LEARNING TO COLLABORATE AN EXAMPLE OF SITUATED LEARNING: A MEASUREMENT-BASED PILOT PROTOCOL
Lifelong learning is part of the ongoing development of an individual as it is recognized that learning does not finish at formal schooling. This proposal explores the introduction of a new measurement tool in the study of life long learning. It examines learning to collaborate during the formation of a team in a professional environment. Learning to collaborate has not been adequately studied previously and hence there is insufficient knowledge about how members of a team learn to collaborate. Here the task being performed is the design of a computer peripheral in an IT company. The team is videotaped while designing and while forming a coherent team through collaboration. The videotape is then transcribed and coded into segments which are then analysed. This new tool looks at the change in information content (in a technical sense) of the collaboration as exemplified by the linkages between the coded segments. There are two classes of information flow in a team: the information concerning the objects about which decisions are being taken and information concerning the developing relationship between members of the team as they learn. The project aims to provide an objective measure of the success of the learning.
Increasingly decisions are proposed and taken not by single individuals but by teams, whether in the form of a formal committee, an informal group or a defined team, which may be large or small. This applies equally whether the decisions relate to physical objects, such as in engineering design, or virtual objects, such as in information technology, or policy and strategy such as in an organization, the government or the military. The results of this project have the potential to allow an increase in the understanding of team performance in terms of how team members learn to collaborate. This has ramifications for future strategies in the selection and formation of teams and in the in-situ measurement of their performance. The tool being developed has the potential to be used in a variety of related situations, where information flow is the currency of the activity. The success of this project can lead to better strategic tools to increase team performance.
