New environment for innovation and getting things done:

• no lone pursuits
• need collaboration
• changing skills so seek people with these skills

But:

1. Collaboration skills don’t tend to be taught – on the job or hit and miss.
2. Organisational culture will determine how collaboration is supported.
3. Many companies but ‘collaboration’ software they are not using well

“Technology makes things possible; people collaborating makes it happen”

…………………………………………

2. TYPES OF COLLABORATION

a) Team collaboration:

• members of group are known
• clear task interdependencies
• expected reciprocity
• explicit timelines and goals
• implies equal status/footing

b) Community Collaboration:

• shared domain or area of interest
• goal more focused on learning rather than task
• share and build knowledge as opposed to complete projects
• time periods for membership open and ongoing
• status can vary due to experience etc
• reciprocity but not one-to-one

c) Network Collaboration:

• moves beyond relationship-centric nature of team and community collaboration
• starts with individual action/self-interest, then accrues to networks as individuals add to it
• membership and timelines open and unbounded
• no explicit roles
• probably don’t know each other
• driven by advent social media and connectivity
• individuals can’t cope on own with so much info
• networks then mechanisms for knowledge capture, filtering, creation

3. COLLABORATION SUCCESS FACTORS

The article then lists a series of factors that contributes to success in this type of collaboration – they are all of value, but too long to mention, and mostly derived from the factors outlined above.

4. UNDERSTANDING AN ORGS COLLABORATION CULTURE

a) Leadership Culture:

Leader’s behaviours that mould the organisation’s culture:

• Do they pay attention to collaborative strategies?
• How do they react to critical incidents and organizational crises?
• Do they invest resources in collaboration capability?
• Do they model collaboration?
• What behaviours are they rewarding?
• Are collaborative talents sought and nutured?

(ie ‘how does one get ahead around here’)

 b) Team Culture:

• Are specific interdependencies between people valued and supported?
• Through: priorities, targets, learning, explicit team processes

c) Community Culture:

Community leaders usually lead from passion and need to gain support of members as involvement not compulsory.

• What incentives (positive and negative are there)?
• What sort of involvement/time participation is happening?
• Is it clear what teams can share with communities?
• What is the purpose of the community?

d) Network Culture:

• No centralised leadership – more reaction to signals, how do employees manage these?
• Who in org is good at cutting through info overload and are they encouraged in this role?
• Can employees differentiate between identity and trust?
• Are key employees being rewarded so other attractive employment options in network are resisted?
• How does company leadership culture sit with the distributed leadership in networks?

5. STRENGTHENING THE COLLABORATION CULTURE

a) Foster Collaboration Leadership and Support:

• Establish a collaboration coordinator who will:
  • Find opportunities for collaboration
  • Connect people and ideas
  • Help people learn and adopt collaboration practices and tools
• Build a group of collaboration supporters, look for people with:
  • Strong project-management skills
  • Curiosity and global thinking
  • Good ‘people connecting’ abilities
• Recruit and promote collaborative people

b) Communicate the fruits of collaboration:

• Initiate communication with leaders: tell success stories backed up with reasoning and data
• Go beyond the leadership: share stories with the wider community

c) Implement collaboration tools:

• First identify the collaboration activities to be supported.
• Then match the tools to these.

Basic technologies:

- telephone and conference call facility

- email and distribution lists

- place to share electronic documents

- ways to share ideas (eg wikis)

- people directories with photos

- instant messaging

- directory of relevant networks

- social bookmarking

- aggregators

May also have features like group calendar, discussion threads, photo and video sharing

d) Start communities of practice:

PART 3: ORGANIZATIONS

Communities of practice differ from institutional entities:

• they negotiate their own enterprise
• they arise, evolve and dissolve according to their own learning
• they shape their own boundaries

There are two aspects to the organization – the designed organization (the institution) and the practice which gives life to the organization and is often a response to the designed organization.

