Leseprobe
I was invited to lecture at UC Berkeley in January, 2012, and to involve their faculty and their graduate students in some kind of seminar, so I told the story of how I’ve used social media in teaching and learning - and invited them to help me create a handbook for self-learners.
I called it the Peeragogy Handbook. I met twice on the Berkeley campus in the weeks following the lecture with about a dozen Berkeley faculty and graduate students. We also had a laptop open with Elluminate, an online platform that enabled video chatting and text chat, enabling people around the world who were interested in the subject, who I recruited through Twitter and email, to also participate in this conversation. All of the faculty and grad students at Berkeley dropped out of the project, but we ended up with about two dozen people, most of them educators, several of them students, in Canada, Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the UK, USA, and Venezuela who ended up collaborating on a voluntary effort to create this Peeragogy Handbook, at peeragogy.org. We all shared an interest in the question: “If you give more and more of your power as a teacher to the students, can’t you just eliminate the teacher all together, or can’t people take turns being the facilitator of the class?”
Between the time nine years ago, when I started out using social media in teaching and learning, clearly there’s been an explosion of people learning things together online via Wikipedia and YouTube, MOOCs and Quora, Twitter and Facebook, Google Docs and video chat, and I don’t really know what’s going to happen with the institutions, but I do know that this wild learning is happening and that some people are becoming more expert at it.
I started trying to learn programming this summer, and I think that learning programming and doing programming must be very, very different now from before the Web, because now, if you know the right question to ask, and you put it into a search query, there’s someone out there on StackOverflow who is already discussing it. More and more people are getting savvy to the fact that you don’t have to go to a university to have access to all of the materials, plus media that the universities haven’t even had until recently. What’s missing for learners outside formal institutions who know how to use social media is useful lore about how people learn together without a teacher. Nobody should ever overlook the fact that there are great teachers. Teachers should be trained, rewarded, and sought out. But it’s time to expand the focus on learners, particularly on self-learners whose hunger for learning hasn’t been schooled out of them.
I think that we’re beginning to see the next step, which is to develop the methods – we certainly have the technologies, accessible at the cost of broadband access – for self-learners to teach and learn from each other more effectively. Self-learners know how to go to YouTube, they know how to use search, mobilize personal learning networks. How does a group of self-learners organize co-learning?
In the Peeragogy project, we started with a wiki and then we decided that we needed to have a mechanism for people who were self-electing to write articles on the wiki to say, OK, this is ready for editing, and then for an editor to come in and say, this is ready for Wordpress, and then for someone to say, this has been moved to WordPress. We used a forum to hash out these issues and met often via Elluminate, which enabled us to all use audio and video, to share screens, to text-chat, and to simultaneously draw on a whiteboard. We tried Piratepad for a while. Eventually we settled on WordPress as our publication platform and moved our most of our discussions to Google+. It was a messy process, learning to work together while deciding what, exactly it was we were doing and how we were going to go about it. In the end we ended up evolving methods and settled on tools that worked pretty well. We tackled key questions and provided resources for dealing with them: How you want to govern your learning community? What kinds of technologies do you want to use, and why, and how to use them? How are learners going to convene, what kind of resources are available, and are those resources free or what are their advantages and disadvantages. We were betting that if we could organize good responses to all these questions, a resource would prove to be useful: Here’s a resource on how to organize a syllabus or a learning space, and here are a lot of suggestions for good learning activities, and here’s why I should use a wiki rather than a forum. We planned the Handbook to be an open and growable resource – if you want to add to it, join us! The purpose of all this work is to provide a means of lubricating the process of creating online courses and/or learning spaces.
Please use this handbook to enhance your own peer learning and please join our effort to expand and enhance its value. The people who came together to create the first edition – few of us knew any of the others, and often people from three continents would participate in our synchronous meetings – found that creating the Handbook was a training course and experiment in peeragogy. If you want to practice peeragogy, here’s a vehicle. Not only can you use it, you can expand it, spread it around. Translators have already created versions of the first edition of the handbook in Spanish, and Italian, and work is in progress to bring these up to date with the second edition. We’ve recently added a Portuguese translation team: more translators are welcome.
