Friday, February 17, 2012

Blog posting related to complexity and learning and critical thinking.

  • The problem, of course, is that we don't have much language yet to talk intelligently about this kind of complexity. Our notions of critical thinking (interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, self-regulation, and so on) are all pretty much individual mental exercises aimed at reducing complexity to simple clarity. We need new ways to examine and think about complex, rhizomatic structures. Morin mentions three ways to think, or principles, that help us approach the complex: a dialogic principle (dia-logic), the principle of organizational recursion, and the holographic principle (by which I think he means what I would call fractal). Deleuze and Guattari mention cartography and decalcomania. I was pleased in our Elluminate session yesterday (Wed, 2010 Oct 06) when George Siemens spoke about mapping learning and knowledge to real life and listed resonance, synchronicity, wayfinding, amplification, and learning/knowledge symmetry aspects of connectivist learning. I don't know if he intends them as critical (or perhaps higher order) thinking skills, but they resonate with me that way. Recognizing and engaging pockets of resonance in an environment seems to be a critical thinking skill needed for mapping the rhizome.

    tags: complexity ple elpcrithnk

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