A. DIMENSIONS

1. Participation & Reification: challenges of institutionalization

Things that are institutionalized (eg policies, roles, laws etc) become public and are easier to pay attention to and better able to cross boundaries BUT it

• creates fixed points around which to negotiate alignment but tends to become frozen in reification
• offers opportunities for drastic change but has limited ability to mobilize the power of practice
• consumes energy
• can restrain domination by specific interest groups but can also become the instrument of such domination

Designing processes and policies is important but in the end it is practice that produces results.

Too much institutionalization – can stall the institution

Too little institutionalization – not enough material to hold the organization together

Key questions:

• What should be institutionalized and when should participation be relied on?
• What forms of participation are required to give meaning to institutional reification?
• At what point is institutionalization a distraction?
• Where are the points of leverage at which organizational interventions can support learning in practice?

2. The Designed & the Emergent

An organisation is therefore the meeting of two sources of structure, the designed structure of the institution and the emergent structure of practice.

Unless the defined institutional roles/systems of accountability/artifacts (like procedures, rules) can find a realization of identities in practice, they are unlikely to connect with the conduct of everyday affairs

Must be a certain amount of free play between practice and institution: relation is one of negotiated alignment.

Key questions:

• How can the design be kept minimal and still ensure continuity and coherence?
• What are the obstacles to responsiveness to the emergent?
• What are the provisions for renegotiating the design under new circumstances?

3. The Local (improvisation) & the Global (patterns)

The fundamental principal is to connect and combine the diverse knowledgeabilities that exist in a range of practices.

Key questions:

• Does the organizational design serve as a communication tool?
• Does it help the various forms of knowledgeability to involved in a constellation to recognize each other?
• Are information flows reciprocal?
• Are there forms of multimembership that connect the local and the global?
• What perspectives are privileged and which are marginalized or made invisible?

4. Identification & Negotiability

In organizations many people belong where they have little say and many have a say where they do not belong

Key questions:

• What are the sources of identification that keep an organization together?
• What are the obstacles to expanding fields of identification?
• How can an organizational design promote and distribute ownership of meaning?
• By what processes can a community modify its field of negotiability?

- Emphasis should be on learning rather than teaching by finding leverage points to build on learning opportunities offered in practice

-Communities should be engaged in the design of their practice as a place of learning

- Communities need access to the resources they need to negotiate their connections with other practices and their relation with the organization

Organizational engagement

• As people build histories of doing things together, any organization will spawn some communities of practice
• Communities of practice are organizational assets that represent investments in mutual engagement
• Since they are by nature self-organizing, communities of practice usually have rather modest organizational needs

Communities of Practice: the social fabric of learning

Challenges of organizational design:

• Negotiation of meaning (sustained history of practice helps the negotiation process)
• Preservation and creation of knowledge (old knowledge when kept alive produces new knowledge)
• Spreading of information (new info acquired by one member can quickly become the property of everyone)
• Home for identities (despite a focus on communities of practice also places a specific focus on people)

Key is to honor the meaningfulness of members participation and value their membership as a key to their ability to contribute to the competence of the organization.

By offering an institutional home to the communities of practice that are key to its competence, an organization helps sustain the kinds of identity that allow participants to take active responsibility for some aspects of organizational learning.

Communities of practice are organizational assets as they are the social fabric of learning in the organisation – but because they are not formally organized they are often a resource that are easily overlooked.

Boundaries

- Boundaries are a sign that community of practices are deepening.
- Focusing on boundaries helps explain unusual events, connections, interpretations etc
- Boundaries confront newcomers and outsiders
- Boundaries are the likely locus of the production of radically new knowledge or places where new practices often start.

Depth and fragmentation

The challenge of engagement requires a balancing act between depth and fragmentation

PART 2: LEARNING ARCHITECTURES

Need a skeletal architecture for learning (purpose of a conceptual architecture is to lay down the general principles of design ie state what needs to be in place)

So must recast the conceptual framework, laying out the basic questions that must be addressed and basic components that must be provided for a design of learning. Conceptual architecture can guide design by outlining:

• i) general questions, choices and tradeoffs to address
• ii) general shape of what needs to be achieved – basic components and facilities to provide

