For this activity class members teamed up with a partner. My partner and I filled out a PMI on the article “Digital Natives and Immigrants”. While participating in this activity I learned about how PMIs can be used to reflect on a reading, and identify what was important in the reading. It also helped me to judge the information that was read instead of blindly taking in and believing what was being said. When we had completed the PMI, it was added to the wiki. Each class member and their partner did a PMI on a different article, each one dealing with the different learning theories. I found this to be an effective way to learn about the content of the different articles without having to read through each individual one. Then, when fellow classmates needed to find information on a certain topic, they were able to read through the different PMIs that their classmates had completed. This is a great way to build knowledge from each other. We can then use these for assignments and research.
I believe that the main theory that underpins this activity design would be constructivism and connectivism. Constructivism is the theory which comes from the minds of Dewey, Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner that bring with it the ideas from cognitivism that the mind is more than just a black box that responds to stimuli, but focuses more on the learning processes that are involved. This theory defines constructivism as an internal change (Schunk 2007). Growing from this view of constructivism is the view of connectivism. This is a learning theory appropriate for the digital age. Connectivism is “the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self-organization theories (Siemen, 2004).” Because of the rapid changes in technology, learning now takes place in an environment where the core elements are always shifting. Therefore, connectivism focuses on the connecting specialized information sets and the connections that allow as to learn more from each other. This becomes more important than the information that we are learning ourselves.
The following video gives an excellent example of connectivism:
This activity uses connectivism by having each different people comment on different articles and creating a PMI for an article of their choice. This then saves time as not everyone needs to read through all of the articles, but can simply use the Wiki to get information.
This activity supports higher order thinking through encouraging children to make their own conclusions from the information that they have.
References
Siemen, G. (2004), Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, Retrieved from: http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm
Schunk, D.H., 2007. Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective 5th ed., Merrill.
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