The autonomous learner: rhizomatic learning in professional learning contexts

Stephen Hall (MESHGuides and ?) Marilyn Leaskand Sarah Younie (MESHGuides) John Cuthell, Rob Ellis, Theo Keuchel, Christina Preston (MirandaNet Fellowship)

The rapid introduction, impact and ubiquity of digital technologies and tools in the past forty years has meant that educational professionals and students largely inhabit a level playing field in terms of skills and knowledge. Whilst education systems are predicated on information transmission young people have embraced non-sequential learning. Conceptual, kinaesthetic and technical elements of thinking are increasing in liminal space as is the authoring of digital artifacts. In this chapter education professionals from different professional organisations share examples of how rhizomatic learning styles are accumulating within their group practice and amongst the students they teach. For example, the MirandaNet Fellowship discusses findings from members’ action research projects from the early 1990s that underpinned the development of MirandaMods, a conferencing mode in liminal space which explores collaboration in knowledge creation, face to face, remotely, nationally and internationally. The impact of the pandemic has meant that MirandaNet and its partner organisations – Technology, Pedagogy and Education Association (TPEA) and MESHguides have all shared other findings on rhizomatic learning: namely Communal Constructivism and Braided Learning. These will be covered in this chapter as well as the latest manifestation of the concept in the structure of MESHGuides about rhizomatic learning.

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