You do what?

When people ask me what it is I do, I often find it difficult to respond. The standard answer, though, has been that I run a collaborative learning centre. The focus of the centre is to promote the acquisition of 21^st Century Skills which will enable students to lead more meaningful lives in the ever-changing world. This generally cues the next standard response, which can be summarised as ‘Huh?’

          So, what exactly does all this mean?

          Firstly, it’s important to remember why the centre has been called ‘The Learning Commons’. In a previous post, I outlined the reasons for its name, but, just in case you’re only joining the conversation now, the short and simple explanation is: Learning – more than simply acquiring knowledge. Real learning means engaging with content, making sense of it and using it to generate new ideas that have value and personal relevance. Commons – after the village commons: a place where all could come together to use the space as they needed. A place for meeting, for interacting or simply a place to settle down to some quiet reading.

         The next term that requires delving into is ‘collaboration’. For most people working in education, this term has typically been translated into group work, and this is not entirely incorrect. Obviously, for collaboration to take place, several people will need to work together and they will need to reach some kind of common goal. This is a good practice for students to become accustomed to, because it is one of the most needed skills for the workplace. People need to know how to work with others, to discuss, to throw ideas around, to argue and to come to an agreed solution. Without this skill, students do not know how to draw the best from a group and how to contribute meaningfully.

        However, what has tended to happen with group work is that the whole group does not get as involved as would be helpful. Typically, group work involves a conversation with one person ‘scribing’ and writing down the group’s decision. This means that those who do not want to speak up are not heard, and they can get away with it, because ‘the group’ only has to submit one assignment. There has been an attempt to remedy this by including group assessment grids with the other assessment stuff, but this generally results in two things: the group members, not wanting to be unkind to their peers, rates everyone highly regardless of their input, and the assessment is not actually used in anything substantial, rendering it completely pointless.

         For the practice of working in teams to be meaningful to all those involved, there needs to be some kind of shift in the way that it is conducted. The skills inherent in working with others are invaluable, so it important that students are exposed to it, but there needs to be a way to make it more engaging. This is where collaboration comes in.

       Collaboration – real collaboration that is – means working together in such a way that each individual’s personal abilities are utilised to the best of the group.

           Let’s use an analogy to make this a bit easier to understand.

         Some of you may be familiar with the programme called ‘Extreme Makeover – Home Edition’. For those who aren’t, the basic premise is that a needy family has their home completely rebuilt by a team of constructors and designers. The reason I’m making this comparison is because it is a team who take on the project. While everyone participates in getting the house completed, each member of the team speaks to someone in the family and assigns him or herself this room as a personal project. The rooms are then customised according to the recipients’ tastes and likings as well as having the designers’ personal flair added to them. When this all comes together, the house is completed and each room has its own personality, depending on the occupant.

            The reason I’m making this analogy is because this is what happens when people collaborate: a central goal is completed by combining the skill sets of the members within the group. Real collaboration involves having each member of the team take on a ‘personal project’, an aspect of the task that speaks to his or her individual skills and interests. This means that each member is given the chance to use their talents to the benefit of the group as a whole. Furthermore, the fact that each person is tasked with a different aspect to complete means they are accountable to their peers, because if they do not complete their part, the group as a whole will lose out.

           This is what it is like in the workplace: individuals are assigned different aspects of a task and they are expected to complete those aspects. There are more careers than I have time to mention here which make use of this approach and if we want to equip children to be ready for the world of work, then we need to ensure that they are well acquainted with the idea of working collaboratively to reach a common goal.

          The next aspect to the answer regarding what it is I do involves talking about 21^st Century Skills. This is a term that gets bandied about fairly cavalierly in educational circles, but it is seldom explained in any real depth. I shall try to give an overview now, but many of the terms are going to need further examination at a later stage.

                In a nutshell, 21^st Century Skills are:

·         Ways of thinking (including problem-solving, creativity, and critical thinking)

·         Ways of working (including collaboration and communication)

·         Tools for working (including ICT and Information Literacy)

·         Skills for living in the world (including citizenship, career guidance and personal responsibility)

Together, these skills are meant to equip individuals for meaningful life in the 21^st Century, a time of great change in nearly every sphere of the way society operates, and in so doing, change the face and shape of the world in which we live.