Social Learning (social Pedagogy) - Social Learning Project

Social learning (social pedagogy) is learning that takes place at a wider scale than individual or group learning, up to a societal scale, through social interaction between peers. It may or may not lead to a change in attitudes and behaviour. More specifically, to be considered social learning, a process must: (1) demonstrate that a change in understanding has taken place in the individuals involved; (2) demonstrate that this change goes beyond the individual and becomes situated within wider social units or communities of practice; and (3) occur through social interactions and processes between actors within a social network (Reed et al., 2010).

History

Social learning - a framework - Planning, implementing and evaluating social learning projects. See the transcript of the video on our blog: http://wenger-trayner.com/blog/planning-and-evaluating-social-learning/

The following text is from Reed et al. (2010), where references to other material cited here can be found:

Early work conceptualized social learning as individual learning that takes place in a social context and is hence influenced by social norms, e.g., by imitating role models (Bandura 1977). However, this conceptualization is not particularly useful, because most learning takes place in some social context. Recently, a different school of thought has arisen, as reflected in a number of articles in Ecology and Society (e.g., Pahl-Wostl 2006, Ison and Watson 2007, Mostert et al. 2007, Pahl-Wostl et al. 2007a,b, Steyaert and Ollivier 2007, TÃ bara and Pahl-Wostl 2007, Pahl-Wostl et al. 2008) and elsewhere, including work by the authors of this article (e.g., Reed et al. 2006, Stringer et al. 2006, Prell et al. 2008; Newig et al. 2010, Matous and Todo 2015).

This literature conceptualizes, often implicitly, social learning as a process of social change in which people learn from each other in ways that can benefit wider social-ecological systems. Originating from concepts of organizational learning (Argyris and SchÃ¶n 1978, 1996, Senge 1990, Wenger, 1998), this second school of thought is informed by social theories of learning, which define learning as active social participation in the practices of a community (Lave and Wenger 1991, Wenger 1998), and emphasize the dynamic interaction between people and the environment in the construction of meaning and identity (Muro and Jeffrey 2008). However, much of this literature ignores conceptual advancements in the education and psychology literature (Fazey et al. 2007), and there remains little consensus or clarity over the conceptual basis of social learning (Wals and van der Leij 2007). Furthermore, although dynamic interactions have been emphasized in social learning literature, only most recent work has attempted to explicitly model the dynamics of social learning in evolving social networks based on empirical evidence.

One of the first courses in Social Learning is being offered at Columbia University Teachers College as peer to peer learning and sharing are becoming accepted as imperative in the learning process.

Definition

Poster: 21stC Mobile Social Learning â€" EDUWELLS. Source : eduwells.com

Researchers have defined social learning in multiple and overlapping ways, and confused social learning with the conditions and methods necessary to facilitate social learning or its potential outcomes. It is important to distinguish social learning as a concept from the conditions or methods that may facilitate social learning and the potential outcomes of social learning processes such as proenvironmental behavior.

If learning is to be considered â€œsocial learning,â€ then it must:

Demonstrate that a change in understanding has taken place in the individuals involved. This may be at a surface level, e.g., via recall of new information, or deeper levels, e.g., demonstrated by change in attitudes, world views or epistemological beliefs.
Go beyond the individual to become situated within wider social units or communities of practice within society.
Occur through social interactions and processes between actors within a social network, either through direct interaction, e.g., conversation, or through other media, e.g., mass media, telephone, or Web 2.0 applications.

As such, social learning may be defined as a change in understanding that goes beyond the individual to become situated within wider social units or communities of practice through social interactions between actors within social networks.

Theories

A Nice Classroom Poster Featuring The 21st Century Mobile Social .... Source : www.pinterest.com

Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Natural Man

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778), with his book Emile, or On Education, introduced his pedagogic theory where the child should be brought up in harmony with nature. The child should be introduced to society only during the fourth stage of development, the age of moral self-worth (15 to 18 years of age). That way, the child enters society in an informed and self-reliable manner, with one's own judgment. Rousseau's conceptualization of childhood and adolescence is based on his theory that human beings are inherently good but corrupted a society that denaturalize them. Rousseau is the precursor of the child-centered approach in education.

Karl Mager - Social Pedagogy

Karl Mager (1810 - 1858) is often identified as the one who coined the term "social pedagogy". He held the belief that education should focus on the acquisition of knowledge but also of culture through society and should orient its activities to benefit the community. It also implies that knowledge should not solely come from individuals but also from the larger concept of society.

Paul Natorp - Social Pedagogy

Paul Natorp (1854 - 1924) was a German philosopher and educator. In 1899, he published SozialpÃ¤dagogik: Theorie der Willensbildung auf der Grundlage der Gemeinschaft (Social Pedagogy: The theory of educating the human will into a community asset). According to him, education should be social, thus an interaction between educational and social processes. Natorp believed in the model of Gemeinshaft (small community) in order to build universal happiness and achieve true humanity. At the time, philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and Immanuel Kant were preoccupied by the structure of society and how it may influence human interrelations. Philosophers were not solely thinking of the child as an individual but rather at what he/she can bring to creating human togetherness and societal order.

Natorp's perspective was influenced by Plato's ideas about the relation between the individual and the city-state (polis). The polis is a social and political structure of society that, according to Plato, allows individuals to maximize their potential. It is strictly structured with classes serving others and "philosopher kings" setting universal laws and truths for all. Furthermore, Plato argued for the need to pursue intellectual virtues rather than personal advancements such as wealth and reputation. Natorp's interpretation of the concept of the polis is that an individual will want to serve his/her community and state after having been educated, as long as the education is social (SozialpÃ¤dagogik).