What made this work? Polycentric leadership is one key. Many different members of the project stepped up at different times and in different ways and did truly vital things for the project. Currently, over 30 contributors have signed the CC Zero waiver and have material in the handbook; over 600 joined our Peeragogy in Action community on G+; and over 1000 tweets mention peeragogy.org. People clearly like the concept of peeragogy – and a healthy number also like participating in the process.
We know that this isn’t the last word. We hope it’s a start. We invite new generations of editors, educators, learners, media-makers, web-makers, and translators to build on our foundation.
Howard Rheingold
Marin County
January, 2014
This 3rd Edition of the Peeragogy Handbook is dedicated to one of our most convivial -- indeed, lovable -- volunteers. George Brett was a quiet and learned man with a sense of fun. His mail art name was geORge and for a while he was known by many online for the selfies he took with his yellow rubber duckie. Far from being a full-time funster, George has been involved in expanding the educational uses of the Internet since before it was the Internet, both in his work with government institutions and his many online volunteer activities. He gifted the Peeragogy project not only with his knowledge and labor, but with his warmth and fun. We miss him.
The Second Edition of the Handbook came out two years ago. We've kept at it since then. This time around, we're kicking things off with a short workbook that contains a concise guide to the who, what, when, where, how and why of peeragogy. We've thoroughly revised the pattern catalog at the heart of the book, added more case studies, and made numerous small improvements to the text (and the typesetting!) throughout.
We live where no one knows the answer and the struggle is to figure out the question. [1]
Welcome to the Peeragogy Handbook! We want to kick things off with a candid confession: we’re not going to pretend that this book is perfect. In fact, it’s not an ordinary book at all. The adventure starts when you get out your pen or pencil, or mouse and keyboard, and begin marking it up. It gets kicked into high gear when you join Peeragogy in Action. You’ll find a lot of friendly support as you write, draw, or dance your own peeragogical adventure. But first, what is peeragogy?
Peeragogy is a flexible framework of techniques for peer learning and peer knowledge production. Whereas pedagogy deals with the transmission of knowledge from teachers to students, peeragogy is what people use to produce and apply knowledge together. The strength of peeragogy is its flexibility and scalability. The learning mind-set and strategies that we are uncovering in the Peeragogy project can be applied in classrooms, hackerspaces, organizations, wikis, and interconnected collaborations across an entire society.
The Peeragogy Handbook is a compendium of know how for any group of people who want to co-learn any subject together, when none of them is an expert in the particular subject matter – learning together without one traditional teacher, especially using the tools and knowledge available online. What we say in the Handbook draws extensively on our experiences working together on the Handbook – and our experiences in other collaborative projects that drew us here in the first place. The best way to learn about peeragogy is to do peeragogy, not just read about it. Towards that end, coauthors and fans of the Handbook have an active Google+ community, conveniently called Peeragogy in Action. We maintain a regular schedule of weekly meetings that you’re welcome to join. The Handbook includes a short syllabus, which also called “Peeragogy in Action”, and you can work through this with your own group as you read through the book.
You’re warmly invited to combine your local projects with the global effort, and get involved in making the next edition of the Handbook. That doesn’t necessarily require you to do extensive writing or editing. We’re always interested in new use cases, tricky problems, and interesting questions. In fact, our view is that any question is a good question.
Here are some of the ways in which the current edition of the Handbook is not perfect. You’re welcome to add to the list! These are places where you can jump in and get involved. This list gives a sense of the challenges that we face putting peeragogy into action.
Scrapbook of Peeragogical Problems
Maintaining a list of useful resources
We include references and recommended reading in the Handbook, and there are a lot more links that have been shared in the Peeragogy in Action community. It’s a ongoing task to catalog and improve these resources – including books, videos, images, projects, technology, etc. In short, let’s “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”! As a good start, Charlotte Pierce has been maintaining a spreadsheet under the heading “survey” in our Google Drive.
Developing a really accessible DIY tool-kit
A short “workbook” containing interviews and some activities follows this introduction, but it could be much more interactive. Amanda Lyons and Paola Ricaurte made several new exercises and drawings that we could include. A more developed workbook could be split off from the handbook into a separate publication. It would be great to have something simple for onramping. For example, the workbook could be accompanied by video tutorials for new contributors.
