This pad builds on [[paragogy-okcon/rev.16046]], created by [unnamed author] & Charlie & Charles & Joe

#paragogy #draft #copy

(~) OAD Definition of Theory: the·o·ry n. (pl. -ries) a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something

ABSTRACT


Peer-to-peer (P2P) learning has been recorded since at least the 4th century before the common era. Moving forward it has become particularly ubiquitous in the present. This is partially thanks to new computing tools that allow peers to learn harmoniously and efficiently. Paragogy is a theory of P-to-P learning. Its current iteration is independent of technology, although many of our examples will be from the modern digital age. Paragogy demands peers take learning seriously. This paper outlines paragogy's relevance, challenge, offer and connections to other theories. Next it gives examples of paragogy implemented, then the authors implement it themselves critiquing their experience working at The Peer 2 Peer University. All theories have limitations which we attempt to see, before closing with a vision and what may lie ahead.

This paper describes a new theory of peer-to-peer learning and teaching that we call "paragogy". Paragogy's principles were developed by adapting the Knowles principles of andragogy to peer-based learning contexts. Paragogy addresses the challenge of peer-producing a useful and supportive context for self-directed learning.


Agenda for Friday: plan to get things done by Sunday - 

RELEVANCE

Consider what happens when you take a trip to visit an old friend in their home city.  As old friends, the two of you are peers and equals. Yet your friend will be required to teach you about the locale: where to eat, what museums are worthwhile, what night spots are fun, etc.  In this context your friend is more knowledgeable and teaches as you learn. If visit had been to your city instead, these roles would be reversed. This is a simple example of peer learning, a widespread subcategory of social learning <Bandura>, and perhaps as ubiquitous as communication or thought itself <Jung, Chapter 1>.

We use the term paragogy to characterize the study and practice of peer learning. The growth and evolution of opportunities for learning outside of formal institutions in recent years has made a theory of peer learning of timely importance.  A recent article from Fast Company, an influential business magazine, illustrates the point: "Just as more and more employees are expected to have basic multi-media skills--the ability to blog, for example, or to shoot images or videos on their smartphones--so will they be expected to have the basic ability to share knowledge with their peers." (2011)

But strategies for paragogy can be found by looking back through human history. For instance, in 1645 peers came together in London to "refuse  to believe things that weren't demonstrably true."  (Shirky, 2010, p. 136) Initially they called themselves the Invisible College. They "put chemistry on a sound footing in a matter of a couple of decades" and "established the many of the norms underpinning the scientific method" (Shirky, 2010, p. 137). As time went by they  and "its  members formed the core of the Royal Society, a much less invisible  organization chartered in 1662 and still in operation to this day." (Shirky, 2010). Cf. http://royalsociety.org/about-us/history/

Somewhat less recently in 380 B.C.E. Socrates and Meno had a discussion about virtue, where they took turns questioning and answering one another.

Socrates. And I, Meno, like what I am saying. Some things I have said of which I am not altogether confident. But that we shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know; that is a theme upon which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of my power.

Meno. There again, Socrates, your words seem to me excellent.

Soc. Then, as we are agreed that a man should enquire about that which he does not know, shall you and I make an effort to enquire together into the nature of virtue?

SOCRATES: Then, Meno, the conclusion is that virtue comes to the virtuous by the gift of God.  But we shall never know the certain truth until, before asking how virtue is given, we enquire into the actual nature of virtue.  I fear that I must go away, but do you, now that you are persuaded yourself, persuade our friend Anytus.  And do not let him be so exasperated; if you can conciliate him, you will have done good service to the Athenian people.

Though it was not called by the same name, the Invisible College, Socrates and Meno were implementing paragogy as they did work that would be used by humans hundreds or thousands of years later.  Drawing inspiration from them, we offer here our paragogical principles for your examination and critique.

THE CHALLENGE

«Nobody needs to teach rural communities about "group effort" and "self-help".»

So begins A. T. Ariyaratne's essay on Rural Self Help.  He continues:

«The real question, therefore, is to examine what are the constraints that exist inhibiting the expression of their group effort and self-help qualities designed to improve food and nutrition levels, clothing, shelter, health, sanitation, education and cultural life?»

It is in a similar spirit that we look at peer learning. Everyone is capable of developing effective learning strategies and techniques, but they do this subject to certain constraints: in particular, the constraint of not yet knowing.  Peer learning is different from other forms of collaboration, the proverbial "barnraising" for example, in which it can be assumed that the persons involved know how to build barns.