A. DIMENSIONS (of the ‘space’ of design for learning)

1. Participation & Reification (which are dimensions of both practice and identity)

• both avenues for influencing the future (whether person or practice)
• ensures some artifacts in place: tools, plans, procedures
• makes sure right people are at the right place in the right kind of relation to make something happen
• design cannot be a choice between these two – design for practice must be distributed between participation and reification (realization depends on how these two fit together)
• therefore design involves decisions about how to distribute between these two: what to reify, when and with what forms of participation, who to involve and when and with respect to what forms of reification
• this means trade-offs: rigidity vs adaptability, partiality of people vs ambiguity of artifacts etc

2. The Designed & the Emergent

• There is an inherent uncertainty between design and its realization in practice since practice is not the result of design but rather a response to it.
• The structure of practice is emergent, reconstituting itself in the face of new events: this emergent character gives practice and identity their ability to negotiate meaning anew
• This means practice cannot be the result of design but instead constitutes a response to design
• So the challenge is not a matter of getting rid of the emergent but including it and making it an opportunity
• Aim is to balance the benefits and costs of prescription and understand the trade-offs involved in specifying in advance.

3. The Local (improvisation) & the Global (patterns)

• Designing for learning cannot be based on a division of labour between learners and non-learners – communities of practice are already involved in the design of their own learning as ultimately they will decide what they need and how it operates
• Paradox: No community can fully design the learning of another AND No community can fully design its own learning
• So a design must aim to combine different forms of knowledgeability so they inform each other
• Design is a boundary object that functions as a communication artifact around which communities of practice can negotiate their contribution, position and alignment

4. Identification & Negotiability

• In order to have an effect, design must shape or form communities and economies of meaning
• How is the power to define, adapt or interpret the design distributed?
• Design represents a perspective and can results in privileging of perspectives – which can then curtail negotiation and create fragmentation among constituencies
• Design is a proposal of identity and creates a focus for identification – it is a bid for ownership of meaning
• So design creates fields of identification and negotiability that orient the practices and identities if those involved to various forms of participation and non-participation.

Each dimension has distinct (but interrelated) trade-offs and challenges.

1. Engagement

Engagement is a matter of activity, community building, inventiveness, social energy and emergent knowledgeability. Infrastructure of engagement should include:

• i) Mutuality (interactional facilities, joint tasks, peripherality)
• ii) Competence (initiative and knowledgeability, accountability, tools)
• iii) Continuity (reificative and participative memory)

2. Imagination

Need imagination to deal with a broader context. Needs:

• i) Orientation (location in space, time, meaning, power)
• ii) Reflection
• iii) Exploration

3. Alignment

Imagination can open up practices and identities beyond engagement but it is not always effective in connecting learning to broader enterprises. Through alignment we can have effects and contributions to tasks defined beyond our engagement. Needs:

• i) Convergence
• ii) Coordination (standards and methods, communication, boundary facilities, feedback facilities)
• iii) Jurisdiction

PART 1: SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE

Perspectives are important because they shape what we perceive and what we do.

We often learn things without having any intention of becoming full members in any specifiable community of practice.

Some learning is best done in groups while some learning is best done by oneself.

Social Perspective on learning:

• Learning is inherent in human nature (an ongoing and integral part of our lives)
• Learning is first and foremost the ability to negotiate new meanings (involves our whole person)
• Learning creates emergent structures (requires structure and continuity to accumulate experience and enough discontinuity to renegotiate meaning – constitutes elemental social learning structures)
• Learning is fundamentally experiential and social (involves our own experience of participation and reification – is a realignment of experience and competence, whichever pulls the other)
• Learning transforms our identities
• Learning constitutes trajectories of participation (builds personal histories in relation to the histories of our communities)
• Learning means dealing with boundaries (multimembership in the constitution of our identities)
• Learning is a matter of social energy and power (thrives on identification and depends on negotiability)
• Learning is a matter of engagement (need opportunities to contribute actively to the practices of community and integrate their enterprises into our understanding of the world)
• Learning is a matter of imagination.
• Learning is a matter of alignment
• Learning involves an interplay between the local and the global)

Communities of Practice

• May be potential, active or latent
• Are about content: learning as a living experience of negotiating meaning
• Are not reified, designable units (practice itself is not amenable to design)
• Can design policies or communities to live by but can’t design the practices that will emerge in response to the system
• So, learning can not be designed, it cannot only be designed for ie facilitated or frustrated.