Paola Ricaurte points out that a really useful book will be easy to sell. For teachers interested in peeragogy, this needs to be something that can be use in workshops or on their own, to write in, to think through issues. We’re partway there, but to improve things, we really need a better set of activities.
The next time Paola or someone else uses the handbook or workbook to run a workshop, she can say, “turn to this page, let’s answer this question, you have 10 minutes.” There are lots of places where the writing in the handbook could be made more interactive. One technique Paola and Amanda used was turning “statements” from the handbook into “questions.”
Crafting a visual identity
Amanda also put together the latest cover art, with some collaboration from Charlotte using inDesign. A more large-scale visual design would be a good goal for the 4th Edition of the book. Fabrizio Terzi, who made the handbook cover art for the 1st Edition, has been working on making our website more friendly. So, again, work is in progress but we could use your help.
Workflow for the 4th edition
We’ve uploaded the content of the book to Github and are editing the “live” version of the site in Markdown. For this and previous print editions, we’ve converted to LaTeX. There are a number of workflow bottlenecks: First, people need to be comfortable updating the content on the site. Second, it would be good to have more people involved with the technical editing work that goes into compiling for print. Remember, when we produce an actual physical handbook, we can sell it. In fact, because all co-authors have transferred their copyright in this book to the Public Domain, anyone can print and sell copies, convert the material into new interactive forms, or do just about anything with it.
Translations
Translating a book that’s continually being revised is pretty much a nightmare. With due respect to the valiant volunteer efforts that have been attempted so far, it might be more convenient for everyone involved to just pay professional translators or find a way to foster a multi-lingual authoring community, or find a way to create a more robust process of collective translation. Ideas are welcome, and we're making some small steps here. More on this below.
Next steps? What’s the future of the project?
In short: If we make the Handbook even more useful, then it will be no problem to sell more copies of it. That is one way to make money to cover future expenses. It’s a paradigmatic example for other business models we might use in the future. But even more important than a business model is a sense of our shared vision, which is why we’re working on a “Peeragogy Creed” (after the Taekwondo creed, which exists in various forms, one example is [2]). No doubt you’ll find the first version on peeragogy.org soon! Chapter 7 contains a further list of practical next steps for the project.
References
Joshua Schimel, 2012. “Writing Science”, Oxford University Press.
Taekwondo Student Creed, World Martial Arts Academy, http://www.worldtaekwondo.com/handbook.htm
☞ Welcome to the Peeragogy Workbook!
This booklet is designed to introduce you to our fun, exciting world of peer learning and peer production!! You may already be familiar with these terms, or they may be new to you. Either way, don't worry!!!
If they are new, consider the following 2 examples.
Peer learning: Joe Corneli needs to get from the suburbs of Chicago to the north side of the city. He gets on the commuter train and transfers to the purple “L” at Davis Street in Evanston. He plans to change to the red line at Howard Street, but the train says “Loop” and he asks another passenger whether it will stop at Howard. She says it will, but that he can save an hour of his time by riding express to the city and then coming back two stops! Joe makes it to his meeting with Charlie with plenty of time to spare.
Peer production: Two cavewomen see lightning strike a tree and produce fire! Walking up to it they notice the heat and think “Wouldn't it be nice to have fire for our family at night!” Once the rain clears, they find some dry sticks and start working together to figure out how they can use them to start their own flame. After hours of trial and error, BOOM they've got fire! The news travels fast. :)
Peeragogy is an approach to learning and working together on projects ranging from the mundane to the monumental. Peer learning and peer production are probably as old as humanity itself, but they take on new importance in the digital age.
The Peeragogy Project is an informal learning project with members worldwide. Three members of the project share their welcoming messages below.
Paola Ricaurte Quijano: Welcome to the Peeragogy Project! We are a group of enthusiastic people who love to learn and are trying to find the best ways to learn together.
Lisa Snow MacDonald: Welcome to peeragogy! It's kind of a weird name, but it's enormously powerful in providing a fresh understanding of ways of working together.
