Collective Learning

What struck me from this week’s reading was the comparison between what and how we learned in the past to what and how we learn now.  A huge difference is that in the past, the information we learned was static. It did not change.  Now, however, the things we learn are constantly changing.  Never before has it been so important to “learn how to learn.” 

The educational system has not caught up with this change.  Many classrooms are still structured to the old style of learning:  a lecture or reading of what you are to learn and then a test to see that you have learned it. In today’s world, students need to do so much more than remember certain facts or algorithms to solve problems. They need to keep up with all that is changing in technology to be competitive in today’s world.  The things that are up to date when they are in high school, may very well be obsolete by the time they are in college. 

When we learn how to do something, we learn by experiencing.  In A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change by Thomas and Brown, the authors talked about how we don’t read about how to learn a new program or app.  We learn by trying it out for ourselves with help from others who are more familiar with it.  This type of learning is possible in the collective.  In a collective, there is a wealth of information.   

“Collective learning is fundamentally a type of learning that happens ‘in the real world’.” Is the definition of collective learning from:  littlebylittlejohn.com/change11-position.../collective-learning-examples/‎

This site give several examples of what they consider collective learning.  One such example was IBM’s Innovation Jam.  They invited employees, partners, family members, and others from around the world to a massive open brainstorming sessions.  In two seventy-two hours sessions they heard form over 100,000 people during online, moderated discussions.  This led to breakthrough innovations.  This is a great example of successful collective learning. 

I like how Prof. Thomas N. Garavan and Dr. Ronan Carbery describe collective learning:   “Collective learning can therefore be conceived as an evolutionary process of perfecting collective knowledge.”    Evolutionary is a wonderful way to describe collective learning.  http://www.springerreference.com/docs/html/chapterdbid/319564.html