Critical questioning like Ariyaratne's can help people practice paragogy "I asked them what their biggest need was [...] I got the people to analyse their problem themselves assuring that there  was nobody except themselves able to solve this problem."  Much like the "Socratic method", the virtues we learn are the ones we practice <Benkler+Nissenbaum>.  In practical terms, the theory of paragogy aims to provide a system for quickly learning about and adapting in relation to the resource landscape.

WHAT WE OFFER

Thus far we have five principles, describing "candidate" best practices for peer learning.






CONNECTIONS

Closely related theories

The first point of connection is to andragogy, Malcom Knowles's theory/practice of adult education. In succinct form, Knowles's five principles of andragogy are as follows: (1) that adult learners are  self-directed; (2) that they bring a wealth of experience to the  educational setting; (3) that they enter educational settings ready to learn; (4) that they are problem-centered in their learning; and (5) that they are best motivated by internal factors. <Blondy> points out both uses and challenges to each of Knowles principles of  andragogy. For example, "Cheren stated that while learners may express a  desire to be self-directed in their learning, most lack the required understanding of learning necessary to be self-directed and thus need  guidance and encouragement in the learning process."

The paragogical principles were first conceived by turning Knowles's principles on their edge.  In short, unlike andragogy (which takes the point of view of the  adult educator), pedagogy (which studies teachers teaching learners) and unlike heutagogy (which focuses on self-directed learners), paragogy looks at the learning environment as a whole.  Accordingly, in addition to theories about learning, paragogy connects to other theories of an "ecological" form. In particular, we draw from Nishida's notion of basho ("shared context in motion"), a concept that helps us look at how a context constrains or supports different types of  (inter-)actions, and about how we can (re-)shape the contexts we find ourselves in.  

We survey other related themes on ecology and learning in the subsections that follow.

View from Human Ecology

Bateson's Ecology of Mind integrates ecology with learning, and has several parallels with paragogy.


In peer learning, one of the key concerns is how peers organize together to be more efficient than independent minds acting alone.  The impetus to produce firms and post-firm commons have been discussed by Coase and then, following on, by Benkler <Coase, Benkler>.  Some of the relevant factors are discussed in the theory of Strategic Niche Management.  <Geels>, <Kemp>.  Three factors are said to influence niches (which could be populated by institutions, but also individual learners or informal organizations like courses or study groups):


Within niches (where, again, any group of peer learners would be an example), momentum is thought to accumulate by: 


I feel like there needs to be a tie-up sentence here: explain again why this is here (should probably be made more clear above too).

View from learning theories

One current relevant reference is Karpike and  Roediger's  "The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning".  The point of this article is that repeated testing is apparently a better way to learn than just studying, or (per the follow-up paper by Karpicke and Blunt "Retreival Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping"), more effective than just sketching out concepts.

Nevertheless, it would be impossible to argue that "conceptual structures" are unimportant for learning. Indeed, as de Liddo et al. indicate, developing facilities that help people make their learning interactions explicit is vitally important.  More generally, accomodating the way people think is key: here we can also look to the notion of "A strong affective filter (e.g. high anxiety)" <Krashen http://www.sdkrashen.com/articles/eta_paper/index.html> inhibiting learning, and the willingness of some learners to take vital risks.

On that note, learners need real motivations.  In the words of Alfie Kohn, "Ask not what will motivate my students, but how they are already motivated."

IMPLEMENTING

To show that paragogy is neither a pure abstraction nor a trivial practice, we will explore three concrete examples of paragogy implemented.

The first example comes from the US Military's After Action Review (AAR). The AAR is a systemized chance for everyone to review what just happened in a training exercise, to learn from it going forward.  While one person may play the role of an evaluator in such a review (and despite the fact that solidiers are differently ranked), the review itself is still amongst peers, and critiques the operations of the unit as a whole. The four steps in an AAR are:


Any peer group learning anything would be wise to draw on the US Army's AAR and implement a similar formal review as part of their own learning practices.

Another example of paragogy in action came from Charles Darwin and the "Gentlemen Naturalists". Later in his career Darwin stated, "I formerly spoke to very many naturalists on the subject of evolution, and  never once met with any sympathetic agreement." [...] "I tried once or twice to explain to able men what I meant by Natural Selection, but signally failed." This would be similar to sending an e-mail out to mailing list on a topic you of interest. Negative feedback is better than none at all and can form part of a good long-term learning and discovery process.

