Connected Learning

Connected learning is a type of learning that integrates personal interest, peer relationships, and achievement in academic, civic, or career-relevant areas.^[1] In addition, connected learning is an approach to educational reform keyed to the abundance of information and social connection brought about by networked and digital media. Advocates of connected learning posit that this approach leverages new media to broaden access to opportunity and meaningful learning experiences.^[1][2] The connected learning model suggests that youth learn best when: they are interested in what they are learning; they have peers and mentors who share these interests; and their learning is directed toward opportunity and recognition.^[1][2] According to the proponents of connected learning, social support for interest-driven learning and connections to multiple sites of learning activity drive individual learning outcomes. These individual outcomes also lead to collective outcomes by building knowledge, capacity and expertise in diverse communities.^[1][2] Environments that support connected learning are generally characterized as having a sense of shared purpose, a focus on production, and openly networked infrastructures.

History

Connected learning has been a term used in research since the early 1990s.^[3][4] The original usages piggybacked on the concept of connected knowing,^[5] which emphasized the importance of context in the development of knowledge for women. Many articles from this time used the term connected learning in reference to hands-on education like fieldwork^[4] or internships which is tied to the concept of learning in context. The early research that used the term connected learning also shared the common theme of sociality being important to learning outcomes.^[6] From 2000, the term connected learning began to be used in research publications to refer variously to project-based, networked, social, and information-age learning.^{[7][8][9][10]} Cronwell and Cronwell created the first "framework and an organizing set of principles to guide educational research and development," (p. 17).^[2] This research was supported by the Center for Internet Research. This connected learning framework is based on the following set of principles:

• The education process must become learner-centered.
• Assessment - diagnostic, formative, and summative - must be improved and deeply integrated into the learning and teaching process.
• National and state academic standards must be met or exceeded.
• Ethnic academic achievement "gaps" must be addressed and eliminated.
• Learning must become more active.
• The formation of lifelong learning behaviors must be facilitated.
• Education reform must be guided by empiricism.
• Well-designed, technology-enabled education reform will be self-improving, self-reforming and self-documenting.
• Teaching and learning content must be of the highest possible quality, current and relevant.
• Proven pedagogical methodologies and the best research from all field with a bearing on learning and teaching must be integrated into education.
• The needs of all stakeholders (students, teachers, parents, administration, government, business, etc.) must be served.
• Reform must also address the need to improve the formation and achievement of vocational goals by students.
• Where minimum standards exist, the goal must be near-universal mastery rather than a standard distribution of achievement. (pp. 19)^[2]

This idea of connected learning is supposed to be an alternative to traditional in-school instruction. They label this connected learning framework as a work in progress that needs more research to support it. However, no further research has been completed on this framework.

The connected learning model developed by Connected Learning Research Network and Connectedlearning.tv draws from sociocultural, cultural historical, social constructivist, and situated approaches to learning that stress how learning and development is embedded within social relationships and cultural contexts.^[1] This framework of connected learning builds on Social_learning_theory sociocultural learning theory and empirical research that has documented learning in varied social and cultural settings, both within school and out of school. The connected learning approach is guided by the following three key findings that have emerged from this body of learning research: 1) a disconnect between classroom and everyday learning, 2) the meaningful nature of learning that is embedded in valued relationships, practice, and culture, and 3) the need for learning contexts that bring together in-school and out-of-school learning and activity.

