The Peeragogy Handbook, Version 3, Corneli Joseph, Danoff Charles Jeffrey, Ricaurte Paola, Pierce Charlotte [ebook reader 8 inch TXT] 📗

resisted being groomed for some unforeseeable future. I'd rather work toward a specific goal.

Timing and sequence. I find learning fun when I’m studying something as a way to procrastinate another pressing assignment.

Social reinforcement. Getting tips from peers on how to navigate a snowboard around moguls was more fun for me than my Dad showing me the proper way to buff the car’s leather seats on chore day.

Experiential awareness. In high school, it was not fun to sit and compose a 30-page reading journal on Frankenstein. But owing in part to those types of prior experiences, I now find writing pleasurable and it’s fun to learn how to write better.

PRQ I think peeragogy is more like a mind­set. I think we have to change the way we interact with others and the way we understand the parameters of learning. For example, I'm a teacher and, of course, my teaching practice promotes collaborative, creative learning. So, I expect my students to take responsibility for their own learning by making decisions about most aspects of the learning process; to program their own learning goals. They need to learn to effectively employ the environments (like whiteboards), the activities, and the assessments. I'm trying to give my learners the tools to decide how, what, and why they want to learn. For me, it's been a very interesting experience. Learners often find it unfamiliar to make their own decisions about the process in a formal environment. At the beginning of the semester, students are given everything and usually just follow guidelines and criteria. I have been trying to change this dynamic. Students feel insecure, because they really do not know how or what they want to do. So, that process of making decisions together becomes very rich and very meaningful.

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Example: Metacognition and Mindfulness

Alan Schoenfeld: “What (exactly) are you doing? Can you describe it precisely? Why are you doing it? How does it fit into the solution? How does it help you? What will you do with the outcome when you obtain it? ” [1]

When do you do peeragogy?

DM I think I'm always practicing it. I really like that during the weekly hangouts we don't usually have rigid agendas. We just get creative and let ideas connect and flow. And whatever happens it's the right thing. We just work together and somehow the right things happen. I think we're always doing peeragogy when we pursue activities and projects in open, collaborative ways without imposing too much structure or heirarchy.

PRQ I agree with Dorotea. The where and when questions are related. If you're thinking about where, you're thinking about when. So if "where" is everywhere, and "when" is always, I agree. Anywhere, everywhere, all the time. It's an ongoing process. If you believe in peeragogy as a way of doing things or making things happen, you cannot switch back and forth betweeen two different personas and say, "I'm not working with peeragogy now," or "I am applying peeragogy now."

LSM I'm familiar with the business world where there are distinct personalities. For example there are people who tend to be more collaborative just by nature, who tend to adapt and to prefer a peeragogical model. Other personalities are less so, and that's why what we're doing here is valuable. In practice, there's seldom a conscious recognition of these different styles of working. In a business environment, there are different motivators, different personalities tossed together, all united by a single goal. So understanding peeragogical vs. heirarchical practices, and raising the differences to the surface, could be very valuable in pursuing the goal of making people's lives better in the business environment.

DM There are many collaborative projects that aim to do something similar to this, but, in a sense, focus on different aspects of the process, and maybe not on such an abstract level as we might.

Some people have natural peeragogical tendencies, and some people are less transparent in the way they do things. For me, peeragogy is really beneficial, especially for collaborative projects. Everybody works and learns differently, so if everyone became increasingly aware of how they and others work and learn, of how peergogy functions, and how it all fits into a bigger picture, many tasks would not only be more efficiently done, but also much more enjoyable. It's also beneficial if everyone focusses on a bigger picture instead of focussing only on their part of it, and if attention is drawn to all that could be done in a peeragogical way.

Example: Jay Cross on Setting Sail

“If I were an instructional designer in a moribund training department, I’d polish up my resume and head over to marketing. Co­learning can differentiate services, increase product usage, strengthen customer relationships, and reduce the cost of hand­holding. It’s cheaper and more useful than advertising. But instead of just making a copy of today’s boring educational practices, build something based on interaction and camaraderie, perhaps with some healthy competition thrown in. Again, the emphasis should always be on learning in order to do something!”

Why do you do peeragogy?

PRQ Why? Well, as said before, I believe in peeragogy. I believe it's a good way to learn. Maybe it's the best way. I think I wasn't aware of that before joining the group. I have always been a self­learner, I have been working mostly alone. After I began working with the group, I understood that you grow working with a group. You achieve things that you aren't able to achieve alone. I think there's a growing awareness of the value of collaboration in every setting and environment. There are more and more learning communities around the world where people are also learning that making decisions together and working together are the best way to be in this world! I think as we live through hard times, we increasingly need a sense that we are not alone and that we cannot solve problems alone.

How did you join the Peeragogy project?

