A Connectivist Approach to Meeting the Needs of Diverse Learners:The Role of Social Technologies

Connectivism is a set of pedagogical ideas and approaches related to open learning in networks. Whereas many higher education programs have led cooperative learning instruction for some time, the move toward learning through open learning networks and social media is relatively recent. Today’s students including diverse learners increasingly need to learn from people and information on the Internet to be successful in the 21st century. Connectivism fits with this new digital reality. It conceptualizes knowledge as distributed, and it views the process of learning as the ability to form and navigate a network of connections.

The primary goal of this paper is to operationalize the connectivism approach into a new instructional model that can be effectively implemented to improve diverse learners’ educational outcomes in higher education. This occurs through the development and demonstration of an innovative, evidence-based, and scalable how-to-learn model that leverages connectivism principles and technology to support in-depth learning in post-secondary settings.