Also see: General CE Overview | Structure of CE Sessions | Additional Theoretical Foundations | Upcoming Events
Overview
Collaborative Explorations (CEs) are an extension of Project-Based Learning (PBL) and related approaches to education in which participants address a scenario or case in which the problems are not well defined, shaping your own directions of inquiry and developing your skills as investigators and prospective teachers (in the broadest sense of the word). This format was initiated through the graduate program in Critical and Creative Thinking at University of Massachusetts Boston.
The basic mode of a CE centers on interactions in small groups over a period of time. An online CE consists of live sessions for one hour over 4 weeks and written exchanges on a private discussion board between sessions. There is no assumption that participants will pursue the case beyond the limited duration of the CE. There is no cost to participate, but participants are asked to commit to attending at least 3 of the 4 online meetings (including the first one).
See the links above for more information on the week-by-week structure.
How it Works
The live sessions happen in Zoom or some other web video conferencing, open only to those who register. During the structured live sessions, there is a lot of listening to others, starting off with autobiographical stories that make it easier to trust and take risks with whoever has joined the particular CE. Other dialogue activities involve developing your thinking-in-progress and noticing how contrasts or connections emerge among the range of points made across participants. There will also be short writing activities to help you start to gather your thoughts, sometimes privately, sometimes shared. Participants are encouraged to focus on issues on which they don’t feel settled – where there are ambiguities or complexities that help bring forth where the important questions remain.
Between sessions, written exchanges happen on a private discussion board, where participants post and reply as often as they like to share ongoing inquiry, insight, and reflection on the topic according to their own interests. (Participants typically spend an hour or more each week pursuing their inquiry and engaging in discussion, although there is no minimum expectation for time spent here.) Over the course of the CE, your interests and directions may evolve as you both explore the issues on your own and find out what others are discovering and thinking about.
Why Participate in a CE?
Whatever thread of inquiry you pursue in any specific CE, your posts and contribution to live sessions should aim to stimulate and guide the learning of other participants and build towards the final tangible product described in the scenario (if applicable). The complementary, “experiential” goal is to be impressed at how much can be learned with a small commitment of time using the CE structure to motivate and connect participants. Moreover, the tools and processes used in CEs for inquiry, dialogue, reflection, and collaboration are designed to be readily learned by participants so they can translate them into their own settings to support the inquiries of others.
In contrast to MOOCs (massive open online courses), which seek to get masses of people registered knowing that a tiny fraction will complete it, a CE focuses on establishing effective learning in small online communities then potentially scaling up from there. CEs aim to address the needs of online learners who want to: dig deeper, make “thicker” connections with other learners; connect topics with their own interests; participate for shorter periods than a semester-long MOOC; learn without needing credits or badges given for MOOC completion. In short, online CEs aim to be “moderately open online collaborative learning.”
For the initiators of CEs at UMass Boston, the goal is support and build community beyond the formal programs of study and engage others outside of the programs in deep and meaningful self-directed learning inquiries.
Reflection from past participant after her first CE (December 2013): “I’ve changed. I’ve changed on all levels. On a political level. Work level. Personal level. Professional level. And it has been a positive change… I have an infrastructure in my brain, so I know what I am doing now when I am with people, when I work in groups.”
