Page History: Learning Path #1: What is Peer Learning?
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Page Revision: 2010/02/19 08:23
Learning Path #1: What is Peer Learning?
Adult Learning, social learning and other learning theories - just a peek!¶
A brief overview of the theory and research showing value of peer and social learning. Relating peer and social learning concepts with each other.
(is there any relevance for the librarians in the field re children? Are they facilitating peer learning with kids in their libraries? if yes, we should eventually have a section on this.)What Peer Learning is NOT!
There are many ways we learn. Not all of them involve peers. But if you get creative, just about any solo learning experience can become peer learning. All you have to do is invite in at least one other person.
For example, self pace learning modules that rely solely on sequenced content is not peer learning. UNLESS you do it with someone else.
Listening to a recorded webinar is not peer learning, but the fact that someone else took the time to make previous interactions available to others is an indication of relationship and accountability to others - to peers - for learning. Teams are dedicated to completing a shared task in a specific time. But along the way, they can learn together.
The bottom line? We each know a lot. When we make that available to each other through both interactions and the artifacts of our interactions (summaries, blog posts, recordings) we all learn. That's peer learning!
Related Approaches
There are many terms and approaches that involve peers learning with and from peers. Some of them are very specific types of peer interactions. It is helpful to have some sense of these approaches. You may choose to use one or more of them in your work. Below is a short description of each one with a link to either a one-page overview or to an existing external resource on the approach. (Our goal here is not to reinvent things, but to make them easy to find and use!)
- Communities of Practice (we could have a one page for each of these elements on the site or a linkto an external page that does a great job. This role models collaborative creation and use of content. I'll prioritize one or twofor the Feb training, then we can add from there.)
- http://www.kstoolkit.org/Communities+of+Practice
- http://delicious.com/choconancy/WSL+communities_of_practice
- Learning Networks (thematic networks, personal learning networks) - Connecting to learn
- PLNhttp://www.slideshare.net/dwarlick/personal-learning-networkshttp://mollybob.wordpress.com/tag/personal-learning-network/ http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/?p=1704
- Peer Coaching - "We all need somebody to lean on..."
- http://webserver3.ascd.org/ossd/peercoaching.html
- http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/docs/articles/Peer-Coaching-Overview.pdf
- http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/02/cultivate_your_coaching_networ.html"Coaching, to put it simply, is the process of helping others toimprove performance now and developing their capacity to perform wellin the future. It's about changing behavior to make things better.Because the process of change is difficult and can provoke anxiety,people often resist it. The forces of inertia are strong, but effectivecoaching can surmount them. Peer-to-peer coaching is fun, because itinvolves learning and solving real problems; it's free; and, I'vefound, just about anyone can do it."
- http://www.autismnetwork.org/modules//academic/pc/index.html (nice "how to" section)
FORMATTER ERROR (Malformed List)
FORMATTER ERROR (Malformed List)
Peer Learning ResourcesPeer Learning Resources
- Table relating some of these different forms to peer learning (just an idea at this point)