Dorotea Mar: Your contributions will be really welcome if you participate respectfully and harmoniously with other peers. It can change your life and improve your wellbeing and make everything better.
A Peeragogy Interview
Introductions
Paola Ricaurte Quijano: Hi! I'm Paola, I'm from Ecuador. I work at Tecnológico de Monterrey, a private university in Mexico City, and I love to learn with everybody!
Dorotea Mar: Hello. I'm in Berlin now and I really like the peeragogical atmosphere of collaboration and I think we are really improving ways of collaboration and peer production, so that's why I'm here.
Lisa Snow MacDonald: Hello. This is Lisa from Los Angeles. My background is media psychology and I'm interested in peeragogy as it relates to business.
What is peer learning/production?
PRQ Well, peer learning. learning with peers, learning from peers and trying to make things together or make things happen together. I think that for me, the most important thing I've learned from this experience is that you can achieve more when you work together and set goals together.
LSM I think what peeragogy does is it allows us to recognize the value of those connections. A lot of other ways of working are more individualized. It goes back to a concept of 1 + 1 = 2, which is very rational and very measured and is kind of a dominant way of thinking in our society today, whereas peer to peer learning and production recognize the value of those connections. You may not be able to measure it with a yardstick, but we understand that there is value in those connections. So it's basically acknowledging that when it comes to learning/collaborative environments if constructed the right way if working well it can be 1 + 1 = 3 or 1 + 1 = 4. That type of situation, which is really different from the way we're used to thinking about things. And I think that's really the value of what we're doing and the potential of what we could hopefully unlock.
More specifically, what is peeragogy and/or what is the Peeragogy Project?
PRQ This is a project that began spontaneously. We didn't have a plan at the beginning. We just talked about the things that concerned us the most. What do you need if you want to learn with others, how to learn better? what do you want to learn? Where do you want to learn? When do you want to learn? Basic questions that can be answered in many ways. We don't have a strict line. We have a map, maybe, but a map that can be walked through by many different paths. Paths that you choose can be related to the people you are working with. I think it's been a great experience for us. As Lisa said, we have been recognizing the talents and strengths of every person that has contributed to and participated in this project.
LSM OK. I'll take my best shot with this. Going back to what I said earlier and building off what other people have said. Because we don't have a good mental construct of how this works, and measurement is difficult. We haven't learned how to measure these connections. I think what peeragogy and the Peeragogy Project can do is it can establish what people have said about focusing on the process. It can help people understand the process better. Because this lack of structure can be uncomfortable for people. We need to understand when that discomfort is acceptable, so they don't revert and become counterproductive participants in the process. The map analogy that Paola just mentioned, is really good too. It's not about providing a direct path. If you're on a trip trying to get from LA to Chicago, there's many paths you can take. It's making sure you're monitoring your resources and you're taking care of things along the way. You can drift off-course. One plus one can equal zero if things don't work out well. So, what peeragogy and the Peeragogy Project can do is to provide some structure and framework around the unstructured way that things can be done. People trying to make sure their methods are constructive and beneficial now have some guidelines and things to watch out for.
Example: Howard Rheingold Grows a Learning Network
“When I started using social media in the classroom, I looked for and began to learn from more experienced educators. First, I read and then tried to comment usefully on their blog posts and tweets. When I began to understand who knew what in the world of social media in education, I narrowed my focus to the most knowledgeable and adventurous among them. I paid attention to the people the savviest social media educators paid attention to. I added and subtracted voices from my attention network, listened and followed, then commented and opened conversations. When I found something I thought would interest the friends and strangers I was learning from, I passed along my own learning through my blogs and Twitter stream. I asked questions, asked for help, and eventually started providing answers and assistance to those who seemed to know less than I. The teachers I had been learning from had a name for what I was doing — “growing a personal learning network.” So I started looking for and learning from people who talked about HOW to grow a “PLN” as the enthusiasts called them.”
How do you do peeragogy?
DM I think I do a lot of peeragogy and I'm very happy about it because I learn so much from my group and from myself in this group that I like to apply it to other projects that I'm in or things like coworking and coliving projects. Especially the principle of mutual respect that still remains after a very long time. And the way we relate to each other is really nice.
