Collaboration: Assessment for Learning and Business Take Aways

One area of learning that the concept of effective collaboration has great potential for is in the area of assessment for learning. In the past, assessment for learning and assessment of learning were focused on the individual. Any attempt at collaboration would have been considered "cheating". However, if the daily learning experiences we expose the learner to involves a renewed emphasis on collaboration, should not assessment of learning and for learning also reflect this emphasis. This is not to imply that there would be no assessment of learning and for learning for the individual learner. What is being suggested is that we can create a more balanced assessment that includes a measure of the collaborative thinking, decision making and use of each others talents and gifts in solving complex real world problems.This fits with the understandings behind what we term as "Open Pedagogy" which the education community is moving towards.

The obvious question is:

 "How can we design such assessment tools so that we obtain measures of what we are looking for?"

Some Suggestions: Consider, with an open mind, these possibilities:

1. Use of Share Applications As Assessment Tools: One of the great advancements brought to us by Google is what we call its cloud storage in the form of the Google Drive and the suite of apps such as Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Presentations. The singular common characteristic is that all of these apps can be set up according to defined sharing protocols. Imagine that a teacher creates a shareable document, which he or she stores on his or her Google Drive. Students are then paired (not sitting with each other) and the document is shared out to them alone with certain features turned off(can't change the directions or wording of task) but can add their thoughts, proposals or solutions to a tasked problem. No one else can be invited to the group unless permitted by the instructor. with the shared capability, students can collaborate without speaking because they can see what each other is adding to the tasked problem. Students would have access to the web which again reinforces the needed skillsets of the learner being able to analyze the problem collaboratively, search and authenticate useful information on the web collaboratively and use synthesis to prioritize and reduce information pertinent to the tasked problem using collaboration. The development of innovative solutions to the proposed problem could allow students access to a shared drawing and presentation tool to illustrate their ideas.
2. Going Beyond Assessment By the Instructor: If we agree that in order to solve complex real world problems, we need cross disciplinary approaches then it is logical that the instructor alone may not have all the appropriate skillsets and experience to look at the solutions provided by students from the multiple of perspectives required. This is where specialists from professional learning communities can play a role in assessment of learning but also make important comments to students for assessment for learning. Tying the learner to real world feedback ensures that the student is engaged by what he or she is doing and realizes that their learning is very much part of the real world.

Nurturing critical thinking AND divergent thinking skillsets in a collaborative format is more in line with the type of future problem solvers that our societies need even now.

Business Take -Aways

 

Question: "What is business to learn from these shifts involving Moore's Law, Learning Culture and change management?"

Credit: Tom Hood

 

It would be a gross understatement to suggest that Moore's Law will have an impact on business organizations because we are already caught in the wave. What distinguishes one business organization from another is whether you are in a state of reacting to the changes or are aggressively being proactive in planning change in an incremental fashion. Too much change creates disruption that can seriously harm a business and lead to a lack of trust on the part of stakeholders. Too little change paralyzes a business so that it appears as a "deer in the headlights" in a globally connected economy.
Looking at the learning culture of a business organization needs to go beyond just a needs assessment and committee report that quickly gathers dust on a back shelf. The forces that are holding a business back need to be identified and an honest risk assessment needs to go from the discussion stage to an action stage. Transformation will not take place without it.

Employee engagement and empowerment as collaborative agents of change, tasked by the vision of the company, needs to be nurtured. This might mean a bold move such as taking compliance training out of the hands of training and aligning it with another department so that the instructional designer, learning principles experts and instructors can concentrate on the transformation of the business organization's learning culture. Building collaborative networks both within the organization and outside the organization needs to be taken to a whole new level based on the new currency, information and knowledge.

Next....... E-Learning--A Light At the End of the Tunnel?

