Being alive right now is the best time to be alive if you want to be a learner. We live in the Information Age where you can access almost any information at any time, anywhere at the tips of your fingers. I've never been a baker or much of an artist for that matter, but when my daughter was born, just over a year ago, I decided I wanted to learn how to decorate cakes and cookies to save money on birthday parties. With the help of YouTube, blogs, and Instagram, I've become quite the artist given I have no formal training.

I was able to learn so quickly due to what Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown call a collective in their book A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. A collective is defined as "a collection of people, skills, and talent that produces a result greater than the sum of its parts" (Thomas, et al. 2011). A collective is not just a community of people. A collective requires participation. I participate in my baking collective by asking questions when I need help mastering a skill or by sharing my experience with others who have questions that I know the answer to.

The reality of today's society is that this is how we learn now. This is how our students learn. When girls want to master the new make-up trend, they watch YouTube videos. When boys want to advance to the next level of their video game, they find the cheat codes on a blog or a video. When a household appliance breaks, a simple Google search shows how to fix it. If this is how they are learning outside the classroom, how can we utilize this new culture of learning inside the classroom?

First, educators need to realize the need for change. Education is "seen as a process of transferring information from a higher authority (the teacher) down to the student...this model, however, just can't keep up with the rapid rate of change in the twenty-first century" (Thomas, 2011, p. 34). We must teach our students how to be resourceful and how to process and evaluate information so that they have the skills to learn beyond the walls of our classroom once they enter the adult world. We can do this by utilizing collectives in our classrooms.

Using collectives to learn in the classroom provides so many more resources besides just one teacher and one textbook. The resources are almost endless with just a quick search of your topic. If a student isn't understanding the way I teach a specific topic, they can easily look it up on Khan Academy or YouTube and maybe learn it better because it's explained in a different way. It also provides access to information 24/7. Rather than sharing the teacher with 20-30 other students during a limited time period each day, the student can access information and/or ask questions anywhere, anytime.

My innovation plan is to implement blended learning within my classroom as well as my entire organization. You can see in my literature review how blended learning increases engagement, personalizes learning, and follows technology trends all of which lend themselves to collectives. Blended learning allows students to have class time to collaborate together in order to problem solve as well as teaches them the skills on how to process information. It creates a sense of ownership while they take charge of their learning. Students must learn to participate in the collective by asking classmates questions when they need help, but also answer questions asked of their classmates once they have mastered the concept.

Creating this new culture of learning will be challenging because it brings about change. Students, parents, and even educators are use to the old way of learning. That's all they know and all they've been taught, so of course they naturally think that anything different won't work because that's not how it's been done before. In order to try to prevent pushback, I plan on implementing the change slowly as "when change comes slowly, adaptation is easy" (Thomas, 2011, p. 42). Once we get past the pushback, I truly believe it will make a significant impact within my organization. I believe students (and parents) will no longer play the game of school, but rather play the game of learning. It will no longer be, "what tasks must I complete in order to get my A?" but rather, "what information do I need to search and process in order to learn?" I believe our learning will become more inquiry based and deeper, authentic learning will take place.

References:

Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A new culture of learning: cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Lexington, KY: CreateSpace?