session overview

Wednesday 25th January 2012

11:30 - 12:30 Track 4 Session 1

Collaborative learning

Learning and development has traditionally focused on the creation, delivery and tracking of courses. But is that all there is to learning? No, we know that people learn very effectively informally and socially. In this session we look at how we learn from each other and show how peer learning can be used semi-formally and about the structures and systems that we can use to support it. Learning from each other is natural. Working in large organisations isn't. How can L&D create the bridge to bring this natural way of learning to the workplace?

P1: Peer learning – why instructors need to get out of the way

Donald Clark, Board Member, Ufi

How important is instruction in learning? It may be less important than you think. Judith Harris – author of ‘The Nurture Assumption’ – turned traditional psychology on its head by showing that peer pressure is the main force at work in learning, yet the subject is barely discussed among learning professionals. What are the implications for workplace learning? In this provocative talk, Donald Clark explores the scientific studies on how ‘peer learning’ works and how it provides a bridge between social learning and learning theory.

The surprising truth about nature, nurture and learning
Examples of peer learning tools in action
What Eric Manzour’s work at MIT tells us about effective learning
How peer learning provides a harder edge to social learning
The role of instructors in this different world of learning

P2: Learning from each other across the organisation

Oke Eleazu, Managing Director, Thinkoutsidein

People are natural learners – and we usually learn most naturally from each other. At work, while we could be learning from all our fellow workers, we usually end up doing it with those nearest our desks. The result: good practice ends up trapped in small pockets. The larger the organisation, and the more sites it has, the worse the problem gets. Follow Oke Eleazu as he describes how he searched for a peer learning solution at former employers the Prudential and Bupa, and discovered the right approach whilst working on a social enterprise to encourage social learning amongst school children in Africa.