Re-designing E-Learning with Systemically Designed Collaboration: Specific Suggestions

Based upon the impressions of the last post, there are a couple of points I would like to be abundantly clear:

1. This type of re-design is not limited to the STEM area of learning activities. Even though I used a STEM example, if we believe that solving complex real world problems requires a cross disciplinary approach, then collaborative groups must involve more than just the sciences. STEAM projects might be the bridge to hybrid collaboration. The key to thoughtful engagement is to focus on real world problems and feedback should not be simply a self-quiz or exam at the end of a learning activity but should be on-going throughout the learning experience and should shape on-going decision making during the learning experience. This provides a wealth of information for the learner and can also result in a growing self-confidence in themselves as dynamic learners with a purpose.
2. Experiential learning and project based learning take center stage in such a re-design. Design thinking as a skillset becomes a focal point and one that is consistently encouraged in the learner consistently.

Education: Specific Changes to Promote Effective Collaboration

1. Moving Away From Content Focused Pedagogy:  One of the great realities of 21st century learning is that knowledge and information are expanding across the disciplines in an exponential rate. The advancing changes in technology based on a revised understanding of Moore's Law have not only accelerated the advancement of information and knowledge but also the time of globally communicating these expanding waves of information and knowledge has quickly grown shorter and shorter. As a student aptly put to his teacher in 2016:
   
   
   "I can find more information and knowledge on the Internet than you could teach me in your life time as a teacher!"
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Whether we like it or not, Moore's Law is being re-written by the advancements of technology and the growth of information and knowledge. This in turn impacts the shape that education should take. The past focus on educating students to acquire more and more information for the purpose of repeating it back to satisfy the industrial economy mindset, no longer fits with the needs of 21st century society.
   
   
   
   

   

   Credit: Ray Kurzweil and KurzweilAI.net

   With the new start up areas in the Internet of Things, the skillsets required go beyond the simple acquirement of knowledge. The focus needs to shift to the higher order thinking skills (Revised Bloom's Taxonomy) and purpose driven innovative thinking.
   
   
   
   

   

   Credit: www.Todbot.com

   
   
   So, if we move away from a content for content's sake pedagogy, then what do we move to?
   
   
   In order for us to really build effective collaboration in a sea of information and knowledge, information and knowledge is not solely our end goal for the learner. More importantly, the re-design of pedagogy needs to emphasize the following skillsets:
   
   
   

   1. Learners already know that there is a huge repository of information and knowledge on the Internet but one of the skills that they need to be mentored on is how to effectively search for information that will be useful for sharing with partners with the common end goal of solving complex real world problems. The great realization that learners need to be led to is that not all information on the Internet is true, real or valid to a particular problem. The fact that the Internet has become an outlet for any person who has web access means that there is a need for "thoughtful discernment".
   2. Learners need to be able to collaboratively analyze a problem and be able to see that problem from a cross disciplinary perspective. This is where having an honest assessment of each others gifts and talents will help make the approach to solving complex real world problems easier. For example, a collaborator who has a solid gift for mathematics is able to contribute to the process by analyzing the problem from the point of view of mathematics and can also help in the search by being able to distinguish between shallow mathematics interpretations from those who are valid, real and hold promise for shedding light on the problem.
   3. In order for true collaboration to take place, networking with outside specialist learning communities must be established and facilitated so that relationships are developed between the collaborative learners who need to authenticate the knowledge that they find and those who are in the best position to validate what they find in their searches. This relationship is beneficial to both groups. For the learner there are the relationships that are formed between themselves and representatives of disciplines that provide impetus for future professional career directions. For the varied professional learning communities, they are given insight into the potential future growth of their profession. Another very unusual but real benefit for professional learning communities is that they have the opportunity to "step outside entrenched routines and see problems from fresh new approaches." 
   4. A greater emphasis on the skillsets of synthesis and creativity is needed. With the exponential growth of knowledge, it is easy to become swamped by all that is out there.The learner's ability to analyze and then to synthesize information and knowledge so that it is focused on enabling the production of a host of innovative solutions. This is a discipline of the mind and like any other discipline it requires a commitment to "hone or fine tune" it with an eye on excellence.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   In a nutshell, it is not about learning all the content for the content's sake but it is about how to search for tasked content, how to authenticate that which is true, real and valid to the task and reject everything else, how to take a huge body of knowledge and through the skill of synthesis make it manageable so that you have the most current, authenticated cross disciplinary knowledge that can be shared and used to arrive at innovative solutions to complex real world problems that to this point have defied solution

