What is it about?
A plethora of terms have been used to describe a holistic, systemic apprehension of learning: communities of practice, learning organizations, rhizomatic learning, connected learning, learning networks, ecologies of learning. A common dominator in all these terms, is a conceptualization of learning as an emergent phenomenon, as the side effect of the active participation and engagement in a complex system of meaningful synergies. This is a perspective that locates learning not in the head of an individual being, but in the web of relationships between that person and the world.
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Why is it important?
The role of the teacher dramatically changes. In rhizomatic learning, the role of the educator is to empower participants to create alternative connections, new networks of thinking, and new patterns of relating with each other, and with the world outside them. But it is not the educator that actually educates the students. The rhizome as a whole becomes the teaching apparatus, a multiplier of perspectives, and an amplifier of synergies.
Perspectives
Rhizomatic learning is a different conception of learning and practice. It is also a new epistemology, a different way to see things. Rhizomatic learning is pattern over matter, how me and you we are relating to each other, and to world outside. As a pedagogy and epistemology, it informs and enrich my practice when working with human systems in an educational or in a therapeutic context. Rhizomatic learning can be more easily understood within a systems view of life. It is not a high theory; it is has concrete applications.
Alexios Brailas
Hellenic Open University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Rhizomatic Learning in Action, October 2020, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3434780.3436565.
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