In response to my question, “What if we blur the line between faculty and student to move closer to becoming co-learners?”, my friend and co-learner, Shelley Paul, a.k.a. @lottascales, posted a beautiful response about building community and relationship through co-learning experiences.  She writes:

What struck me early on, and persisted throughout, was how the act of co-learning, of solving a REAL problem together, was actually solving the problem…. the experience changed how we were together, and how we related to one another… everyone a teacher, everyone a learner: level ground, doing something none of us had done before, figuring it out together – building (improving) community.

Do we seek opportunities for  co-ownership of the process of learning and the outcomes?

What if we allow learners to co-create the curriculum¹, the assessment², and the problems to solve?

What if we take time to listen to our learners³?  What actions will we take to facilitate learning episodes differently?

What if we adjust our actions to set challenges that compel learning as described in  Step 0: Preparation of The Falconer: What We Wish We Had Learned in School?

The excitement of learning, the compelling personal drive to take one more step on the path towards wisdom, comes when we try to solve a problem we want to solve, when we want to solve, when we see a challenge and say yes, I can meet it.  (Lichtman, 20 pag.)

If we are the authors of the history of our age, are we writing the story that we want told?

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¹(See Bo’s CHANGEd: What if we expected and empowered students to co-design curriculum? 60-60-60 #13 and Megan’s CHANGEd: Experts and Educators.)

²(See Empowering and Guiding Students to Take Charge of Assessment – Synergy 8 Example)

³(See Grant’s Listen to students.)

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Lichtman, Grant, and Sunzi. The Falconer: What We Wish We Had Learned in School. New York: IUniverse, 2008. Print.