   
   

   
   

    

   

   
   

   
   
   
   
   2. Create a Global Learning Contract Between Education and Professional 
                 Learning Communities
   
   
   
   
   The learning of future citizens living in our global societies is no longer just the responsibility of the educational communities in an age of information and learning. All of society has an important stake in how education of learners progresses because the focus is to create agents of change who can effectively deal with very real complex real world problems that are increasing. The professional disciplines as well as global business are stakeholders because they are greatly affected by the results of education. Education needs to establish what I would term a "global learning contract" between themselves and the other stakeholders. This means extensive collaboration among the learning communities with a powerful purpose of supporting those who would become agents of change in our societies.
   
   
    
   
   
   
   
   
   
   How are business organizations and professional learning communities affected? More in the next post and the idea of using collaboration in learning assessment.
   
   
   
   
   
   

Re-Designing E-Learning With Effective Collaboration As a Priority---Designing Systemically

 The Nature of the Problem

A couple of comments often heard from students and their parents in the past and even today are the following:

Student: "I go to school all day and we do things that take up time in our day but in the end these things have nothing to do with the real world."

Parent to Teacher:  " Its okay with me if you have my child do all these discovery activities and have him/her make decisions but in the end I want you to tell him/her what they need to know."

If you examine these comments within the context of a society that is becoming more globally connected and precisely the world that young learners will take their place in as adult citizens, you can't help but ask the question:

" Is there a disastrous disconnect here? Are education systems really preparing students for the "real world" that they will actually have to live, contribute and function in or are they being prepared for a world that no longer exists but is faithful to our own memories?" 

If students are still making such comments, then we are at risk of them completely disconnecting from valuing education and "life long learning".

Credit: www.pinterest.com

Recognizing and admitting that we have a problem are only the first steps. To reestablish the link between education as a relevant activity to preparation for living in a rapidly changing world means that we need to re-design the pedagogy that we use in such a way that the learner can see that what they are doing in their education is consistently connected to people, resources and needs that exist in the real world. We need to stop making excuses to learners that the regimented, conforming and controlling activities that are used in education but never go beyond the four walls of the brick and mortar classroom or even the virtual classroom, is somehow good for them.

Credit: www.quotestank.blogspot.com

 So, if we are going to involve learners, whether in the learning cultures of business or formal education, in effective collaboration, it has to be personally meaningful and give the learner the opportunity to make valid contributions to real world problems. It is no secret to those who are involved in educating or training learners that learning that is deep and sustainable reaches it potential by having learners actually do tasks where they can collaborate with each other and receive feedback from the outside world. Feedback from the outside world from people who are on the cutting edge of their disciplines is more validating for the learner than feedback from their instructor. It validates that what they are doing is real and has importance in the real world.

Lessons in Sustained Learner Engagement: "The NASA Martian Rover Design Project"

 If we want learners to achieve deeper and more sustainable levels of learning, it is not enough just to dazzle them with a uniquely designed learning experience, we need to have the learner remain engaged. This is where technology can serve our re-designed pedagogy.

One project that demonstrated the importance of this type pedagogy for me was a project titled: "The NASA Martian Rover Design Project" which was an off shoot of a larger initiative called: "The Marsville Project". This was a project that was first started as a result of the terrible Challenger Spacecraft explosion on Jan. 28, 1986. The families wanted to leave a lasting memory of the dedication of seven astronauts to the ideal of exploring space for young people. As a result, the Marsville project was born. This project was geared to the idea of collaboration in the exploration and design of a human habitation on Mars. The exploration focused on all aspects of such an endeavor which included structural design, life support systems, renewable energy production, food, communication systems and of course, the design of a realistic design for a Martian terrain vehicle called a rover.  Unlike other school based projects, this one was a good example of blended E-Learning since it combined in class based project with making connections with NASA personnel who could act as mentors with suggestions about student ideas.

