Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

In this weeks reading and video presentation I viewed a presentation on connectivism and social learning. In particular Dr. Orey in social learning spoke about social learning. His explanation of a group activity in cooperative learning was really enlightening. In this method he described placing students in groups and giving them subtopics to review then regrouping by placing all the students with the common topic in one group. After they have conducted their research collaboratively they return to their original group and are responsible for teaching their group members their topic and putting the final project together. I see this as connecting the small parts to create a large picture. It is a matter of divide and conquer. In implementing this responsibility in our classroom we are definitely preparing our students for work in the 21st century. Most organizations, in carrying out projects will delegate responsibilities to different departments and then expect that when it is time for collaboration they can complete the big picture which leads to success.