PRQ After taking Howard Rheingold's course on Mind Amplifiers in 2012 we were invited to join this group. There was no plan, just an open question of how to best learn with others.
That's how it began. We had lots of sessions and discussed a wide range of issues. The Peeragogy Handbook (http://peeragogy.org) was the product of that process. We've been working with the Handbook, releasing a new version every year and trying to figure out what might be the best way to go forward and what the future of our collaboration as a group/team might be.

LSM A couple friends of mine were involved in P2P learning. They were invited to a conference at UCI. Howard was at the event and they were familiar with him and his work. We ended up in an obscure classroom and he started talking about principles that were peeragogy related, while I don't know if it provided much value to my friends, it sounded a lot like what I saw in business and he mentioned the group. So after that, I met everyone here and it's been pretty random.

DM I think many paths led to my involvement. I have a lot of academic experience and was doing research on Open Science. I had always wanted to improve the way things work and somehow I wanted to do it more creatively. I resonated a lot with the Peeragogy Project on many levels, so somehow I just joined, I think it was serendipity of some kind.

This interview was conducted on December 15th, 2014. The transcript was edited. You can watch the whole interview online at http://is.gd/peeragogyworkbook_interviews. (49 Minutes)

We've given you some examples but this wouldn't be a proper workbook without an exercise. Pick at least one thing you're good at and one thing you want to improve on from the selection below (or write in your own alternative answers):

Exercise: How do you see yourself fitting in?

Potential roles in your peer­learning project

Worker, Team Member, Co­Manager, Manager, Co­Leader, Leader Reviewer, Editor, Author, Content Processor, Content Creator, Presentation Creator, Designer, Graphics, Applications Attendee, Participant, Coordinator, Project Manager, Planner Mediator, Moderator, Facilitator, Proponent, Advocate, Representative, Contributor , Activist,                                                 

Potential contributions

Create, Originate, Research, Aggregate Develop, Design, Integrate, Refine, Convert Write, Edit, Format,                                                 

Potential motivations

Acquisition of training or support in a topic or field; Building relationships with interesting people; Finding professional opportunities through other participants; Creating or bolstering a personal network; More organized and rational thinking through dialog and debate; Feedback about performance and understanding of the topic.                                                                                                                                 

Visuals by Amanda Lyons (http://visualsforchange.com/). Booklet by Charlie Danoff, Paola Ricaurte Quijano, Lisa Snow MacDonald, Dorotea Mar, Joe Corneli and Charlotte Pierce.

Prepared for Public Domain Day 2015 on January 1st, 2015.

See https://github.com/Peeragogy/Peeragogy.github.io for the “behind the scenes”.

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Reference

Schoenfeld, A. H. (1987). What’s all the fuss about metacognition? In A. H. Schoenfeld (Ed.), Cognitive science and mathematics education (pp. 189­215). Hilldale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Motivation

You might wonder why we’re doing this project – what we hope to get out of it as volunteers, and how we think what we’re doing can make a positive difference in the world. Have a look at this chapter if you, too, are thinking about getting involved in peeragogy, or wondering how peeragogy can help you accelerate your learning projects.

Case Study: 5PH1NX.

This example focuses on the interrelationship of pedagogy and peeragogy in a high school English class, when students are encouraged to find and share creative ways to learn. Explore this case study for ideas and encouragement for your own learning adventures.

Peeragogy in Practice

Here we describe some of the interaction patterns that we’ve encountered time and time again in the Peeragogy project. You can use the ideas in this chapter as a starter-kit for your own experiments with peeragogy right away. Sharing – and revising – patterns is one of the key activities in peeragogy, so you will likely want to revisit this chapter several times as you look through the rest of the book. Don’t forget your red pen or pencil, because you’ll also want to tailor the patterns we describe here to suit.

Case Study: SWATS.

We present another example of peer learning in a classroom setting, focusing on the process of improving overall student performance with the help of a group of student experts. After describing the case study in general terms, we then re-analyze it using our pattern tools to show how examples like this can be integrated into our project.

Convening a Group

This chapter is about how to begin your own peeragogical project. You can also use the ideas described here to strengthen an existing collaboration. Simple but important questions will inspire unique answers for you and your group. In short: who, what, when, where, why, and how? Use this chapter to help design and critique your project’s roadmap.

Play & Learning.

What makes learning fun? Just as actors learn their roles through the dynamic process of performance, In other words, the more we engage with a topic, the better we learn it and the more satisfying - or fun - the process becomes.

K-12 Peeragogy.

The key to becoming a successful ‘connected educator-learner’ involves spending the time needed to learn how to learn and share in an open, connected environment. Once you make the decision to enter into a dialogue with another user, you become a connected educator/learner and tap into the power of networks to distribute the load of learning. Depending on their age, you can even facilitate an awareness of peer networks