The main principle is mutual respect and openness, and the process. And in each detail, there is value that we believe in.
Let's say how we manage the Peeragogy Page or Community (See “How to Get Involved," later in this chapter.). These seem to be details, but they're actually really important. So if we pay attention to all these, every little thing matters, and this is how I do it. I try to be very mindful in all interactions.
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Example: Learner, know thyself.
When he joined the Peeragogy project in 2012, Charles Jeffrey Danoff did a brief selfevaluation about what makes him interested in learning:
Context. As a student, I resisted being groomed for some unforeseeable future. I'd rather work toward a specific goal.
Timing and sequence. I find learning fun when I’m studying something as a way to procrastinate another pressing assignment.
Social reinforcement. Getting tips from peers on how to navigate a snowboard around moguls was more fun for me than my Dad showing me the proper way to buff the car’s leather seats on chore day.
Experiential awareness. In high school, it was not fun to sit and compose a 30-page reading journal on Frankenstein. But owing in part to those types of prior experiences, I now find writing pleasurable and it’s fun to learn how to write better.
PRQ I think peeragogy is more like a mindset. I think we have to change the way we interact with others and the way we understand the parameters of learning. For example, I'm a teacher and, of course, my teaching practice promotes collaborative, creative learning. So, I expect my students to take responsibility for their own learning by making decisions about most aspects of the learning process; to program their own learning goals. They need to learn to effectively employ the environments (like whiteboards), the activities, and the assessments. I'm trying to give my learners the tools to decide how, what, and why they want to learn. For me, it's been a very interesting experience. Learners often find it unfamiliar to make their own decisions about the process in a formal environment. At the beginning of the semester, students are given everything and usually just follow guidelines and criteria. I have been trying to change this dynamic. Students feel insecure, because they really do not know how or what they want to do. So, that process of making decisions together becomes very rich and very meaningful.
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Example: Metacognition and Mindfulness
Alan Schoenfeld: “What (exactly) are you doing? Can you describe it precisely? Why are you doing it? How does it fit into the solution? How does it help you? What will you do with the outcome when you obtain it? ” [1]
When do you do peeragogy?
DM I think I'm always practicing it. I really like that during the weekly hangouts we don't usually have rigid agendas. We just get creative and let ideas connect and flow. And whatever happens it's the right thing. We just work together and somehow the right things happen. I think we're always doing peeragogy when we pursue activities and projects in open, collaborative ways without imposing too much structure or heirarchy.
PRQ I agree with Dorotea. The where and when questions are related. If you're thinking about where, you're thinking about when. So if "where" is everywhere, and "when" is always, I agree. Anywhere, everywhere, all the time. It's an ongoing process. If you believe in peeragogy as a way of doing things or making things happen, you cannot switch back and forth betweeen two different personas and say, "I'm not working with peeragogy now," or "I am applying peeragogy now."
LSM I'm familiar with the business world where there are distinct personalities. For example there are people who tend to be more collaborative just by nature, who tend to adapt and to prefer a peeragogical model. Other personalities are less so, and that's why what we're doing here is valuable. In practice, there's seldom a conscious recognition of these different styles of working. In a business environment, there are different motivators, different personalities tossed together, all united by a single goal. So understanding peeragogical vs. heirarchical practices, and raising the differences to the surface, could be very valuable in pursuing the goal of making people's lives better in the business environment.
DM There are many collaborative projects that aim to do something similar to this, but, in a sense, focus on different aspects of the process, and maybe not on such an abstract level as we might.
Some people have natural peeragogical tendencies, and some people are less transparent in the way they do things. For me, peeragogy is really beneficial, especially for collaborative projects. Everybody works and learns differently, so if everyone became increasingly aware of how they and others work and learn, of how peergogy functions, and how it all fits into a bigger picture, many tasks would not only be more efficiently done, but also much more enjoyable. It's also beneficial if everyone focusses on a bigger picture instead of focussing only on their part of it, and if attention is drawn to all that could be done in a peeragogical way.
