Learning is a self-organizing system

[Eric Waterkotte]

So I was watching this presentation by Sugata Mitra about Education Technology, how kids learn and how they teach themselves. One of the assertions made in the presentation is that learning is, most likely, a self-organizing system. I have been chewing on this mentally for several days now thinking how profound the implication of this assertion is. Seems that education, in the formal sense, has been more of a structured organism until I started teaching myself, learnng from others and teaching others via the web. Perhaps for most out there you are thinking... "yah.. so what" Well, that is a perfectly valid thought however I urge you to think about self-organized systems, where they come into play in your life and what aspects or dimensions of your educational experience have been part of a sefl-organizing system.

As far as running a class, it would seem to me that attempts to allow the students to "self-organize" and teach each other through various activities would be a very valid thing to try. Perhaps you are already doing these types of activities but you simply never had the framework to reference what you were doing.

So, here is an idea for an activity which might allow you to test this out. Take a topic which you would like your students to learn more about. Start a WIKI and add all of the students to it, or a Google document where you add your students as collaborators. Secrectly, within the activity, plant some unknown subject (let's call it a "hidden learning object") which is key to understanding the general topic you have perscribed them to explore. Then, have the students work together to develop a document/webpage summarizing what they learned by "trolling" the web for more information and details. Perhaps the "hidden learning object" would be using a WIKI or Google documents. Meaning that for those who didn't know how to use a WIKI or a Google document prior to the activity, the students will most likely self-organize and teach each other how the technology works. Just a thought... What do you think?

Video from TED.com

[Carl Oekerman]

Thank you Eric for raising this topic! Self-organizing systems have been a favorite topic of mine for several years. While I've only had a chance to see the start of the Mitra presentation, I would agree that, given the right conditions, students can self-organize, and that powerful and surprising learning can result. I think that's what Dawn may be seeing in the library too.

I think that we educators (and that's all of us here at BTC) do have opportunities to help students self-organize, and that the instructors in front of a class are just the logical 'place to start'. I smiled when I read your suggestion about creating a wiki, providing a topic, and turning the students loose to see what happens. This is essentially what I did last quarter for my online Interpersonal and Organization Psychology class. I had four small groups, each with their own wikis, and each with a topic they'd expressed interest in. They had several weeks to research their topic and create a presentation/summary of some sort that they would share with the rest of the class. The results were fascinating.

Essentially, all of the groups eventually discarded the wiki as too confusing or cumbersome to use (almost no one had ever used this sort of tool before), so they communicated via email, phone and face to face meetings. I'm not sure, but I believe the standard group dynamics emerged (one or two people were pretty organized and focused on the assignment, while others 'tagged along'). Three of the groups were able to put together decent PowerPoint summaries of their material. The fourth group literally gave up and had nothing to submit for their final project.

One of the (many) things I learned is that the teacher/facilitator/leader must make sure that the group members understand and feel comfortable with the tools they have at their disposal. We can't assume they will figure it out on their own (though some will). And we can't assume that they will teach each other (though some will). That's why I think the role of the teacher/facilitator is critical. The 'framework' that they set up and the way the initial conditions are presented make a big difference in the outcomes. Lesley and I have been thinking about ways to introduce my students to wikis earlier in the quarter, with less pressure for 'results'. Would you be interested in helping out with the design? (I'm still pretty new to wikis myself.)

Students can be self organizing (but only with the right initial conditions). Learning, I think, is the process rather than the system. Our entire educational system is a self organizing system. A class can be a self-organizing system (though historically, most classes are far too structured to earn this descriptor). BTC and other institutions are, to some degree, self organizing systems. Another couple of terms to describe the same phenomenon is 'complex dynamic systems', or even 'chaord' (from the terms 'chaos' and 'order'). There is a lot of exciting information out there about this topic. I loved 'The Networked Student' video; another good example of a complex, dynamic system.

Let me know if you want to share notes, ideas, or help my students figure out how to use wikis.

[Dawn Hawley]

We see self-organized learning partnerships at work all of the time in the library, and I'd be willing to bet that those are the students who are having the most success and getting the most out of school. For me, the courses that have stuck with me longest are those in which I formed study relationships with one or more of my classmates. On the other hand, nothing is worse (in my opinion), than being required to learn about or produce something with people who just aren't into it, or with whom you just can't click.