Superlearner

When I read articles like this one “superlearners” I get excited – wow this is what we are talking about, taking risk, collaborating, using resources, actively reconstructing knowledge. It was even printed in Harvard Magazine! Then I look at the date 1991, and I feel sad, because I am reminded that we (educators) have always known that there is a better way to learn, and a better way to teach. However, we have continued to choose otherwise. Are you a superlearner?

A professional learning network

Are you ready to read and write and discuss ideas with people daily? Are you ready to get help polishing ideas, and hopefully help others polish theirs. Are you ready to maintain multiple ongoing discussions covering a variety of topics. Karl Fisch wrote “Ideally, this would also describe schools; places that were not defined as much by prescribed curricula, but by a climate of intellectual curiosity and a culture of ideas, where good ideas influence other good ideas.” He wrote this three days ago.
The idea of a community of learners is not new, but the ways in which we can connect and collaborate has shifted. Face to face meetings hold less and less value; in fact they are quickly becoming a really insufficient way to get things done.
The big million dollar question is what does all of this mean to schools – to the way we teach and to the way we learn. Knowledge has become as accessible as air, all of the answers are out there; now it is the questions that are important. And the great questions will take multiple people to answer – where do you find your answers or better yet how?