PREVELANCE OF SOCIAL LEARNING

• large amount of our learning occurs through interactions: observe others and model
• realization that this is important, but few satisfactory theories to explain social learning

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE:

1. Piaget’s Genetic Epistmological Theory

• From 1920s till death
• a theory of development of intelligence and cognitive functioning based on a series of genetically determined stages, fixed by age
• strong emphasis on social interaction
• theory has been attacked: invariability of stages, fixed sequencing of subcomponents, doubts about the reliability of tasks used

2. Vygotsky’s Social-Cognitive Approach

• 1930s theories to explain link between socialization, language, development of behaviour and cognitive processes
• central are concepts of self-verbalisation, proximal development (child encouraged to develop skills close to their immediate capability – like the concept of ‘readiness’), scaffolding of children through interaction with carers as they attempt to learn behaviour beyond immediate capabilities and progress to next stage of expected development
• relevance for adolescents and adult learners not established (motivation and willingness may need to be taken into account)

3. Situated Learning

• extreme position denied the existence of transfer and holds that learning is only attained through specific physical cues
• major problem is that most of these theorists do not assume fixed knowledge structures and so cannot account in a satisfactory way for memory
• other researchers have indicated that in additional to social and contextual factors need to consider individual’s learning processes
• Bandura’s theory then moved towards reconciling this

4. Bandura’s Social Learning/Social Cognitive Theory

• Bandura’s theories have developed beyond modeling
• Specifically took into account social, cognitive and physical aspects of learning

Importance of Modelling in Social Cognitive Theory and Development of Self Processes

• Foundation of social cognitive theory is belief there are complex interactions between individual, behaviour and environment.
• Modelling is therefore of great importance and seen as an environmental factor
• Modelling explains acquisition of a wide range of observable behaviours
• Modelling also important in learning the abstract rules which underline effective behaviour
• Civilised conduct is dependent upon recognition of complex rules derived from complex behaviour and adherence to these codes of contact
• Modelling through observational learning is also considered imp in developing self-regulation and positive beliefs about self-efficacy (belief one is likely to succeed)
• Considered that these self-processes are key issues in the development of effective learning and performance
• Levels for development of self-regulatory behaviour (observation, imitative, self-controlled, self-regulated): gradual movement from social to self sources.

Change, Possible Selves and the Importance of Models

• Any learning of behaviour , attitudes or values is dependent on having some conception of what that may involve and of possible selves, must be able to conceptualize what change may involve
• Humans are inclined to select the possible selves that they believe are effective performers
• Viewing of positive models also cuts down on the trial and error time

Some Common Effects of Model Observation

Factors which must be explained by any theory for it to be regarded as satisfactory are:

1. Inhibition/Disinhibition Effects

• Inhibition: effect of observation of models causing he individual not to engage in certain forms of behaviour
• Disinhibition: to throw off caution and engage in a form of behaviour previously considered not appropriate
• With these the environmental factors (esp carrot or stick) tend to be imp features

2. Creative Adaptations (adults adapt or modify modeled behaviours – need to be creative and improve what they have observed as well as adapt to different circumstances)

The Observational Learning Model

• see a model performing some type of skill or action, attempt to learn from this action and reproduced modeled behaviour
• In this model:

1. Attentional Processes – explain how learner selectively extracts info
2. Retention Processes – imp of retaining the info
3. Production Processes – process of converting the images and info stored in memory into some kind of physical performance – range of process and feedback variables imp.
4. Motivational Processes – imp in initial skill learning, maintenance of skills standards, improvement of skills over time (this process influences the others)

Attentional Processes: Modelled Events

• Salience (or distinctiveness of an event, must be able to distinguish the modeled act from other info in the context, notice the cues and realize there is something different to be learned
• Complexity (affects how much of event is observed, processed, retained, limitations of short term memory, need multiple viewings)
• Prevalence (more time repeated the better)
• Accessibility (how easy it is to access the modeling event – may be social class based factors or social taboos)
• Functional value (perceived value or usefulness of a modeled event to the observer – will affect how much attention is paid – rewards generally more motivating than punishments)
• Affective Valence (refers to the degrees of attraction and identification that exist between an observer and a model)