Credit: www.itgsnews.com

I worked with students on this project for approximately 11 years. At first we focused on all aspects of the project but quickly discovered that the timelines became tight and the logistics of bringing our innovations to Toronto where over 50 other schools would meet to demonstrate their scientific innovative thinking on the project became a real challenge. As a result the teams decided to specialize on two aspects: design of a Martian Rover and the generation of renewable Mars based energy.

Credit: www.article.wn.com

What I discovered about sustainable engagement and through talking with students amazed me. Here are some results:

• Students asked why this type of learning that connected them with real scientists who were actually working on such projects was rare and too often a one time event.
• After, our collaborative teams were formed, the students connected with scientists and included them in their collaborative teams. Although scientists are very busy with their research, many were willing to hear students innovative ideas and give them feedback and even references to easy to understand data and information.
• After, our teams were introduced to the task of building and programming robotic rovers, my role changed from being the "sage on the stage" to the "guide on the side". Amazingly, the students took over, working collaboratively, accessing information from the Internet, problem solving and communicating with specialists. Intrinsic motivation became the driver for what they were doing. I was the "encourager on the side". There was no need for me to offer external motivators to keep them going.

Credit: www.resources21.org

On thinking back on this experience, it was one of the most gratifying of my career because what I was observing was what I would term "pure, ongoing learning". Students who felt that school was not the real world changed their minds in our groups because now they were connected to an important task in the world that involved them collaborating with real scientists and receiving meaningful feedback about their ideas.

For two of my students this experience encouraged them to come up with innovative ideas that found real application in the real world. One re-programmed the original program used to guide the robots so that they could navigate a maze of obstacles using different types of light and heat sensors where the other one went on and came up with a new and more cost effective treatment for Malaria.

The question posed by the students is a valid one:

Why is collaboration with the real world just a one time thing and not something that should be an important skillset designed as part of all their courses?

Credit: www.sunnyskyz.com

Next----Specific areas where effective collaboration should be part of the design in E-Learning.

NASA's space shuttle Challenger accident was a devastating tragedy that killed seven astronauts and shocked the world on Jan. 28, 1986. Killed in the accident were Challenger commander Dick Scobee, pilot Michael Smith, mission specialists Judy Resnik, Ronald McNair and Ellison Onizuka, payload specialist Gregory Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe, who was set to become the first teacher in space. - See more at: http://www.space.com/31732-space-shuttle-challenger-disaster-explained-infographic.html#sthash.dZ0X39nF.dpuf

NASA's space shuttle Challenger accident was a devastating tragedy that killed seven astronauts and shocked the world on Jan. 28, 1986. Killed in the accident were Challenger commander Dick Scobee, pilot Michael Smith, mission specialists Judy Resnik, Ronald McNair and Ellison Onizuka, payload specialist Gregory Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe, who was set to become the first teacher in space. - See more at: http://www.space.com/31732-space-shuttle-challenger-disaster-explained-infographic.html#sthash.dZ0X39nF.dpuf

Part II- Creating Opportunities for Effective E-Learning Communities

In the last post, I suggested that the previous industrial economy mindset was counter-productive and was impacting education in unfortunate ways. The challenge is to "dial back" the mindset of excessive consumerism driven by business values that consider greed as positive. In order to tackle the complex real world problems that are created by this mindset and ironically that actually make it difficult to conduct business globally, we need to recognize that a changed purpose and vision of education that is more in line with solving the pressing problems that we all face is essential.

Credit: www.storygeist.com

 

"Even astute business people would agree that it is very difficult to conduct business in zones in the world where there is repeated cycles of civil war with the exception of being an arms dealer or those involved in reconstruction efforts during interludes."

