Learning community

A learning community is a group of people who come together to deal with a specific topic. The focus is on joint learning , the exchange of knowledge among members and working on specific problems with a common goal / product.

Origin of the learning community approach

Origin and development

The learning community approach originated in the United States in the 1980s. Although the idea of learning together, of course, already existed before, the specific theory of learning communities has now developed, which also distinguishes this relatively clearly from 'ordinary' joint learning (such as group work ). The starting point was the departure from cognitive learning theory, which saw information processing in the individual's brain as central to the learning process. In contrast to this, the problem with such learning was seen in the lack of transfer of what had been learned to situations outside the learning (or school) context. In contrast to vocational training, for example, where a learning process takes place in dealing with the actual matter ( “learning by doing” ), the 'sluggish' knowledge learned in school can hardly be used in everyday life and is therefore largely useless. Analogous to the so-called “Communities of Practice” (Lave and Wenger), in which people exchange ideas who all pursue the same profession (primarily a trade), “Communities of learning” were postulated, in which an exchange between the learners should take place .

Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington - a school with an experimental and reformist orientation - is regarded as a pioneer in the field of learning communities, where learning communities were established among the students as early as the early 1980s. The approach initially spread in the USA, but in recent years there have also been an increasing number of model tests in Germany.

Underlying meta-theories

The learning community approach is based on two closely related paradigms from sociology and learning psychology : sociological systems theory and (social) constructivism .

The first theory assumes that communities are social systems that have certain characteristics. Its members are connected to one another through emotional, reciprocal relationships and thus exert mutual influence on one another. In a society, numerous social systems exist side by side, each of which in turn is delimited by the bonds between their respective members. A learning community, such as a school class, is also a social system, ie there are relationships and thus also interaction between its members, such as the students in a class. The learning community approach tries to make this property useful for the learning process.

The constructivism provides other key assumptions of the learning community approach. He assumes that knowledge is not an invariant property of people beyond situations, but rather is shaped by the respective relationships between people and situations. Multiple perspectives are therefore taken for granted. So there is no 'objective' knowledge. The focus here is on the social context of learning; Cooperation, personal responsibility, problem-orientation, the linking of new knowledge to what has already been learned and the associated constant reconstruction and expansion of one's own knowledge are important features of the learning process.

Theory of the learning community approach

Building on the meta-theories mentioned above, the learning community approach (see e.g. Bielaczyc / Collins 1999) formulates some principles that characterize the learning process in a 'learning community' and - to a large extent - of the approach that has prevailed to date, which is exclusively Individual approaches, delimit. In general, it is important to focus on the participation of the learner and to view the learning process more as a collective enterprise in which everyone is involved in different ways. In contrast to the group work method, it is important to involve all members of the community in the joint project in the long term : "fostering a culture of learning in which everyone is involved in a collective effort of understanding" (Bielaczyc / Collins 1999). So-called “cognitive tools” are often used to implement learning communities. These are mostly digital media (such as concept maps or programs such as CSILE, see below), which should help that knowledge is not only represented, but also supports the learner in actively building up knowledge. This is done, for example, through pre-structured user interfaces that give the learners various categories in which they enter new findings, questions, assumptions, etc. about which they can exchange ideas online.

Metacognition

In learning communities, the process of learning to learn is emphasized. When dealing with a topic, it is not just about dealing with the respective content of the learning material, but also continuously reflecting on your own learning process and progress. The learning process is planned, monitored and evaluated by the learner himself.

Process-based learning

It is assumed that knowledge does not grow in stages, but rather reinforces itself through the questions that arise in the learning process. Knowledge growth is thus a circular or spiral process: more knowledge leads to new questions, these in turn to new knowledge and so on. A similar relationship exists between the increase in individual and collective knowledge. The knowledge of the individual contributes to the building of the existing knowledge in the community. The individual can in turn fall back on this collective knowledge, i. In other words, the increase in knowledge of the individual and the community reinforces each other. Accordingly, the learning objectives of a community can only finally emerge in the learning process itself.

Furthermore, this is learning through and from mistakes important. The learners go through a constant process of trial and error in which they find out for themselves only by trial and error which possible explanations are tenable for a certain phenomenon and why. So it's not about learning towards a goal set by the teacher, but about following the 'spiral of knowledge' until you are satisfied with the result. It is also in the foreground that the learner experiences and recognizes how or why the object of investigation works instead of simply reading the information about it or being told ("knowledge of" instead of "knowledge about"). Knowledge about the practical handling of the examined phenomenon should therefore replace a pure accumulation of declarative knowledge .

