Rhizomatic learning is a set of pedagogical practices drawing on the post-structural philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, first explored as an application of that thought to education and more recently taken up as a methodology for network-enabled learning online. Rather than the goal-directed, hierarchical structure of most learning theories, it holds that learning works best when it lets participants respond to evolving circumstances, preserving open lines of development that let the task at hand be continually redefined rather than fixed in advance. In this structure, summarized in the phrase the community is the curriculum, learning objectives are not set in advance by an instructional designer but emerge from student involvement itself.
Facts
Core ClaimLearning is most effective when it is structured like a rhizome rather than a hierarchy: participants follow evolving, non-linear connections and the community itself functions as the curriculum, rather than following pre-set objectives. 1 FAQs
Who proposed the rhizomatic model of learning in education and what does it say about knowledge?
Dave Cormier proposed it in 2008; in his model knowledge is negotiated rather than fixed by an expert.
Dave Cormier proposed a rhizomatic model of learning in a 2008 article, Rhizomatic Education: Community as Curriculum, published in Innovate: Journal of Online Education. He offered it in place of the expert-centered pedagogical planning and publishing cycle. In the rhizomatic model, knowledge is negotiated, and the learning experience is a social as well as a personal knowledge creation process, with mutable goals and constantly negotiated premises.
In the Other Atlases
Informed By
Also in Philosophy Atlas: which informed this subject.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Rhizomatic Learning
Wikimedia FoundationRhizomatic learning, opening paragraph
In contrast to goal-directed and hierarchical theories of learning, it posits that learning is most effective when it allows participants to react to evolving circumstances, preserving lines of flight that allow a fluid and continually evolving redefinition of the task at hand.
Lead paragraph, education-level
Rhizomatic learning is a variety of pedagogical practices informed by the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.
In Group: Learning Communities and Networks, Lead
Rhizomatic learning is a variety of pedagogical practices informed by the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.
View the Source 2. Rhizomatic Education: Community as Curriculum (ERIC EJ840362)
ERIC citation field, journal and dateQuote, ERIC citation field, journal and date
Innovate: Journal of Online Education, v4 n5 Jun-Jul 2008
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