With respect to change in education, the purpose of education changes from what it was in the past. Now the following might be a brief description of what we should be looking at:

• The purpose of education is to create a generation of learners who will become agents of change in our societies using all the benefits of technology to solve complex real world problems.
• The purpose of education is nurture the development of creators of new knowledge and new skillsets that are in sync with the needs of societies moving forward and enriching the quality of life for their citizens. Innovative thinking needs to be a natural skillset that needs to be encouraged and applied to all facets of the lives of individuals.
• The purpose of education is to create online global learning communities that will serve business and formal education. Due to the global reach of such technology, the collaborative goals of such communities should be to make accessibility easier for the nations of the globe that are disadvantaged.

 

 

 

 

E-Learning--An Existing Obstacle

One thing that should be made clear is that it is not the technology that is the primary driver of needed change; it is a changed vision and perspective. As a support for this idea, a case in point is the attitude that learners have in taking E-Learning courses. Keeping in mind that even the most recent generation has been brought up and educated with the mindset of excessive consumerism, we find that they approach E-Learning as if it is a "buffet table" spread before them. They choose from a list of courses those that fit their immediate goals, fulfill the assignment requirements, get their grades and then leave. This is the pattern of the consumerism mindset but we are faced with the troubling question:

"If we seek to focus on the importance of collaboration as an important and desired skillset, then how can this be accomplished if each learner has an individualized mindset which runs contrary to the concept of a community of learners?"

If the goal is to nurture learners to be a collaborating group dedicated to solving complex real world problems, then the emphasis needs to change from "I" to "WE". A startling revelation that really needs to be considered critically is the fact that many E-Learning organizations still design their offerings using the dated industrial mindset. This mindset can be seen at work in discussion forums in LinkedIn when the discussion is about online courses.

 "The advanced technology can not disguise the mindset behind the design."

 This is a problem that high education still needs to address effectively. Too much of the present E-Learning presented to students in institutions of higher learning still focus on the accumulation and memorization of information and how effectively a student can regurgitate the favourite perspectives of their instructors. Even if they use advanced and flashy media presentation tools, it still does not change the substance of what learners are learning. It is also the reason that many learners disconnect from their learning because all it represents to them is a classroom exercise with no real ties to the outside world.

What we need to strive for in the design of effective E-Learning is "thoughtful engagement" of the learner. Design that focuses on the habits of the mind; that engages, challenges and teaches student how to think in an online environment is far better than the previous industrial mindset that stated that it is important to teach students what to think. However, it can't end at the walls of the class whether the real brick and mortar or even the online LMS! The changes to the learning experience requires that we foster not the concept of " the course" but instead a much more personal, relevant, online learning community that transcends the boundaries of an LMS.

"Does higher education get this or do they think that it is still technology that drives learning?"

   

Changing the Focus Through Agile, Adaptive and Collaboratively Based Pedagogy

Given the present state of E-Learning and the political, social, economic and moral events we see escalating which pose problems that seem to defy solutions, we have to ask a sobering question:

"Why don't we see more effective collaborative efforts in finding solutions to complex real world problems today? 

Credit: www.cele.sog.unc.edu

I believe that part of the problem is that developing collaborative skills with a focus on real world problems that learners can relate to is not a high priority in education and the collaboration that is encouraged, largely dealing with social issues, asks learners how they feel about what is happening but makes little effort to teach them the thinking skills required for them to become thoughtfully engaged with the topic with the idea that they can contribute to arriving at potential solutions that will be considered as a meaningful contribution by the society.

 So, what is the solution to this?

We do have a choice. We may continue on the path we are on and pretend that what we are doing involves thoughtful engaging collaboration or we can stop and ask ourselves: will we be able to live in a future created by our children who are receiving an education that reduces them to simply a bar code and discourages any attempt to be real change agents in a world that so desperately needs them to be engaged in change?