The teacher plays - if it is a school learning community - a fundamentally different role than in conventional classes. Since the knowledge is further developed by the learners through their own activities and the greatest possible participation, the teacher is more likely to act as an organizer. It creates the conditions and framework for a successful learning process, i.e. provides information, space and expertise. As a 'model' and role model, the teacher provides assistance and is always available to answer questions. The learners are therefore responsible for their own learning process and that of the other group members.

Situational learning

As described above, the antagonism between the learning situation and the application situation should be overcome. To this end, an attempt is made to make the learning situation as practical as possible, i. H. to establish a connection to the learner's world. This is z. B. achieved by the fact that the learning occasion should be 'taken from real life', that is, an examination of everyday phenomena takes place, the relevance of which is immediately apparent to the learner. It is also crucial that the learners in the community create a certain product that has real-world significance (e.g. printing a book, organizing an exhibition, designing a website, etc.). So learning takes place in a professional and social context.

Problem-based learning

Following on from situational learning, the subject should always be problem-oriented . So concrete case studies and problems are selected, the solution of which the learners then deal with independently. The principle of depth> breadth (depth-over-breadth principle) applies. H. It is considered more sensible to work on certain topics intensively and to acquire expertise in a certain field than to accumulate superficial knowledge about the broadest possible curriculum . The selected subject areas should, if possible, be key ideas or important principles of a subject area in order to prevent overly absurd specialization. "Rather than being overawed by authority, or dismissive, they [the students, editor's note. Author] see their own work as being legitimated by its connection to problems that have commanded the attention of respected scientists, scholars, and thinkers. ”(Scardamalia / Bereiter 2006: 3). By co-determining the learning goals, the relevance of the topics dealt with and the creation of a 'product' with reference to everyday life, the motivation of the learner is to be promoted ( intrinsic motivation ). In problem-oriented learning, it is also desirable that each member of a learning community or each subgroup pursues a (at least partially) different problem aspect. In other words, the same thing is not being learned by all learners at the same time, rather different levels of knowledge and expertise prevail both before and after the learning process.

social learning

Another principle of the learning community approach is that a group does not learn in isolation, but rather as a group. A culture of learning should be created in which every individual is involved in the long term and which is characterized by team spirit, cooperation and commitment. The members should learn to deal with the differences of the group members, to respect them, to appreciate them and to combine the different points of view into a common product. On the one hand, it is about integrating the members' various levels of knowledge and expertise (diversity of expertise). On the other hand, it is precisely this diversity that also means that collective knowledge is always greater than individual knowledge, which is why everyone in turn is dependent on the respective knowledge of the other (resource interdependence). Each individual, with their specific knowledge and their individual requirements (individual identity), is important for building up collective knowledge and the group's “collective identity” resulting from this positive dependency, which is also achieved through joint efforts towards a common goal (often in the form of of a specific product). However, the collation and exchange of results creates a common knowledge base. The permanence of the group-internal ties and the development of their own group identity distinguish learning communities from what can be achieved in group formation processes within short-term group work. In addition, the members of the learning community learn to deal with feedback and thus to reflect on their own learning process and to develop further. Each individual learns something different from the group - in contrast to the traditional approach in which everyone should learn the same thing at the same time - and is responsible for his own learning and that of the group.

Goals and Achievements

The success of learning communities has been shown in various Canadian (Institute of Child Study in Toronto and University of Toronto) and other studies, mainly conducted in the Anglophone world (Caswell / Bielaczyk 2001; Dunbar 1997). Dunbar, for example, found that discourse in a learning community has a different function than discussions that take place in the context of a lecture or an essay. The former is much more geared towards cooperation and understanding and is therefore much more relevant for the learning process (cf. also Coleman / Brown / Rivkin, 1997).

The use of computer software to support the learning community (CSILE and Knowledge Forum) in various Canadian classes and among students particularly highlights the achievements that learning communities can contribute in the area of "idea improvement". With the help of the software, the students networked with each other and worked together on a specific topic (such as dinosaurs or environmental pollution). Above all, the search for knowledge of the learners was encouraged by helping each other with questions that arise, criticizing and working together on ever better solutions and a constant expansion of the common body of knowledge (cf. Scardamalia / Bereiter 2006).

Learning communities also gain particular relevance through the processes of globalization, in that they encourage collaboration with other learners of different origins and thus enable them to adopt different perspectives and work with different types of expertise (diverse expertise).