A set of principles for connected learning were developed by a group of researchers, technology makers, philanthropists, and educational practitioners seeking to come together around a common approach for how to expand educational opportunity in the digital age.^[11] At the core of connected learning are three values: equity, full participation and social connection. Connected learning is further defined by the following three learning principles and three design principles:

• Interest-powered – Interests power the drive to acquire knowledge and expertise. Research shows that learners who are interested in what they are learning, achieve higher order learning outcomes.^[12] Connected learning does not just rely on the innate interests of the individual learner, but views interests and passions as something to be actively developed in the context of personalized learning pathways that allow for specialized and diverse identities and interests.
• Peer-supported – Learning in the context of peer interaction is engaging and participatory. Research shows that among friends and peers, young people fluidly contribute, share, and give feedback to one another, producing powerful learning.^[13][14][15] Connected learning research demonstrates that peer learning need not be peer-isolated. In the context of interest-driven activity, adult participation is welcomed by young people.
• Academically oriented – Educational institutions are centered on the principle that intellectual growth thrives when learning is directed towards academic achievement and excellence. Connected learning recognizes the importance of academic success for intellectual growth and as an avenue towards economic and political opportunity.
• Shared purpose – Connected learning environments are populated with adults and peers who share interests and are contributing to a common purpose. Cross-generational learning and connection thrives when centered on common interests and goals.^[16][17]
• Production-centered – Connected learning environments are designed around production, providing tools and opportunities for learners to produce, circulate, curate, and comment on media. Learning that comes from actively creating, making, producing, experimenting, remixing, decoding, and designing, fosters skills and dispositions for lifelong learning and productive contributions to today’s rapidly changing work and political conditions.^[18][19]
• Openly networked – Connected learning environments are designed around networks that link together institutions and groups across various sectors, including popular culture, educational institutions, home, and interest communities. Learning is most resilient when it is linked and reinforced across settings of home, school, peer culture and community.^{[16][20][21][22][23][24][25]}

Based on an ecological approach, the collective and individual outcomes of connected learning are seen as integrally related to one another. According to the connected learning model, if people are pursuing interests and meaningful social relationships in the service of society’s academic, civic, and workplace institutions, this will lead to broader communal and societal outcomes: high quality culture and knowledge products, civically-oriented collectives, and diverse and equitable pathways to opportunity.^[1]

Research Initiatives

Connected Learning Research Network

The Connected Learning Research Network (CLRN) is a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s supported interdisciplinary network of researchers whose work focuses on connected learning. The connected learning framework was unveiled on March 1, 2012 at the 2012 Digital Media and Learning Conference by members of the Connected Learning Research Network on behalf of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Initiative.^[26] The network, which is dedicated to understanding the opportunities and risks for learning afforded by today’s changing media ecology, employs a mixed-method research agenda that looks broadly at how risks and opportunities in social media and learning are distributed among diverse populations and examines in detail the contexts and mechanisms through which connected learning can be supported.

Research network members include Mimi Ito: Research Director of the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub and CLRN network chair; Dalton Conley: New York University; Kris D. Gutiérrez: University of Colorado at Boulder; Sonia Livingstone: London School of Economics and Political Science; Vera Michalchik: SRI International; Bill Penuel: University of Colorado at Boulder; Jean Rhodes: University of Massachusetts, Boston; Juliet Schor: Boston College; and S. Craig Watkins: University of Texas at Austin.^[27]

Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling (CCL)

The Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling (CCL) is housed at Northwestern University. The Center focuses on innovative methods of using technology to create a deeper learning experience.^[28] This research group, originally founded at Tufts University in 1995, was relocated to Northwestern in 2000 by its founder Uri Wilensky. The research group includes educational researchers, curriculum developers, software engineers, and model builders, with students, staff, and researchers working together across universities. The center is funded in large part by Northwestern University and the National Science Foundation.

The center develops supports for formal and informal learning environments in the form of tools and curricula.^[28] The CCLs main focus is in the development of computer-based modeling and simulations packages with supporting materials. One such computer-based modeling and simulation package is NetLogo. The NetLogo environment "enables learners to give simple rules to individual "agents" in a simulation and observe the collective result of all the agents' behavior."^[28] Researchers have constructed models of complex natural and social phenomena within this environment. NetLogo comes with a library of models that have models of complex phenomena from a variety of fields including: biology, chemistry, physics, earth science economics, history, sociology, business, and medicine. These models are intended to be modified and used by a variety of educational levels from middle-school to undergraduate studies as part of model-based inquiry, as well as a basis for research in more advance studies.