How, you ask? In my next post, I will detail suggested changes that need to be made that better reflect an agile, adaptive pedagogy required for the nurturing of online learning communities... The last word belongs to the BOSS.

Designing E-Learning Communities---- Part I--Bridging Generations

In the last post, I suggested the importance of developing effective and vibrant collaboration. However, there is an important consideration to note that would enable such collaboration to take place whether in the business learning culture or the formal education culture. Such collaborations need to happen within the context of a "community of learners". The establishment of dynamic e-learning communities has been the subject of rising interest within the education research community. In order to build the future of effective virtual or online learning communities, it is important to understand the present obstacles to achieving this.

The Obstacle of An Entrenched Dated System

We are the products of the education system that we were raised in. In the industrial based economy, the following ideas were part of what it meant to be educated:

• The purpose of education was to create a work force that would conform to all the requirements of industry. Therefore, the idea of encouraging a focus on developing creative and innovative learners was considered a non-essential best left to specialized private schools. The ability to develop basic skills and the stress on repetition was mandated as essential and repeated assessment of learning was considered to be similar to the use of quality control in manufacturing processes.

• The purpose of education was also to create life long consumers who would use the wages that they earned to benefit the growth of wealth for owners of industry. In the 20th and 21st century, consumers who were as young as 4 yrs old were targeted. Through the use of ads focusing on cartoon characters using or promoting "must have products" to these targeted age groups, the attitude of accumulating more and more products to consume created and nurtured excessive consumerism as a positive mindset at an early age. With each age group, the consumerism mindset grew exponentially.

  

Businesses reading such points might ask the question:

"So, what! Consumerism has provided employment for people, provided good lifestyles with modern conveniences and has allowed capital through taxation to create wealth for the country. What's wrong with that?"

 The Changing Needs of Societies

With the exponential advance of technology and new ways of communication, the needs of a new generation of learners and the societies that they became adults in, changed. The heavy emphasis on consumerism created great wealth for business but greed created complex real world problems that threatened to destabilize our civilizations. The skewed distribution of wealth on a global scale created areas of the world where large populations were suffering pre-industrial problems associated with great poverty, disease, and starvation. These very real and painful inadequacies resulted in the rise of civil wars, dictatorships and breakdown of the rule of law.

So, the obvious question that should occur to you, is:

"What does any of this have to do with creating online learning communities? I sympathize with such horrible global inadequacies but how can education alleviate any of this?"

Building a Generational Bridge Through Online Education

The past model of excessive consumerism has had its impact on the one element of people's lives that can enable them to tackle complex real world problems and improve their quality of life, that being education. In this age if we do not change this mindset in education then the events we see happening in our world will continue to spiral downward. In order to effect change in education, the past generation, who are now in positions of power in business need to cross a generational bridge by restructuring core values that have been a part of their business for so long.

Brad Fergusson of the People Before Profits Organization, recognizes the need for this restructuring of core values. Putting "people before profits" is a radical concept in the global business world and it is not saying that businesses should not make a profit. Businesses have a responsibility to their share holders to produce wealth and obtain for them a good ROI. It is saying that we can no longer ignore the growing needs of people, especially when businesses have both the resources and global reach to make a real and lasting change in the quality of life that people have. It is my belief that the quality of education and how we make that accessible to societies will determine the path that societies follow and ultimately decide whether civilizations are enriched or whether they destabilize.

Next......Part II-Creating Opportunities for Effective Learning Communities

 

Dynamic Collaboration--Removing Boundaries and Expanding Horizons

In the previous post, I mentioned that the way we do collaboration needs to change and become more dynamic and global in its outlook. In the past, collaborative groups were organized "in-house" and involved employee groups tasked with a particular problem. Access to a SME was an important element of the plan and the ID's had the responsibility of establishing a rapport with the SME's so that the designed collaborative plan would have a good chance of producing positive results. At that time, the outreach beyond the walls of the organization might be by teleconference and satellite linkups to branch offices. This was useful for delivering training or sharing important data on which an organization could make sound business decisions.

