It is not easy to find a meaningful, coherent, and consistent thought on networked collaborative learning that finds agreement with what I expressed in my previous blog BP2 on Sharing and Openness. I indeed mentioned a sort of encouragement in sharing learning and teaching material in my field of expertise, also due to the lack of up-to-date books. However, does this find a correspondence in a collaborative learning community beneficial both for students and teachers?
I can cite a few examples of collaborative learning attempted when I was a student in my current teaching area. These experiences usually occurred in response to the teacher’s group or team assignment, especially in doctoral courses. Most of the time, the collaborative homework or projects were difficult to solve alone, although not impossible. As a group, we usually had a first kick-off discussion, and then all of us attempted to solve the problem, alone or in pairs, and report to the group. This approach was a mere source of failure, with usually one much brighter student with a solid mathematical background capable of solving the assignment, sharing the merit with the group, but hiding the process as a treasure — a strange way of collaboration that I tried to prevent in my courses as a teacher.
Then, have I ever experienced “real collaborative” learning? I believe I did in the class I am teaching on bituminous materials and mixtures. I am not referring to the assignment and the group work I developed in the classroom (online) but to my effort in bringing my international network into my course to provide my students with a diversified learning experience. My goal was to offer course participants the possibility of expanding their vision beyond the national and Nordic education and research through the current activities from different parts of the globe reported in dedicated seminars and workshop sessions by six international colleagues within my network. While devoting such a large portion of the course could be considered a gamble, students also appreciated this opportunity responding with active participation and providing very positive feedback.
This experience was the first attempt to use my network for learning and teaching in my courses. Therefore, it is relatively recent in this sense. My network has grown over the years as a result of meeting with international colleagues during conferences and events and while joining our forces when preparing project proposals and working on research. I can imagine that I could also rely on my current network in the following years and develop on my recent experience. At the same time, I have started building a more local network with colleagues from mine and neighbour institutions and with professional experts that could allow me to bring to my classes not only an advanced research perspective but also the component of the learning process that is closer to the profession and the practice.
In view of the diverse nature of my networks (old and newly born), technology could help in different ways by simply shortening the distance, enabling hands-on learning activities such as the use of software not commonly available in one part of the globe, and facilitate the generation of new learning networks by virtually meeting new colleagues and students. In all of these different endeavours, I still feel like a trainee in hunting for my learning home communities.