Example: Jay Cross on Setting Sail
“If I were an instructional designer in a moribund training department, I’d polish up my resume and head over to marketing. Colearning can differentiate services, increase product usage, strengthen customer relationships, and reduce the cost of handholding. It’s cheaper and more useful than advertising. But instead of just making a copy of today’s boring educational practices, build something based on interaction and camaraderie, perhaps with some healthy competition thrown in. Again, the emphasis should always be on learning in order to do something!”
Why do you do peeragogy?
PRQ Why? Well, as said before, I believe in peeragogy. I believe it's a good way to learn. Maybe it's the best way. I think I wasn't aware of that before joining the group. I have always been a selflearner, I have been working mostly alone. After I began working with the group, I understood that you grow working with a group. You achieve things that you aren't able to achieve alone. I think there's a growing awareness of the value of collaboration in every setting and environment. There are more and more learning communities around the world where people are also learning that making decisions together and working together are the best way to be in this world! I think as we live through hard times, we increasingly need a sense that we are not alone and that we cannot solve problems alone.
How did you join the Peeragogy project?
PRQ After taking Howard Rheingold's course on Mind Amplifiers in 2012 we were invited to join this group. There was no plan, just an open question of how to best learn with others.
That's how it began. We had lots of sessions and discussed a wide range of issues. The Peeragogy Handbook (http://peeragogy.org) was the product of that process. We've been working with the Handbook, releasing a new version every year and trying to figure out what might be the best way to go forward and what the future of our collaboration as a group/team might be.
LSM A couple friends of mine were involved in P2P learning. They were invited to a conference at UCI. Howard was at the event and they were familiar with him and his work. We ended up in an obscure classroom and he started talking about principles that were peeragogy related, while I don't know if it provided much value to my friends, it sounded a lot like what I saw in business and he mentioned the group. So after that, I met everyone here and it's been pretty random.
DM I think many paths led to my involvement. I have a lot of academic experience and was doing research on Open Science. I had always wanted to improve the way things work and somehow I wanted to do it more creatively. I resonated a lot with the Peeragogy Project on many levels, so somehow I just joined, I think it was serendipity of some kind.
This interview was conducted on December 15th, 2014. The transcript was edited. You can watch the whole interview online at http://is.gd/peeragogyworkbook_interviews. (49 Minutes)
We've given you some examples but this wouldn't be a proper workbook without an exercise. Pick at least one thing you're good at and one thing you want to improve on from the selection below (or write in your own alternative answers):
Exercise: How do you see yourself fitting in?
Potential roles in your peerlearning project
- Worker, Team Member, CoManager, Manager, CoLeader, Leader
- Reviewer, Editor, Author, Content Processor, Content Creator,
- Presentation Creator, Designer, Graphics, Applications
- Attendee, Participant, Coordinator, Project Manager, Planner
- Mediator, Moderator, Facilitator, Proponent, Advocate, Representative, Contributor , Activist,
Potential contributions
- Create, Originate, Research, Aggregate
- Develop, Design, Integrate, Refine, Convert
- Write, Edit, Format,
Potential motivations
- Acquisition of training or support in a topic or field;
- Building relationships with interesting people;
- Finding professional opportunities through other participants;
- Creating or bolstering a personal network;
- More organized and rational thinking through dialog and debate;
- Feedback about performance and understanding of the topic.
Visuals by Amanda Lyons (http://visualsforchange.com/). Booklet by Charlie Danoff, Paola Ricaurte Quijano, Lisa Snow MacDonald, Dorotea Mar, Joe Corneli and Charlotte Pierce.
Prepared for Public Domain Day 2015 on January 1st, 2015.
See https://github.com/Peeragogy/Peeragogy.github.io for the “behind the scenes”.
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Reference
- Schoenfeld, A. H. (1987). What’s all the fuss about metacognition? In A. H. Schoenfeld (Ed.), Cognitive science and mathematics education (pp. 189215). Hilldale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Motivation
You might wonder why we’re doing this project – what we hope to get out of it as volunteers, and how we think what we’re doing can make a positive difference in the world. Have a look at this chapter if you, too, are thinking about getting involved in peeragogy, or wondering how peeragogy can help you accelerate your learning projects.
Case Study: 5PH1NX.