Finally, one of the most successful implementations of  paragogy in contemporary America is Alcoholics Anyonymous. A peer support group where peers come together to accomplish a common goal, namely to stop drinking. In the words of co-founder Bill W.

"I think that the gentle Russian prince who so strongly advocated the idea felt that if men were granted absolute liberty, and were compelled to obey no one in person, they would voluntarily associate themselves in the common interest.  AA is an association of the benign sort the prince envisioned." Bill W. in A.A. Comes of Age (AA World Services, Inc., New York, 1957), page 224. via http://www.lewrockwell.com/white/white45.html

Within AA, peers have a common goal: learning how to be sober. Within this context, evaluation is (painfully) clear: learning was successful if the new learner stays sober, and isn't if not.  A couple of points from their "benign anarchy" model could be applied in other learning scenarios.


Despite being an "anarchy" the peer learning group succeeds by helping people to stay sober every day.

KEY MESSAGE

The paragogy principles provide guidelines on best practices for building successful peer learning experiences. In this section we will bring the principles together with lessons learned from our work at P2PU. We evaluate these experiences, mainly focusing on our experiences in courses, using guidelines drawn from Defining Open Source Software Project Success and the theory of deliberate practice.  We have selected these sources because they are directly relevant to learning in a peer context.

Changing Context as a decentered center :: Structure and semantics

This relates to the <de Liddo> paper about conceptual mapping (flow charts, bubble diagrams, system design principles: maybe include an example picture here): the idea here is to map out a peer learning system and to say how it works. Each writer has tried to organize multiple 6-week courses. If you measure success by group participation and production they have been failures. Yet, we, the organizers, have learned lessons about what does or does not make groups work. Do like an AAR of 1 course? Intersplice comments form other courses? ... Good place your post-mortem DIY Math......  This approximately typical for the P2PU experience.

Note: Go through P2PU experience and then use other papers to evaluate.


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(the level of activity) : some people were much more active than others, but most were not active; people leaving every week was sort of demoralizing.  Data and analysis would be nice to get more specific, we don't have time right now.) ... quick e-mail to Dan? (later).   
(number of developer and user contributions): Power law.  The non-equal distribution is important, but the fall-off in participation is disappointing.  
(keep things sufficiently scoped): It is a lot of work to set up a course, and it can be a wasted effort if people don't want to take it!  Course organizers are to date embodying the 2nd principle more blythe about it, 

METALEARNING IS A FONT OF KNOWLEDGE :: Transparency accountability and tone

Seed: "old hands" need to be interested in what will work better for newcomers. Similarly, everyone can be "kept accountable"  through user profiles -- which describe learning. Any commments about P2PU organizers include us.


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(time to close bugs or deal with issues): Development is going real well now that there is an employee on the job (Zuzel).  High-level criticisms are just harder to deal with.
(knowledge production):  Not much. Some best practices are accumulated in the wiki.  This is something could be a nice goal for P2PU some definable OER that's created and is 100% complete.   Maybe our paper is a start!!! (e.g. <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/This_quantum_world>)
(individual reputation): It works for organizers and board members) who can put this on a CV.  One of the participants asked me for a recommendation in her profile on P2PU.  This mechanism of getting credit could be supported better and discussions are under way about that (cite Phillip's blog post).  P2PU "organizational star" is rising. Evidence = money.  How can this spread?  (And where does the money go: would be useful to know.) ... ***This could allow P2PU the organziation to be a model for new users to follow. P2PU gets money, says we will do this, and then after says what happened with the money." 
(stretch):  it worked for us. And this paper is our example of dogfood eatin' and CBPP practicing. And we earnestly yearn for peers to critique us.

PEERS ARE EQUALS BUT DIFFERENT :: Reporting problems

Seed: I think that the code-related part of "reporting problems" is pretty much solved.  I'm way less sure about other stuff (high level  infrastructure, design, culture issues, individual difficulties in courses...).