The group also has studied "participatory simulation" in which they use role-playing in math and science classrooms "to explore how complex dynamic systems evolve over time."^[29] Through technology they try to enable learners to have experiences that cross from the micro to the macro-level. The Center wants students to connect their new experiences with outside experiences. The CCL teachers and organizations tools and other materials.

Examples of connected learning environments

Examples of learning environments that integrate peer, interest, and academic pursuits including athletics programs that are tied to in-school recognition, certain arts and civic learning programs, and interest-driven academic programs such as math, chess, or robotics competitions. These connected learning environments embody values of equity, social belonging, and participation. Connected learning environments include a sense of shared purpose, a focus on production, and openly networked infrastructures.^[1] Learning environments that embody principles of connected learning include:

• YOUmedia
• Harry Potter Alliance
• Quest to Learn

Connected Learning and Education Reform

Today, American youth are entering a labor market strikingly different from earlier generations.^{[30][31][32][33]} Traditional pathways through schooling toward stable careers are an option for fewer young people; in their current form, schools can only deliver opportunity to a shrinking proportion of youth. Income inequality has sharpened significantly in the last few decades,^[30] (Mishel, et al., 2012), and while a college degree has become a requirement for most good jobs, it is no longer a guarantee of acquiring one.^[34] In this era of economic contraction,^{[35][36][37][38][39]} disparities in access to educational, economic, and political opportunity have become starker, and continue to be tied in troubling ways to racial and ethnic background. Complicating this picture is a rapidly changing landscape of young people’s media and technology engagements. Youth are increasingly immersed in media. In 1999, U.S. youth between age eight and eighteen spent, on average, 7.29 hours a day using media.^[12] By 2010, the typical American youth was spending nearly eleven hours a day with some form of media.^[12] In an environment where good jobs are scarce and traditional career pathways serve a shrinking and privileged minority, optimizing existing educational pathways, assessments, and accountability systems will not serve an equity agenda on its own. Connected learning does not strive to improve this individual competitiveness, but addresses the overall health of communities and learning writ large, centering on the values of equity, full participation and collective contribution.^[1] Many prior attempts to mobilize technology in the service of educational reform have failed because interventions have focused narrowly on the deployment of particular media or technologies, without considering broader social, political, or economic conditions (Ito, 2009; Tyack and Cuban, 1995; Cuban, 2003).^[40][41][42] Unlike efforts at educational change that focus on technology deployment or institutional reform, connected learning takes a networked approach to social change that aligns with its ecological perspective.^[1][2] According to connected learning proponents, systemic change requires linked efforts across different sites of learning and the optimal opportunity for educational change lies in connecting like-minded reform efforts across sectors of home, popular culture, technology, and education. Connected learning as an approach to educational reform seeks to elevate all young people, with an emphasis on seeing outcomes not only in terms of individual success and competitiveness, but in relation to the health of the groups, communities, and institutions that build and support connected learning environments.^[1]

Critical Reception

Connected learning since its recent ramp up has been well received from the global education community.^{[43][44][45][46][47][48]} Educators and policymakers have raised concerns regarding the new model of learning laid out by research and practitioner groups, which included:

• Connected learning is "yet another buzz word for the corporatization of education."^[49]
• Connected learning is devoid of critical thinking as it relies on "a formula for students getting what they already want to find . . . . . [rather than] broadening horizons to discover what is not already known."^[50]
• The model gives no mention of key K-12 educators who have been pushing for similar types of networked/connected learning for the past decade.^[51]
• Increased workload for those who support learners is also a concern^[52]

CLRN network chair Mimi Ito responded to the criticism pointing out that, "the connected learning principles were developed with a very diverse range of practitioners in K-12 and other learning institutions like museums and libraries, as well as people working in popular culture/media, technology, and university researchers. So while the research network hopes to provide a research component to feed the broader connected learning effort, we are by no means the driving force behind it.”^[48]

References