Attentional Processes: Observer Attributes

• Sensory Capacities (eg visually impaired students etc)
• Arousal Level (eg sleepy or hyperactive students)
• Perceptual Set (students frame of reference)
• Cognitive Capabilities
• Cognitive Preconceptions (past learning)
• Past Reinforcement

Reterntion Processes: Cognitive Construction

• Symbolic Coding (short term memory vs long term memory – humans must convert into symbolic codes ie representations of the observed events)
• Cognitive Organisation (linking together info, organizing it or grouping it with related pieces of info)
• Rehearsal: Cognitive and Enactive (physical)

Retention Processes: Observer Attributes

• Cognitive Skills  and Structures (cognitive structures that already exist will influence the observers efforts at symbolic coding and cognitive organization)

Production Processes:

• Representational Guidance (affected by accuracy of initial observation and effective coding of the observed data)
• Corrective Adjustment (during practice period corrective adjustments are needed from feedback and monitoring)
• Observer Attributes

Motivational Processes:

• Types of Incentives (external, internal, vicarious)
• Observer Attributes (diff people will have diff presences for different types of incentives)

In conclusion:

Bandura’s model has successfully reconciled elements from a range of theories. It is a unique approach as it explains (in convincing ways) the factors which operate in learning through observation of others. It is a detailed of analysis of component processes underlying observational learning and so we can gain insights into factors which must be taken into account in social learning situations.

THIS ARTICLE COVERS:

Themes relevant for learning in group contexts

- Specific influences on learning in group settings

- Aspects of the nature and structural characteristics of a group which can influence adult learning

- How group contexts can facilitate or inhibit learning for adults

- A profile for an effective learning group which integrates earlier themes on psychological and social influences on adult learning and specific features of group learning

1. LEARNING IN SOCIAL CONTEXTS

• much of our learning depends on interaction with other people
• the only way we learn who we are is by communication with others
• learning about our sense of identity and roles comes from our social experience with others and from the way others define us
• adults learn by belonging to and participating in groups
• what we remember is greatly influenced by reinforcement from the social context of learning and perceptions of the social implications (including those for relationships)

2. ADULT LEARNING AND RESEARCH IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

• s.p. is the scientific study of the way individuals think, feel and behave in social situations
• concerned with the reciprocal influence of persons and their social environments (and the impact from this on learning)
• what is the impact of the social environment on a person’s motivation for learning?
• suggestion that motives are learnt: social environment can mould the way we react and anticipate
• adults personal motives for achieving specific learning outcomes are closely related to the adults attitude towards learning, work and life
• therefore adult education = attitude change

Factors that influence learning in group contexts:

• tendency to conform to group norms
• personal satisfaction with group interpersonal relationships
• internalization where the individual adopts the values of the group
• identification where the individual wants to like the group
• compliance where the individual conforms to the group norms to avoid rejection
• individuals more likely to learn and change their attitudes and behaviour if they had interacted in a group where norms were formed collaboratively.

In summary: Early social research was concerned with the way adults can learn to change their attitudes and behaviour through discussions in small cohesive groups of peers more than impersonal lectures from experts to an audience.

1946-1960 How belonging to groups influenced learning about:

• prejudice and stereotyping
• conformity and person perceptions
• cognitive dissonance: need for consistency between thoughts and behaviours
• social comparison: how we learn by comparing ourselves to others
• attrition theory: tendency to assign motives to others
• balance theory: viewing relationships in terms of balance between likes and dislikes
• attitude formation and change, persuasion
• assessment of rewards and costs in a social exchange

1961-1975 Investigated:

• how people think an feel about themselves and others
• how people learn from interaction in groups
• how people are affected by social settings in terms of aggression and stress

Since 1975 Social Cognition approach has grown:

Cognitive theory says we can understand a person’s learning and behaviour only by knowing how that person perceives the world so the focus is on how people perceive, remember and interpret info about themselves and others

3. SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

• based on assumption that people learn how to behave by observing others
• concept of modeling and learning by imitation
• idea that behaviour is learned through observation and example of others as well as through the direct experience of rewards and punishments
• emphasizes both the person and the environment as sources of learning
• contrasts to needs theory of learning: explains learning in terms of a person’s internal motives or a behavioural modification theory of learning which focuses on contingent reinforcement from the environment
• need to emphasise there is a distinction between learning and performance (just because you learn about something doesn’t mean you will do it)
• if gap between what is said and done we tend to believe what is done

Significance of social learning for the social psychology of learning:

• adults select others as models
• they pay attention to the skills and attitudes of these models
• they learn selectively from their chosen models
• make decisions for learning based on own perceptions of relevance/applications
• may or may not implement due to personal and environmental factors

So, implications of social learning theory for adult education practice:

• adult educators should request info prior and during on learning experience, expectations etc
• adult educators should monitor their own practice as a potential model
• adult educators should watch for congruence in words/actions
• create a safe social learning environment
• encourage discussions of relevance and applications of learning for participants context
• represent high standards and positive attitudes
• up-to-date and model ethical behaviour and effective ways of learning

4. INDIVIDUALS, INTERACTIONS AND ADULT LEARNING

Significance of research on the individual level of learning for the social psychology of adult learning is:

• useful to link factors in individual to features from group content for a more holistic explanation of adult learning
• individual factors include: motivation, personality, levels of training, leadership ability and attitudes about job satisfaction
• so need to take the individual factors into account as well

5. SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY AND ADULT LEARNING

• use others to evaluate our skills, values, beliefs particularly if no other objective standard for evaluation
• argued learn more productively (and with less frustration) if choose suitable models for comparison
• presence of others acts as a stimulus for learning and performance
• shown that if task is easy, competition improves performance, if difficult may impair it (may feel overwhelmed by competence of instructor)
• if task is complex and people are learning in presence of others then a cooperative approach is more likely to facilitate meaning
• so adult learners learn better if they are comparing themselves to someone with greater relevance expertise but not too superior in their expertise
• good idea for experts to demonstrate small segments and give opportunities for learner practice
• when a learner is asked to perform in front of others, other learners will be comparing their experiences (may not want to be exposed in front of group)
• need to educate learners about appropriate model choice
• in any learning context a person’s internal anchors (reference points) influence what is understood, valued, accepted and changed
• self-disclosure and feedback are needed to understand participants values, attitudes and opinions and determine extent of acceptance and any non-negotiable boundaries

6. SOCIAL JUDGMENT THEORY

• social learning and social comparison theory focus on learning from others by example and differentiation
• with social judgment theory the emphasis is on learning from others (or changing attitudes and beliefs) by persuasion
• people use reference points (or anchors – points on which they strongly agree) as a method of comparison to make judgments
• from the anchor, people then can move to a latitude of acceptance (agree), a latitude if non-commitment (don’t care) or a latitude of rejection (strongly disagree) – the range of their latitudes will affect learning
• with s.j theory may be possible to change a person’s attitude s by appealing to some of the statements in the latitude of acceptance

7. ADULT LEARNING THROUGH SELF-DISCLOSURE TO OTHERS

Social penetration theory: describes the movement from superficial levels of learning about each other to more personal, intimate levels

• adults learn about themselves and others through self disclosure in relationships
• what is disclosed depends on expectations, nature of relationship and social context
• disclose clichés, then facts, then opinions then feelings
• disclose incrementally, symmetrically and reciprocally
• some disclose in inappropriate or monopolizing ways (needs to be monitored)

8. SELF-MONITORING AND ADULT LEARNING

• - adults need to monitor appropriateness of disclosures and behaviour in order to meet their learning goals and adjust responses given cues from environment
• - selective self-monitoring can enhance learning about ourselves and others (more open but take feedback into account)

9. LEARNING FROM SELF-DISCLOSURE AND FEEDBACK

Values underlying the humanistic approach:

• unconditional positive regard towards other people
• genuine: words match the inner feeling
• empathy of other people’s perspectives
• feedback response matches the emotional intensity expressed by the other person

