My new article just came out in eLearn. It started out wanting to be about “emergent learning” but, once I realized that I still have no idea what emergent learning actually is, I removed all references to it in the article. At any rate, I feel pretty good about the piece.
The question will arise whether the arguments I make contradict optimistic pieces like this Cialdini article in HBS Working Knowledge that has been making the rounds on elearning blogs lately.
Nope. Not at all.
You can believe that properly functioning groups can arrive at better judgments than their smartest individual participants and still believe that problems such as informational cascades can derail performance. That’s why studying these problems is so important; we can learn the weaknesses of group processes and shore them up to produce more reliably positive results. Ain’t science grand?
Please feel free to use the comments section on this post to add your thoughts and feedback regarding the article.