Welcome to our emergent theory of learning with AI. This site began with the Collaborative Learning and AI (CLAI) project at the University of Derby. This was a small institutionally-funded project and a research initiative exploring AI for group work in education. This site supports the development of our theory as an outgrowth of that early work.
We developed “Iterationism” to help explain, explore, and develop AI in education. We developed this theory in relation to other theories of learning with technology (Constructivism & Constructionism for example).
Iterationism is a theory to conceptualise a form of learning developed by prototyping both thinking and practice. This individual, relational, and collaborative approach is supported by new pedagogical possibilities with AI technologies.
Iterationism is a way of designing classroom, blended, and online learning centred upon the idea of visualisation & prototyping as an individual, social and collective practice. This provides a process-oriented means of demonstrating understanding through the visualisation of thinking which is valued as much as or in relation to outputs using AI.
We argue that chatGPT can be used to generate topic content in different media formats quickly and easily. But Iterationism is about the generated content as a starting point for the design of learning and teaching in different configurations. This means that prototyping involves a relational and iterative approach to both thinking and practice with AI.
Image source: https://unsplash.com/@brett_jordan
Our emergent theory of Iterationism was originated by Nicholas Bowskill and the CLAI Research Project at University of Derby. Both the project and the theory are themselves under iterative development through our activities and publications.