This example focuses on the interrelationship of pedagogy and peeragogy in a high school English class, when students are encouraged to find and share creative ways to learn. Explore this case study for ideas and encouragement for your own learning adventures.
Peeragogy in Practice
Here we describe some of the interaction patterns that we’ve encountered time and time again in the Peeragogy project. You can use the ideas in this chapter as a starter-kit for your own experiments with peeragogy right away. Sharing – and revising – patterns is one of the key activities in peeragogy, so you will likely want to revisit this chapter several times as you look through the rest of the book. Don’t forget your red pen or pencil, because you’ll also want to tailor the patterns we describe here to suit.
Case Study: SWATS.
We present another example of peer learning in a classroom setting, focusing on the process of improving overall student performance with the help of a group of student experts. After describing the case study in general terms, we then re-analyze it using our pattern tools to show how examples like this can be integrated into our project.
Convening a Group
This chapter is about how to begin your own peeragogical project. You can also use the ideas described here to strengthen an existing collaboration. Simple but important questions will inspire unique answers for you and your group. In short: who, what, when, where, why, and how? Use this chapter to help design and critique your project’s roadmap.
Play & Learning.
What makes learning fun? Just as actors learn their roles through the dynamic process of performance, In other words, the more we engage with a topic, the better we learn it and the more satisfying - or fun - the process becomes.
K-12 Peeragogy.
The key to becoming a successful ‘connected educator-learner’ involves spending the time needed to learn how to learn and share in an open, connected environment. Once you make the decision to enter into a dialogue with another user, you become a connected educator/learner and tap into the power of networks to distribute the load of learning. Depending on their age, you can even facilitate an awareness of peer networks among your students.
P2P Self-Organizing Learning Environments.
This section invites an exploration of support for self-organized learning in global and local networks. Emergent structures can create startling ripple effects.
Organizing a Learning Context
Peer learning is sometimes organized in “courses” and sometimes in “spaces.” We present the results of an informal poll that reveals some of the positive and some of the negative features of our own early choices in this project.
Adding Structure with Activities.
The first rule of thumb for peer learning is: announce activities only when you plan to take part as a fully engaged participant. Then ask a series of questions: what is the goal, what makes it challenging, what worked in other situations, what recipe is appropriate, what is different about learning about this topic?
Student Authored Syllabus.
This chapter describes various methods for co-creating a curriculum. If you’re tasked with teaching an existing curriculum, you may want to start with a smaller co-created activity; but watch out, you may find that co-creation is habit forming.1
Case Study: Collaborative Explorations.
This chapter describes collaborative peer learning among adult students in the Master’s program in Critical and Creative Thinking at University of Massachusetts in Boston. The idea in the collaborative explorations is to encourage individuals pursuing their own interests related to a predetermined topic, while supporting learning of everyone in the group through sharing and reflection. These interactions of supportive mutual inquiry evolve the content and structure within a short time frame and with open-ended results.
Cooperation
Sometimes omitting the figurehead empowers a group. Co-facilitation tends to work in groups of people who gather to share common problems and experiences. The chapter suggests several ways to co-facilitate discussions, wiki workflows, and live online sessions. Conducting an “after action review” can help expose blind spots.
The Workscape.
In a corporate workscape, people are free-range learners: protect the learning environment, provide nutrients for growth, and let nature take its course. A workscape features profiles, an activity stream, wikis, virtual meetings, blogs, bookmarks, mobile access and a social network.
Participation.
Participation grows from having a community of people who learn together, using a curriculum as a starting point to organize and trigger engagement. Keep in mind that participation may follow the 90/9/1 principle (lurkers/editors/authors) and that people may transition through these roles over time.
Designs For Co-Working.
Designing a co-working platform to include significant peer learning aspects often requires a new approach. This chapter describes the initial steps of converting an existing online encyclopedia project into a peer learning platform.
Assessment
“Usefulness” is an appropriate metric for assessment in peeragogy, where we’re concerned with devising our own problems rather than than the problems that have been handed down by society. We use the idea of return on investment (the value of changes in behavior divided by the cost of inducing the change) to assess the Peeragogy project itself, as one example.
Researching peeragogy.
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Satz: Stephan Kreutzer
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 30.08.2021