Can We Make Learning Social?
A Lesson From A Sports Team About Education
The Story
It’s 50 degrees celcius outside, almost 140% humidity, we’re about 25 high school students all crammed into a tiny old rusty brown school bus on our way to a soccer game, the semi-final to be exact. The field is located 2 hours away from our school, one way; it wasn’t actually that far but the traffic wasn’t helpful. All of this is alright for a bunch of grade 8 boys since we’re sweaty half the time anyways, however, what added to the stress was that we had a physics exam the next day and most of us haven’t finished preparing. We had to come up with a way to study; we pondered, then one of us yelled, “Whoever knows a chapter, explain it to everyone else”, the rest of us started looking at each other and instantly opened our books looking for that chapter we’re comfortable with. Each of us took turns explaining what they understood and in no time we….
This practice became a big part of the team’s culture, we started using that strategy with other subjects, even on days where we didn’t have to prepare for exams. It worked like a charm; most of us actually ended up doing better than we normally did.
The Moral
The major takeaway from the experience was a realization about the benefits of social learning, for starters it made everyone feel like a part of a bigger picture. A dramatized version of what we learned is that each of us knowing the solution for a part of the challenge, enough to share it, was integral to the success of our team as a whole.
The reality of the matter is that the bus story won’t happen to everyone, it happened to us by luck since we could reschedule neither the exam nor the game.
So what does the story have to do with technology?
Before moving on I’d like to bring in the concept of Blended Learning, which is the result of teachers realizing that technology is an integral part of the modern learning process, however we must keep in mind human interactions.
Without a doubt, we’re moving to an educational landscape where schools are using Blended Learning to personalize and improve the learning experience of their students.
The Problem
With Blended Learning, it’s easy to feel like you’re learning alone and there might be a disconnect between what you learn on your own and that which you learn as a group. However, various studies show that 74% or more of high school students use social networks to access and share content, which could be leveraged to improve the learning process of students while simultaneously making it more enjoyable.
The Solution + Next Steps
Often times, knowing that we’re not alone is all we need to keep going:
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
— Benjamin Franklin
To make learning more social, here are the milestones we need to overcome:
- Balance between collaboration and competition
- Leverage social influence to increase interest in learning
- Connect social status to amount of knowledge gained and amount of effort put forth
- And most importantly, make it fun! Blur the lines between what is done for fun and what is done for school.
- Use social gaming for educational purposes
The list above may not be the easiest to implement and you as a connected educator or student may incur difficulties while trying to overcome these milestones; However, it is of utmost importance to understand the value of changing a student’s perspective on learning.
Footnote: for more info, checkout ROOT Education.
