Is it fair to suggest that most educators are feeling a shift (or a need for a shift) in education? Are we moving quickly enough from the Cartesian model of learning to a more open learner-centered one that focuses on participatory learning (learner-created content), social learning (learning by interacting), and niche learning — what Crowley, K., & Jacobs, M. (2002) call “islands of expertise.” To adapt, I think we need to meet students where they’re at in their day-to-day lives, their wants, needs, and values. This requires relying more on observing and listening to real-time needs and trends of student life, and less on top-down surveys that ask questions we think are important. Today’s challenge to you is to ask a student how they think the educational system can change (and do so in a way that doesn’t taint the honesty of the answer).
This excerpt is from a fantastic, more-relevant-than-ever 2008 Educause article by visionaries John Seely Brown and Richard P. Adler titled
Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0
The latest evolution of the Internet, the so-called Web 2.0, has blurred the line between producers and consumers of content and has shifted attention from access to information toward access to other people. New kinds of online resources—such as social networking sites, blogs, wikis, and virtual communities—have allowed people with common interests to meet, share ideas, and collaborate in innovative ways. Indeed, the Web 2.0 is creating a new kind of participatory medium that is ideal for supporting multiple modes of learning.
Social Learning
The most profound impact of the Internet, an impact that has yet to be fully realized, is its ability to support and expand the various aspects of social learning. What do we mean by “social learning”? Perhaps the simplest way to explain this concept is to note that social learning is based on the premise that our understanding of content is socially constructed through conversations about that content and through grounded interactions, especially with others, around problems or actions. The focus is not so much on what we are learning but on how we are learning.5
Compelling evidence for the importance of social interaction to learning comes from the landmark study by Richard J. Light, of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, of students’ college/university experience. Light discovered that one of the strongest determinants of students’ success in higher education—more important than the details of their instructors’ teaching styles—was their ability to form or participate in small study groups. Students who studied in groups, even only once a week, were more engaged in their studies, were better prepared for class, and learned significantly more than students who worked on their own.6
The emphasis on social learning stands in sharp contrast to the traditional Cartesian view of knowledge and learning—a view that has largely dominated the way education has been structured for over one hundred years. The Cartesian perspective assumes that knowledge is a kind of substance and that pedagogy concerns the best way to transfer this substance from teachers to students. By contrast, instead of starting from the Cartesian premise of “I think, therefore I am,” and from the assumption that knowledge is something that is transferred to the student via various pedagogical strategies, the social view of learning says, “We participate, therefore we are.”
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