now i’m at a session on collaborative learning by michael yue and maria starosta. more live blogging!

some of the impetus for this session came from the philosophers café projects

“collaborative learning is better than learning by yourself”

presenter not an authority; he may have taken a bit more time to look into the topic but he is not an authority

we will learn collaboratively in this session, too [so will i still be able to live blog? let’s see!]

why am i (isabella) participating? because, among others, i see counselling as a collaborative event

what will happen here today: experiential learning (learning by doing) and social learning, co-creation (1+1=larger than 2)

just did an exciting little exercise. groups formed around 3 questions on flipchart paper (e.g. “what is the difference between formal and informal learning”), wrote down ideas/notes in response, then travelled to the other questions, added/subtracted/questioned notes.

debrief: the topic of “taking up too much air space” comes up – who gets to talk how much, who gets to/feels comfortable adding something to “someone else’s” flip chart. who owns the ideas/notes? how big should a group be to be most effective for collaborative learning?

is it even possible to do individual learning? maybe when you’re in nature? maybe not even then? same with the difference between face to face learning, and the difference between formal and informal learning.

concepts in collaborative learning – nonlinear concepts: he’s showing a wordcloud: dialogue, group, conversation, connection, social, informal. it makes learning exciting – and complicated. like a jigsaw puzzle

a lot of exciting projects come out of informal situations.

online book club as an example of collaborative, web-based, informal learning.

how do workers learn? mostly on the job experience, 80% informal. and where do corporations invest their resources? 90% of the funds go to formal training

but it’s difficult to validate informal learning.

VCC has a mentoring program. this helps with validation and also is a form of collaborative learning. in another company: define experts who go out and gather information, then share it with the rest of the organization. good way of integrating formal and informal learning

the stimulus of collaborative learning. also, collaborative learning is a tremendous help for team building. it can raise the collegial relationship to a totally different level. connecting intellectually, not just operationally.

now we’re doing a philosophers café simulation. it’s a way to dialogue. the philosopher’s café michael is talking about is also tied into a blog so that the café is open to anyone.

what about dialogue?  great info here!

another example of online collaborative learning: a text-based online book club.

you can also visit the enet blog.