting an ancient historical site, they create knowledge by reflecting on the experience, building an abstract concept of the experience, and then actively using that concept to make decisions. In my story above, I started to build a body of knowledge about Byzantine architecture through my concrete experiences. Individual doing, then, leads to knowing.
Gary Siemens’ theory of connectivism (2005) shares many similarities with Kolb’s theory. Both of these paradigms view learning as holistic and forever cyclical, where knowledge is something to be created by, not consumed by, the learner. But whereas Kolb might say that the learner needs concrete experiences in order to create knowledge, Siemens would place higher priority on the learner’s ability to nurture and maintain connections that allow them to build knowledge. Learning is networked, not individualized. By drawing on these networks, personal and professional, we can interpret existing patterns and generate new ideas. When my husband traveled to Macedonia and I couldn’t join him, I did not have concrete experiences of the churches there. I learned instead by relying on the connection between another learner and myself.
How would Kolb and Siemens use technology to facilitate learning? I imagine that Kolb would design a concrete experience for the learner, which could be to try using a new tech tool or platform online. He would then ask the learner to spend some time reflecting on the experience, drawing conclusions, and planning for future engagements with the technology. What would Siemens’ approach look like? Students would be encouraged to learn from one another in informal learning networks. Class sessions might be designed to provide opportunities for learning in front of all class members through online collaborative tools. Teachers may curate resources that expose learners to new territories and invite them to make connections between ideas. These two theoretical approaches to learning could be easily combined by designing active experiences for learning communities which require the individuals to generate new ideas together with others, or by sharing the reflective experience through collaborative tools such as Padlet.
Returning to my own story, I recognize that I am fortunate to have direct experiences of places like Athens and Venice. But I am also grateful that my learning isn’t confined to what I experience alone. By “nurturing and maintaining connections” (Siemens, 2005, p. 5), I have opportunities to learn beyond myself. In fact, I can almost see myself standing by Lake Ohrid.
Lake Ohrid, Macedonia