Natorp focused on education for the working class as well as social reform. His view of social pedagogy outlined that education is a social process and social life is an educational process. Social pedagogic practices are a deliberative and rational form of socialization. Individuals become social human beings by being socialized into society. Social pedagogy involves teachers and children sharing the same social spaces.

Herman Nohl - Hermeneutic Perspective

Herman Nohl (1879 - 1960) was a German pedagogue of the first half of the twentieth century. He interpreted reality from a hermeneutical perspective (methodological principles of interpretation) and tried to expose the causes of social inequalities. According to Nohl, social pedagogy's aim is to foster the wellbeing of student by integrating into society youth initiatives, programs and efforts. Teachers should be advocates for the welfare of their students and contribute to the social transformations it entails. Nohl conceptualized a holistic educative process that takes into account the historical, cultural, personal and social contexts of any given situation.

Albert Bandura - Social Learning

Albert Bandura advances the social learning theory by including the individual and the environment in the process of learning and imitating behaviour. Albert Bandura mentions that the environment plays an important role as it is the stimuli that trigger the learning process. Indeed, according to Bandura (1978), people learn aggressive behaviour through 3 sources: Family members, community and mass media. Research shows that parent who prefer aggressive solution to solve their problems tend to have children who use aggressive tactics to deal with other people. Research also found that communities in which fighting prowess are valued have a higher rate of aggressive behaviour. Also, findings show that watching televisions can have at least 4 different effect on people: 1) it teaches aggressive style of conduct, 2) it alters restraints over aggressive behavior,3) it desensitizes and habituate people to violence and 4) it shapes peopleâ€™s image of reality. The environment also allows people to learn through another personâ€™s experience. For example, student donâ€™t cheat on exam (at least no openly) because they know the consequences of it, even if they never experienced the consequences themselves

However, still according to Banduras, the learning process does not stop at the influence of the family, community and media, the internal process (individual thoughts, values, etc.) will determine at which frequency and which intensity an individual will imitate and adopt a certain behaviour. Indeed, parents plays an important role in a childâ€™s education for two reasons: Firstly, because if the frequency and intensity of the interactions and secondly because the child often admire their parent and often take them as role models. Therefore, even if the â€˜â€™stimuliâ€™â€™ is the parents â€˜interactions toward their children, if their child did not admire them, their children would not reproduce their behaviour as often. That is the main difference between early social learning theory and Banduraâ€™s point of view. This principle is called â€˜â€™Reciprocal Determinismâ€™â€™, which means that the developmental process is bidirectional, and that the individual has to value his environment in order to learn for it. Â He also states that this process starts at births, indeed, research shows that infant are more receptive to certain experience and less to others. Â Albert Bandura also says that most human behaviors are driven by goals and that we regulate our behaviour through weighing the benefits and the troubles that we can get into because of a particular behaviour.

Application in education

Module 3 Project Storyboard by ginobili20. Source : www.storyboardthat.com

Duration

social learning theory - Fieldstation.co. Source : fieldstation.co

The issue of how long social learning takes is important for the design of learning initiatives and policy interventions. The process of going beyond individual learning to a broader understanding situated in a community of practice can take some time to develop. A longitudinal study looking at an environmental group concerned about land degradation found that social learning was documented after approximately 1 year, but was initially restricted to an increased understanding of the problem without improved knowledge to address it. Further knowledge necessary to address the problem in focus emerged during the third year of the program. This suggests that learning initiatives could take around 3 years to develop sufficient new knowledge embedded in a community of practice in order to address complex problems.

Social media & technology

10 Ways to Implement Social Learning Strategies in eLearning. Source : www.efrontlearning.com

With the growing use of social media, social learning is also more and more interpreted as learning with social media. Social Learning through open platforms like Facebook or closed platforms like Corporate Social Learning Network is growing up rapidly. Social Media can be used by employees to contribute, store, discover, search, learn and relearn, action, and review knowledge and skills, making hidden information and knowledge explicit. From an employee's or learner's point â€" this is also considered as "personal knowledge management" or "smart working" â€" e.g. using blogs to reflect their work, or using user generated content via platforms like Wikipedia or YouTube to learn on demand, e.g. when they have a question or problem. From an organizational point of view, social learning can be added as an element to formal learning like courses or curricula â€" to add discussions, sharing of experiences and lessons learned. Also social learning can be driven more stand-alone â€" e.g. to create Communities of Practice for similar groups like new employees (called onboarding), team or project team members or other similar groups. The goal for the organizations is to make learning more effective. The new connotation of social learning is also pushed by software companies who want to sell social learning tools (like SAP AG or Microsoft). However many scholars have agreed in the early stages of development of social media that social learning requires more than online interaction. Some frame groups learning via social media as a form of Personal Learning evolving a social element. Others are skeptical of the social learning potential of social media, and argue that it excludes the vital tacit knowledge that direct, face-to-face interpersonal contact enables, and that social learning is bound up with physical and spatial learning.

References

How Minecraft Supports Social and Emotional Learning in Kâ€"12 Education. Source : www.gettingsmart.com

External links

[1] Reed, M. S., A. C. Evely, G. Cundill, I. Fazey, J. Glass, A. Laing, J. Newig, B. Parrish, C. Prell, C. Raymond and L. C. Stringer. 2010. What is Social Learning?. Ecology and Society 15 (4): r1. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss4/resp1/
[2] Social Learning Platform which act as a bridge between knowledge providers and seekers. [online] URL: http://www.coursee.co
Pontefract, Dan. February 2012: Social Media is not Social Learning. (Retrieved 18/12/2012)
Hart, Jane. 2012. List, voted by learning practionioners: Top 100 Tools for Learning 2012(Retrieved 18/12/2012)

Social Learning (social Pedagogy) - Social Learning Project

Tuesday, March 20, 2018