Feedback guidelines for constructive learning:

• focus on behaviour of person not characteristic
• express what you observe rather than what you infer
• express feedback in terms of description (report) not judgment (evaluation)
• express about a particular situation rather than generalizing about behaviour in the past
• express feedback by sharing ideas rather than giving advice
• express feedback by exploring alternatives rather than looking for solutions
• express feedback sparingly, don’t overload and at appropriate time and place

10. ADULT LEARNING AND THE JOHARI WINDOW MODEL OF SELF DISCLOSURE AND FEEDBACK

Johari Window model: each person views their personal relationships and learning experiences from behind their window pane.

1. Arena: open part of self (known both to self and others)
2. Façade: hidden part (known to self but not others)
3. Blind Spot: (unknown to self, known to others)
4. Unknown: to all

• model highlights the influence of openness through self disclosure and giving and receiving feedback, built on increasing levels of trust, as key factors in learning in a social interaction
• particularly relevant for the mentoring relationship

11. LEARNING CONVERSATIONS AND ADULT LEARNING

• conversations that are simultaneously collaborative and challenging
• disclosure in terms of what people have noticed and what sense they have made of it
• bilateral control: both people contribute to the learning process
• promote learning as participants are willing to suspend judgment and put aside power and status, to seek to clarify uncertainty and to collaborate
• format for mentoring where can share expertise and give specific feedback collaboratively
• require integration of self-disclosure, self-monitoring, empathic listening, acute questioning, constructive feedback

12. IMPLICATIONS OF RESEARCH IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY ON GROUP DYNAMICS FOR ADULT LEARNING

There are aspects of groups that both advantage and disadvantage group learning:

• people opinions are influenced by the norms and goals of the group
• rewarded for conforming, punished for opposing
• greater pressure to confirm when group is meeting certain needs
• more power over each other when high cohesiveness of group
• influence affected by frequency of communication
• risky shift may occur: people feel less personally responsible in groups and may make riskier decision
• communication patterns affect the content of group discussions and relationship between them
• men and women may behave differently in groups (mixed gender groups may be more effective)
• publicly stated opinions are harder to change
• majority opinion can enforce compliance (but minority can too can explain well)
• groupthink: in highly cohesive groups, need to maintain group consensus may suppress critical evaluation and personal opinions
• social loafing: people in group not carrying weight

So, significance of research in social psychology on group dynamics:

• learn best if interpersonal relationships managed so that energy in the group to learn together
• adults can learn from the greater resources in a group
• adults may work harder because they want the group to succeed
• groups develop norms of conduct that facilitate or inhibit learning by individuals in a group
• leadership, motivation, structures and communication patterns will affect outcomes
• involvement in group decisions means adults more committed to implementation
• through group interaction, adults may increase their personal and social awareness and learn to make better decisions

Therefore, learning groups should be encouraged to:

• build interdependent relationships among the members to share the work
• to seek and explore different ideas and listen with empathy
• to state explicitly their norms for conduct

KEY TRENDS

• Environment of higher education is changing rapidly (costs, budgets, mode , student profile).
• Increasing globalization is changing the way we work, collaborate and communicate (wider perspectives, resources and more workers)
• Can’t assume information literacy
• Academic review is out of sync with the new scholarship
• Notions of collective intelligence and mass amateurization are pushing the boundaries of scholarship
• Students views of what is technology is different from faculties

CRITICAL CHALLENGES:

• Finding ways to assess new forms of work
• Need visionary leadership to capitilise on shifts taking place
• Issues of intellectual property and copyright (need to protect and at times unclear)
• Skills gaps between understanding how to use tools for media creation and how to create meaningful content
• Growth of collaborative learning means educational community needs to develop new forms of interaction and assessment
• Higher education increasingly expected to deliver to mobile devices

TECHNOLOGIES TO WATCH:

1. User-created content (blogs, photostreams, wikibooks, machinima clips)

• no classroom boundaries
• low cost way to publish work
• can compare to others and get different perspectives
• easy to connect with others
• accessible, often free

