Collaboration, Cooperation, and Effort

Our reading and discussions this week all revolved around the ideas of collaboration, cooperation, and effort. They started with us watching another video from TED.  I was curious what TED stood for, so I did some extra research.  Originally called Technology, Entertainment, Design conferences and started in 1984, these meetings bring together people with ideas in many different fields, some of which happen to involve education.  These conferences are definitely something that I would like to attend at some point in the future.

The first video that I watched was a presentation by Clay Shirky at a 2005 TED conference.   The video discussed the idea of Institutions and Collaboration.  Among the ideas that caught my attention was an actual mathematical model of the 80/20 rule.  It turns out that this rule is also known as the Pareto principle, or the power law.  I found this concept fascinating, because it finally explained a concept that has been built into the internet since it's inception.  Through out the life of the internet we have heard that is would change the world by allowing individuals to take action where previously only a corporation of government would have that kind of reach.  We have seen examples of this in many ways, from the decline of CDs and rise of music sharing and online stores, to the success of open source software like Firefox and Linux, to the current political turmoil in the middle east which is being fueled by personal tweets and Facebook pages.  All of these are examples of the contributions of individuals that would not have been considered in the past.  The other idea that I found most fascinating is the concept that this change will cause the same kind of disruption that the printing press did in Europe, and that in his prediction it will cause 50 years of chaos.  Although he made his prediction 5 years ago, the current revolts in Libya and elsewhere certainly support Clay's assertion.  The real challenge will be to predict what these changes mean for the realm of education, and how we react to it.  Currently most educational models involve more standardized testing, and more generic measures of success.  One key change will be the need to allow other forms of testing, for those learners who might have other talents but are not successful with standardized tests.  Another idea will be to have more interactive learning, and allow for several exercises that will demonstrate retention of the topics.  For educators at least, the old saying holds true: "May you live in interesting times". (On a side note, no one has ever been able to prove it is Chinese.)

The second portion of our assignment this week was to reflect on strategies that we have used to enhance cooperation and reinforce effort.  Since I often work with adults, one lesson that I have learned is to use the power of small groups to create cooperation.  It is very effective to take people from different backgrounds and put them together.  It is also helpful to define some initial roles for the group, such as moderator, note taker, researcher, historian, etc.  For each role you should suggest some activities, and some minimum results that the role will need to bring to the group.  This creates a minimum level of input from each member.  As the group discussion progress, the instructor should monitor to make sure that all members are participating, and that the roles are each adding some value to the discussion.  You should also allow the groups the flexibility to change the roles however, or to take the discussion and activities in a direction that you did not foresee.  This is one of the most exciting moments in teaching, when the students surprise the teacher with original ideas.

The other topic for the week was reinforcing effort.  Because I work with adults this is not an area that I am as familiar with.  Most of the adults are in my classes voluntarily, and they all have some specific goal or outcome that they want to achieve.   Where I have had to reinforce effort is usually in class discussions.  If a student is particularly quiet I will acknowledge the contributions that the student makes.  I will thank them for their input if they speak up, which will hopefully encourage them to speak more.  This should not be done to excess, as it will appear the instructor is playing favorites.