Collaboration - Human Natural Instinct?

Cecil Mittoo EDUC 7105 – 1 Module 3
Collaboration
My reflection of Rheingold’s (Video 2008) proposal of humans having a basic instinct to “interact and work as a group” depends on the perspective that I will take to give an answer. I will say no from a biological standpoint. I was once told by a minister of religion that the first law of human preservation is selfishness. I believe that humans make use of the environmental offering to ensure their sustenance and selfish ways. Keltner (2012) postulates “Since Plato, we have portrayed the emotions as the fount of irrationality, baseness, and sin. What would the seven deadly sins be without destructive passions? Or the Ten Commandments for that matter?” Man’s possession is linked to his family, and there is selfishness for survival and existence. Discussions and debates do not take away the stain of biology and selfishness. Human actions are believed to satisfy desires. Rheingold’s presentation concluding phrase is “Selfish interest that adding up to more.” Discussion in the Physics Forum (2004) on philosophy espouses “Everything we do is a selfish act. Every decision we make is one we want to make for ourselves. An example of helping an old lady to cross the street notes as an act of having a good feeling about yourself rather than feeling bad not to do it. Many times students tell me that they don’t care when I try to get them focus on doing work. My response is “I care.” But how much impact will my care have when students don't care? Rheingold laments that trust are important for collaboration. If you make me trust you, even by telling me that you care and demonstrating that you care I can adapt to the demands of ecology to work with you. The fact is humans do not think together. You think, I think. There is no mental merging of the psychological and the sociological. In my mind if my intimate belonging must be preserved, even from epistemological ecology, I will give selfishness the first choice of assurance.

Rheingold’s presentation was intriguing informative with emerging technology. How can educational technologist revamp an old education system? To date it is structured on the industrial revolution year planner. We are at a crossroad where cyber technology is shaping our economic growth, and the foundation for support (K-12) is still undecided. Rheingold poised that new forms of wealth is the result of collaboration around enabling technology. I believe technology has imposed its crude capability on humans to cause them to see the need to merge or wither and die. I believe the internet and the World Wide Web have forced humans to collude businesses and commerce in order to maintain a share of the marketplace. Rheingold has used the “Prisoners Dilemma” as an analogy to show that collaboration among individuals or corporation has its foundation on trust. Our concept of fairness in business is influenced by our social institution, but most cultures are about 50/50 in their ideology of fairness. But how do we transfer collaborative effort into learning. I believe learning differences in collaboration will dictate individual’s potential but with trust productivity at best can be realized. The evolution of technology is the driver for collaborative interaction in business and education.

• Responsibility for group learning in constructivism demands experiential building and awareness by the instructor. constructivist learning theory is founded on collaboration and active learning. This ensures co-construct of knowledge from shared experience, knowledge and redefining problems. Davis (2002) believes "students learn best when they are actively involved in the process." Group task must ensure build on learning which also collaborative writing is. Group work must be relevant. This is usually achieved when students participate in study topic design and resource selection. Students’ skills and ability is important to build confidence and background knowledge. This enables cognitive development for difficult, complex and creative thinking. Labor division is a traditional group setting for cooperative group work. Collaborative interaction will allow for shared knowledge in all areas of learning. Group size is consistent with presentation time and difficulty level of lesson. Competitiveness among groups is encouraged with learning challenges in parallel and presentation technology available to all groups. Group dissolving due to group member’s issues should not be encouraged. The constructivist learning pattern is based on both social and academic skill development. The Problem Base Learning (PBL) Plan is ideal for constructivist learning. This adapts learning technology in all areas of planning, research, analysis, develop and presenting.

• The study titled Collaboration Tools, by Lomas et al. (2008) elicits current and future use and development of collaborative learning tools. They note “creating affinity groups on social networking sites like face-book exchanging links over IM conversations, or building group projects in Google Docs. “Millennials” have seamlessly integrated the social tools they use for communication with friends into their academic toolkit…” (p.2). A tool kit is an important resource for apprentices who will later leave the guiding hands of their master craftsman to go out on their own. The competence of using the tools will prove rewarding in their trade. Many students are using Wikis and blogs to extend their learning and share information. Students are being classified as “practitioners” They learn to use technology tools for class work in school. Lomas et al. (2008) espouses collaboration as “The action with one or more people to produce something.” The production of knowledge is their major goals for K-12 learners. Effective collaboration pools collective intelligence that transcends distance and geographical boundaries. Technology tools enable communication from remote places. According to Lomas et al. (2008) the quality of good collaboration tools will (a) promote communication; (b) share a diagram, photograph, paper or similar objects; (c) allows natural interactions; and (d) be easy to use and learn.

References:

Keltner, D. (2012). The Evolution of Compassion. University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved from: http://www.altruists.org/static/files/The%20Evolution%20of%20Compassion%20%28Dacher%20Keltner%29.pdf

Physics Forum. (2004). All acts are selfish in nature. General Discussion › Philosophy. Retrieved from: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=16855

Lomas, C., Burke, M., Page, L. C. (2008). Collaboration Tools. Educase Learning Initiative. Retrieved from: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI3020.pdf

Rheingold, H. (2008, February). Howard Rheingold on collaboration [Video file]. Retrieved from
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html

Davis, B. G.(2002). Tools for Teaching. Collaborative Learning:Group Work and Study Teams. University of California, Berkely. Retrieved from: http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/collaborative.html

Anticipating Module # 3 Response for URLs


(a) http://lauralee7105.blogspot.com/

(b) http://vidamartin7105.blogspot.com/