2. Social networking is the reason students log on – may represent a way to increase student participation

3. Mobile Phones – gateway to digital lives

4. Virtual worlds

5. New scholarship and emerging forms of publication

• expands the audience (in a cost-effective way)
• greater collaboration
• hones ideas and thinking through sharing (learn from many voices)
• available tools/media make the info more easily understood

6. Massively multiplayer educational gaming

KEY EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

1. Grassroots video / video sharing
2. Collaborating Webs
3. Mobile Broadband
4. Data mashups
5. Collective intelligences
6. Social Operating Systems

Data Mashups – custom applications where combinations of data from different sources are ‘mashed up’ into a single tool

Social Operating Systems

• they will base the organisation of the network around people rather than around content
• tools that not only recognize our social connections but will expose into in entirely new ways that will make these networks richer and more fluid
• can lead us to connections we would have missed
• value of the web is in the way it helps us create, identify and sustain relationships

CRITICAL CHALLENGES:

• Significant shifts in scholarship, research, learning have created the need for innovation and leadership at all levels (in order to ensure potential technology is embraced)
• Growing expectation on the modes of delivery
• Renewed emphasis on collaborative learning means new forms of interaction and assessment being developed.
• Need to provide instruction in different types of literacy (ie info navigation) and how to use the tools to create meaningful content

SIGNIFICANT TRENDS:

1. Growing use of web2.0, social networking, collective intelligence, mass amateurization is changing practice of scholarship.
2. Work, communication, collaboration is evolving as boundaries become more fluid and globalization increases.
3. Increasing portability and access to content as new devices are developed.
4. Gap widening between students and faculty perception of technology.

SEVEN MEGA TRENDS:

1. Evolving approaches to communication between humans and machines
2. Collective sharing and generation of knowledge
3. Computing in 3 dimensions
4. Connecting people via the network
5. Shifting of content production to users
6. Evolution of a ubiquitous platform

 BACKGROUND

The world has become:

‘Growing Up Digital’ : our perception might be different from what we first thought: multiprocessors but are they still concentrating?

KEY FEATURES OF THE NEW WEB

• Transformative infrastructure
• May take 20-50 years to enact new social practices (interest in ARPA net been around 25 years) that leverage the potential of the infrastructure (and have necessary complementary assets in place)
• Beginning of a fundamentally new medium
• Two-way or interactive medium
• Web genres evolving every few months
• May be 1^st medium to honor ‘multiple intelligences’ (as we move away from our intense belief in text)
• New medium (not just a network) with both REACH & RECIPROCITY
• Can leverage the small efforts of many and large efforts of a few.

Cyberage Shifts

• Text literacy + screen literacy = info navigation literacy (be your own librarian)
• LEARNING from AUTHORITY based to DISCOVERY, EXPERIENTIAL
• REASONING from DEDUCTIVE, LINEAR to BRICOLAGE* + JUDGEMENT = LATERAL
• ACTION from DON’T KNOW WON’T TRY to LINK< LURK & TR(Bricolage*=ability to find something, object, tool, code, and use it in new way and new content – to be good at this need to make judgments)

Distributed Intelligence

• Includes SOCIAL & COGNITIVE basis of learning and their interaction.
• Explicit vs Tactic
• Individuals vs Groups
• With knowing communities of practice in the centre (can teach people concepts but they must also learn the practices of the profession)
• Learning to learn happens most naturally in this community of practice
• Learn more when can stop and share
• Need to capture the naturally occurring knowledge performances/assets and add additional tag structures to make them a more useful asset

‘Learning Ecology’:

• new kind of learning matrix
• considers all components K-firms, in a region
• have systematic properties
• possible can create regional advantages to combine the knowledge producing components of the region
• open, complex, adaptive system with dynamic/independent elements
• diverse
• potentially self-organising
• each is part consumer / part-producer
• boundaries fluid

Advantages of web for learning:

1. Helps establish culture that honors fluid boundaries between production and consumption of knowledge
2. Easier for experts to interact and mentor
3. Provides infinite reach and accessibility
4. Increases intellectual density of cross linkage

TOOLS FOR SUPPORTING INDIVIDUALS

become

TOOLS FOR SUPPORTING RELATIONSHIPS