Are we preparing students for a world of mass collaboration?
Rob Rubis offers some insightful comments on this question in his recent blog post, which points to the many structural barriers teachers erect when delivering curriculum that stop limit mass collaboration... I hear another Pink Floyd song coming on here! Here in lies the major issue... in order to prepare students for a world of mass collaboration we need to remove the barriers that stop collaboration, we don't another brick in the wall. The problem is that the barriers are often ingrained in our society.
Mass Collaboration:
Mass Collaboration:
- Involves working together
- Means being open for feedback from a wide range of people
- It can take on a life of it's own
- It is uncontrollable by an individual
Our Classrooms often contain:
- Individual assessment, very little collective grading opportunities etc...
- Feedback that is often uni dimensional (usually the teacher is feeding back to the student)
- Scripted, curriculum driven, objectives, standards and learning outcome driven.
- Teacher control
Our Current Western Society appears to be:
- Be individualised, competitve, consumer focussed ideals
- Valuing feedback limited to improving performance, products, accounability
- Goal orientated, self centered based on personal goals and achievement
- 'User pays', 'liability', state control point to individual responsibility
What we have is a clash of cultures. Many western classrooms reflect the values that are prevalent in our current society, these stem from a capatalist, individualistic society which runs counter to the ideals necessary for mass collaboration.
The Second issue lies in the ability to get students to engage in mass collaboration, a skill which requires a high skill level:
If Ross Mayfield is correct in his representation of the level of skill and engagement needed to collaborate with others, then collaboration is a tough skill, let alone mass collaboration. The reality is that in our classrooms we rarely get to this level of community engagement, nor do the students believe they can contribute to mass collaboration sites.
So to answer the question, 'Are we preparing students for a world of mass collaboration?', no.
Perhaps we need to reword this question as Rob Rubis also suggests, 'how would we prepare students for a world of mass collaboration?' How do we do this?
The Second issue lies in the ability to get students to engage in mass collaboration, a skill which requires a high skill level:
If Ross Mayfield is correct in his representation of the level of skill and engagement needed to collaborate with others, then collaboration is a tough skill, let alone mass collaboration. The reality is that in our classrooms we rarely get to this level of community engagement, nor do the students believe they can contribute to mass collaboration sites.
So to answer the question, 'Are we preparing students for a world of mass collaboration?', no.
Perhaps we need to reword this question as Rob Rubis also suggests, 'how would we prepare students for a world of mass collaboration?' How do we do this?
- Create authentic opportunities for collaboration in the classroom
- Allow students to take control of their own shared learning
- Create a culture where feedback is a natural and muti-directional in the classroom
- Reward collective action over individual action
- Remove the technical 'block's in the wall' (enlarge bandwidth, access to computers etc...)
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