“Rhizomatic learning is a story of how we can learn in a world of abundance – abundance of perspective, of information and of connection. A paper/location based learning model forces us to make decisions, in advance, about what it is important for students to learn…What happens if we let that go? What happens when we approach a learning experience and we don’t know what we are going to learn? Where each student can learn something a little bit different – together?”
Week One Post
The topic for the first week of the course is “Cheating as Learning.” I used tube chop to grab the clip below from the week one video on Community as Curriculum where Dave talks about how he takes the idea of cheating out of his classroom by creating a problem that is complex enough to force his students to have to work together in order to find a solution.
“In school, looking at someone else’s paper to get the right answer is forbidden. But in the work world, the people who rise the fastest are the ones who know the right person to ask to get the answer.” Penelope Trunk
While I am not here to argue about the merits of someone copying an answer from someone else’s paper, I do wonder about an assessment that calls for someone to regurgitate factual information. I think we need to reflect upon the types of assessments that we are administering and eliminate those that require rote memorization of inane facts. I firmly believe that if this is the primary method for us to chart the progress of our students, then we are the ones cheating. We are cheating our students of valuable time that could be used for more significant learning activities that would help prepare them to be true collaborators.
In closing assignment one, I can’t help thinking back to Tony Wagner’s book The Global Achievement Gap and his Seven Survival Skills (below) that our students need whether they are going on to college or the workplace. How many of these skills would be best developed alone?
- critical thinking/problem solving
- collaboration/leading by influence
- agility and adaptability
- initiative and entrepreneurialism
- effective oral and written communication
- accessing and analyzing information
- curiosity and imagination
My Un-Learning Journey 