Examples

At school

Lampert's Mathematical Classroom :

In 1990 Lampert developed a mathematical learning community approach which, from their point of view, corresponds to the "ideal mathematics lesson". The pupils are given a basic mathematical problem that they can work on alone or in small groups in order to then discuss their possible solutions in the plenary. The aim of the approach is that the students are encouraged to present, discuss and reflect on their different ideas and approaches which approaches are correct and why. In this way, the students should gain a deeper understanding of mathematics and also learn to express themselves mathematically and to argue mathematically. The teacher is the "moderator" who leads the dialogue or discussion and provides information, expertise and assistance.

Scardamalia and Bereiter's Knowledge-Building Community :

In 1994 Scardamalia and Bereiter developed a model that they call "Knowledge Building Community". The basis of this learning community is the software CSILE, which provides the “learning framework” / the “learning environment”, an electronic discourse and database. The idea is that the learners work on problems and issues together in a guided environment and are thus actively involved in learning together. The contributions and results of the individual members go into the learning environment, set standards for the others and require continuous mutual adaptation. "Real" experts outside the classroom can also be involved. So it is learned and communicated publicly and thus enables later learners to participate in the learning process. In contrast to the traditional approach, in which a certain topic is presented by the teacher within the class (from person to person), the knowledge building community focuses on a certain problem that is discussed in public and the solution to it Students can contribute themselves. Knowledge objects should be produced by the students themselves and not the “pre-chewed” media objects of the teacher. The learners have the opportunity to reflect, which they do not have in the usual 1-second waiting time in normal lessons. In addition, learning in the knowledge building community does not mean doing well in the given tasks, as the traditional approach provides, but learning from one's own motivation. Learning is therefore an expertise acquisition process of the progressive "problem solving".

Outside of school

Wikipedia (see Lawler 2006)
Company training and further education, e.g. knowledge communities at HP (cf. Seufert 2004)
E-learning formats
Scientist Community
Teacher training (Gräsel / Fussnagel / Parchmann 2006)

Differences between learning communities

Despite all the similarities of learning communities, especially with regard to their internal organization, i. H. the balance of power between its members, the decision-making processes and their relative openness to new members can be quite different. There are learning communities where hierarchy plays a role (Lampert's classroom) and there are others where there is no formal hierarchy (Wikipedia).

Participation is also understood in different ways. There are learning communities where members have to make choices in their learning (what and how to learn) and there are others who consider their members only as autonomous workers.

The openness of a learning community is the relative facility to accept new members. In MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) and Wikipedia , openness is one of the basic principles. With the Vai and Gola Tailors, new members enter and leave the community through a ceremony.

Learning communities cannot be understood as homogeneous phenomena. The multiplicity of the phenomenon encourages simple definitions.

References

Katerine Bielaczyc, Allan Collins: Learning Communities in Classrooms. A Reconceptualization of Educational Practice. In: CM Reigeluth (Ed.): Instructional design theories and models. (Vol. II), Lawrence Erlbaum, London 1999, ISBN 0-8058-2859-1 , pp. 269-292.
B. Caswell, K. Bielaczyc: Knowledge Forum: Altering the relationship between students and scientific knowledge. In: Education, Communication & Information. Routledge, London 2001, No. 1, ISSN 1463-631X , pp. 281-305.
EB Coleman, AL Brown, ID Rivkin: The effect of instructional explanations on learning from scientific texts. In: Journal of the Learning Sciences. 1997, No. 6, pp. 347-365.
K. Dunbar: How scientists think: Online creativity and conceptual change in Science. In: TB Ward, SM Smith, S. Vaid (Eds.): Conceptual structures and processes: Emergence, discovery and change. American Psychological Association, Washington DC 1997, pp. 461-493.
Cornelia Gräsel, Kathrin Fussangel, Ilka Parchmann : Learning communities in teacher training. Cooperation experiences and convictions of teachers. In: Journal for Educational Science. 9th year, issue 4/2006, ISSN 1434-663X , pp. 545-561.
Jean Lave, Etienne Wenger: Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008, ISBN 978-0-521-42374-8 .
Cormac Lawler: Wikipedia as a learning community. Content, problems and the common good. In: Bernd Lutterbeck, Matthias Bärwolff, Robert A. Gehring (Hrsg.): Open Source Yearbook. Lehmanns Media, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-86541-135-5 , pp. 297-314. (on-line)
M. Scardamalia, C. Bereiter: Knowledge Building. Theory, pedagogy, and technology. In: K. Sawyer (Ed.): The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences. 2006, pp. 97-115.
Sabine Seufert: Virtual learning communities. Concepts and potential for training and further education. In: G. Zinke, A. Fogolin (Ed.): Online communities - opportunities for informal learning in work. Federal Institute for Vocational Training, 2004, pp. 28–38. (on-line)

Individual evidence

↑ Étienne Wenger : Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 47.

[1] Étienne Wenger : Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 47.