As mentioned in the previous post, the world indeed changed and this change was manifested in two ways:

1. With the growth of technology, especially as it related to doing business using the Internet as a medium, the "in-house walls" came down. The boundaries that previously defined the area of pursuing business were not only removed but the access to important markets and strategic data needed in order to compete in such a medium, accelerated. The natural consequence was an organizational rush to position their organizations to compete in a globally connected collaborative digital economy. The great challenge facing organizations was to overcome organizational inertia and the changing of an entrenched mindset that said:"We have always done things this way" to a mindset that now said: "How can we engage our employees to be effective learners of new online skillsets and thus establish our organization as one that is dynamically focused on innovative thinking?"
2. The second shift or change was the realization that real world problems have become more complex and that we have more immediate access to ongoing information about them in real time than what we were able to accomplish in the past. This means that maintaining a strong relationship with our SME may not be enough for us to be successful. The reason is that working in an online environment highlights the importance of critical thinking skills both in the navigation on the web but also the search, analysis and interpretation of accessed data. Also, the need for more than one skillset derived from a multitude of other disciplines to focus on a tasked problem can not be derived from the skillsets of one individual, especially if you require high quality interpretation of a tasked problem and innovative solutions.

Out of necessity in operating in such an environment, the way we collaborate has to change to utilize the great potential that the environment offers. The use of social media as a tool for establishing effective online branding for an organization should not be underestimated. Tools such as Twitter and LinkedIn are global in out reach and can raise the visibility of an organization and establish its brand much more quickly than even many well planned out advertising campaigns that ignore such a tool. Crowd sourcing has also been a useful tool for moving "start-ups" forward on a solid financial footing.

How Should Collaboration Change?

 The following are merely suggestions to promote thoughtful engagement:

1. Importance of an Effective Dynamic Learning Culture: We live and work in an information and learning age that puts a high value on the creation of new knowledge and skillsets. Unlike the past when content was king, something of greater value is learning how to think and use the resources and information that resides on the web. This means that it is better to nurture and reward the learning skills of employees than to expose them to countless hours of PowerPoint content and demand them to memorize it or else. If our goal is to have employees who naturally want to learn more, seek to collaborate with others to solve problems and be innovative to the benefit of the organization, then engagement needs to be fueled by the intrinsic motivation of the individual and not by extrinsic motivators that use the "carrot or the stick" mentality.
2. Hiring Practices: HR departments have followed a tried and true method for new hiring since business organizations have been in existence and had started to grow. However, with the opening up of the World Wide Web to business, competition for talent increased exponentially. This means that the search for talent just took on a new level. It is not enough to post employment opportunities, collect resumes, go through a selection process, conduct preliminary interviews and at some point in time arrive at a decision. CV's and resumes can easily be artificially enhanced. It is important to pay attention to skillsets as they present themselves in the activities of potential candidates in the online environment. It is important for HR departments to be aggressively proactive in searching out talent but in searching out such talent it needs to be remembered that these skillsets will complement the skillsets of others tasked with a given real world problem. The "branding of the individual" is just as important as the branding of an organization when it comes to hiring practices.
3. Ad Hoc Collaborative Groups: The idea of "outsourcing" has enjoyed a great deal of notoriety in the past due to how it can depress the economy of a city, a state and even a country. However, searching and bringing together talent in online collaborative groups tasked in solving real world problems has the potential to enlist not just the talent in "our own back yards" but to use effective global talent seeking to bring together the necessary skillsets required for understanding and solving the problem. On an ad hoc basis such groups could disband after a solution is produced. Unlike outsourcing, protocols should be established to share the benefits with the organizations represented by the collaborators. It does not require the closing down of a business that would result in unemployment and a depressed economy and the ROI for the collaborating organizations could be quite intriguing.
4. Establishment of Collaborative Global Learning Networks: This is a concept that I have mentioned before in previous posts. Essentially it involves setting up 6 collaborative global learning networks that act as forums for organizations to send employees with promising new and innovative ideas to. It is here, in what we might term an "innovation sandbox" that employees may collaborate, receive mentoring, and be able to develop their ideas and present them to a council made up of cross disciplinary specialists. The employees then return to their respective organizations with a report on the potential benefit of the ideas as well as the necessary caveats to be aware of. The concept of proprietary and intellectual ownership should be worked in such a way that it doesn't promote or lead to a "paralyzing protectionism" which defeats the purpose of collaborating in the first place.