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(developer (instructor, participant) satisfaction): people who left can't be that "satisfied" ... but of course many folks stick around and do enough "good" that new people keep signing-up.  People who want to participate in admin-level stuff can do this and get practice at it.  User/contributer experience is discussed but this is a producer community and you had be satisfied with what you DO or don't come crying, becuase you have enough power given to you to realize your dream w/P2PU and if it's not realize it's your fault, or if it's not happening there, maybe P2PU can still help you figure out how to do it elsewhere.  
(individual job opportunities and salary):  Seemingly zip. But obtusely, this gives me more "credibility" within a field I'm
(feedback that's not there otherwise <Flow>): Like the Darwin example: even something kind of uncomfortable can be a good learning experience: for people with eyes open there's lots of info here. Almost everything gets some reply (unless you waste your words)... this seems to uniquely characterize learning communities????

LEARNING IS DISTRIBUTED AND NONLINEAR :: design considerations 

How can we build a place for people to talk about the project in a sensible way?  In the "Shaping P2PU" group at new.p2pu.org, the aim is to get P2PU folks to eat their own dog food (to minimal success so far, but the platform is still growing).


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(time between releases (do we have a rapid stretch/churn pulse?)): development is a yes!  They have a course set up for people to learn how to contribute to the platform. (platform can either make it harder or easier for peers learning. so far, been neither, more _experimental... _chaotic... _more participation in development_____ ?)
(practice a lot with variations but in a focused way)... quarterly cycles, it would be great to get more feedback on the things that I need to work on (e.g. writing clarity)... I want to practice what I need to work on in a more disciplined fashion ?  Can P2PU support this?  Open question.
-> implement Beckett

REALIZE THE DREAM IF YOU CAN, THEN WAKE UP :: high level roadmap

There is no "Declaration of Independence from Formal Education" (yet).


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(achieved identified goals): not yet, but the project is still young; it does seem to be OK at achieving the milestones/objectives that it sets -- however these are not strongly linked to high level goals in a clear way
(movement from alpha to beta): yes
(good goals consider process): we hope to contribute to that

LIMITATIONS

As important and ubiquitous as peer learning is, other styles and theories of learning have their place.  While new parents do learn a lot, young children inarguably learn more; for young kids, socializing is important, but it is clearly no substitute for parenting.

Older students may not always be ready to be strong peer learners either: consider the design for an introductory college course in philosophy.  The standard thinking is that "honors student" might prefer a student-led seminar, and that others would find this unproductive and would get more out of a traditonal lecture/homework model.  We see no reason to challenge the standard assumption here.

Aside from these limitations to peer learning, like any theory, paragogy has its limitations. "There is nothing more gray, stultifying, or dreary than a life lived inside the confines of a theory." (Lanier)  Further, like any other technology, the usefulness of a theory depends on how it is used: it's not magic (boyd).  Paragogy stands ready to grow and improve as it is tested in practice and developed further in empirical studies, but it also needs to be ready to get out of the way.  For example, one edge case for paragogy would be the highly independent learners and artists whose peers are spread out distantly through space and time.  Maybe it is best for these people to continue to live the creative dream and refuse to wake up (Kayne West).

VISION

Reflecting on the historical nature of higher education and the possibilities for new media solutions, Martin Weller writes: 

"Nearly all of the modern attributes of a university flow from this centralised  model: the authority of the professor, the filtering of knowledge  through recognised outlets, the length, structure and subject matter of  courses, the assessment procedures and the means through which knowledge  is shared. It is thus no easy task to adopt a  decentralised model, since it will require massive procedural, economic  and professional change in higher education."

We would argue that new media are not simply a disruptive force in the traditional educational landscape: they also provide a chance to understand learning better. What is learning? -- this  seems like a good question for Socrates. An eminently practical rephrasing  of the question is: "What do we need to know, and what do we need to be able to do, to work effectively and to lead full, happy lives?"  Our vision, then, is of increasing knowledge about learning as it connects with productivity.  We hope that paragogy can form part of a critical approach, part of a benevolent and widely distributed "pyriamid scheme" for peer producing better support for learning (similar to Linux or Wikipedia).  We are happy whenever bug reports for learning are being submitted and addressed.

SYNTHESIS (TBA)


We recognize that the answers will be heterogeneous.  But there will be  some common trends as well, which we have discussed at a high level in  this paper. The idea of a "Microgenetic analysis of learning" that is  able  to "measure change as it occurs" is quite compatible with our  vision, and compatible with the idea of "learning analytics".  But we  feel that the understanding of all different types of learning at all  levels needs to be understood better, and that's where we hope to take  paragogy as time goes.  (E.g. very specific examples in action maybe adding empirical examples [mathemeatics/language schools founded on paragogy].)