 

There is still a fundamental question that has an impact on such ideas which is:

 "Will the vision and purpose of education change in order to produce learners who are creators of new knowledge and skillsets or will education continue to be resistant to the necessary changes that prepare the learners to be effective organizational leaders and employees in the real digital world?"

Next...Learning Cultures in Education--Breaking Down Barriers

E-Learning--- Multitasking vs Dynamic Global Collaboration-- Pursuing a New World Order-Part I

Both in the education environment and the corporate environment, multitasking has been considered to be an efficient way to prove your own personal worth. After all, what leader would not value someone who could take on many tasks at the same time, all with specific deadlines to be met and performance goals to be achieved? A person showing this skillset was highly valued. This valued skillset from the the industrial economy allowed for creative divisions of labour.

But then, the world changed!

With the development of the world wide web and the advancement of technology came the exponential acceleration of the development of knowledge across the many disciplines. The idea of one person being the "fountain of all knowledge" quickly became an anachronism in age of exponential growth of information and the fact that access to such information became more and more instantaneous making it available "now".

Credit: Industry Tap-David Russell Shilling (April 2013)

 
 

No more is this more evident than in the journalism industry where news that once took weeks to reach others on the other side of the world could now be accessed as it is happening. 

Credit: www.dtspoint.com

 
Multitasking based upon neurocognitive research has been shown to be a myth.

"The more divided your mind is among a number of tasks the more these tasks are performed with increasing mediocrity."

Credit: www. stressfreenyc.wordpress.com (Scott Adams)

As a result of the growing awareness of the inadequacy of multitasking, societies responded within the academic world by promoting specialization as the path to follow in tackling the various problems of society. Streaming learners into the created specialties of the various disciplines became the focus of education systems but this is not without problems. Even though collaboration within a specialty would occur, the idea of collaboration across the disciplines was still foreign to many practitioners. This brings us to a great problem which is:

"Complex real world problems require collaboration across disciplines in order to come up with real world solutions." 

We are still trying to attack 21st century and beyond problems with approaches that create "silos of knowledge and skillsets" that have no useful interchange between them.  As a result, what we are faced with is the dilemma of "six blind men trying to describe an elephant".

 

Each discipline attempts to find a solution to a real world problem using their specific perspective and perseveres in the task believing that at some point they will arrive at the solution. This has been the "perpetual promise of science". However, there is the following nagging question they need to ask:

" Could we have found a solution to a real world problem sooner, if we had collaborated with other sciences whose unique perspective could have given us a clearer picture of the problem and a more ready supply of potential solutions? "

Some disciplines are just now starting to realize the benefit of collaborating with knowledge and skill set creators outside their discipline. As an example, using robotics in the service of surgical practices combines the ideas and skillsets of Engineering and Medicine. What can the science of Nanotechnology offer to the medical specialty of Oncology?

One of the great barriers that needs to be overcome is what I would term "intellectual protectionism" in which the first priority is "to protect our turf from the barbarians at the gate".

So, how do we overcome these barriers? It starts with the realization that we are challenged to put aside "professional glory seeking" in order to use our skillsets and knowledge for the greater good of humanity as a whole. Developing respectful acknowledgement of the skillsets and knowledge of other disciplines is the first step to opening the eyes of the six blind men.

Next.....Cross Disciplinary Collaboration --Part of a New World Order