Collaborative Lesson Planning

In hopefully simple terms (I'll be adding more complex treatments later!), "paragogy" is a theory of peer-to-peer teaching and learning. It isn't "pedagogy" (which means leading or teaching the young), and it isn't "andragogy" (which is an adapted term that means, roughly speaking, teaching adults).

The reason it is different from those theories is that peers have to create the learning context together. We can't assume that the is a designated teacher or leader who is "responsible". Rather, any participant can take the initiative to help improve the learning situation.

Another secondary meaning of the term (if you're into Greek etymology) would be "beside leadership", or something like "taking aside" - in other words, it is different from "demagogy", the leading of people. To be more philosophical: paragogy is a theory of a specifically peer-to-peer "minority" discourse, in distinction to broadcast-based "majority" discourses.

Finally, "paragogy" (παραγωγή) is a Greek word that means "production" or "generation". The "theory" of paragogy aims to be a theory about peer-production, not just peer-to-peer learning.

More details are in the writeup on Wikipedia -- Charlie and I will update throughout the quarter. Feel free to ask further questions or make suggestions!

Maybe the theory of "paragogy" could itself be taken as a definition of "peer". Let's give this a try:

"Peer-learning" takes place in conditions where the learning context is open to examination, discussion, and change; where learners can individually or collectively study, critique, and adapt the learning process. Peer learners treat one another in an egalitarian fashion -- in particular, the learning pathway isn't dictated by anyone, but is discovered as the process progresses. In such a setting, learners are able to get what they came for (or figure out why that's impossible).

Another way to come at defining it is to say what it is not. It's not authoritarian - even if someone is an "authority" on a subject. So, for example, I think it's perfectly possible for a professor to be a "peer" of a beginning student, but this is *not* what happens in the typical arrangement of e.g. lectures and assignments. For peer learning to work for these two imagined characters, the professor would have to be learning *with* the student.

The idea of peer learning isn't meant as a "critique" of non-peer-based learning. There are plenty of times when it would be appropriate for a student to learn *from* a professor, or a child to learn *from* a parent, or one friend to learn *from* another friend. We indicated in the paper that it is perfectly acceptable to switch modes - including a didactic teaching mode within what is more broadly a peer-learning experience, or including a peer-learning experience within what is more broadly a "lesson" from an expert.

To sum up: a peer (in this context) is someone who does peer-based learning, a class of activities specified by the theory of paragogy.

For comparison: in "commons-based peer production", a peer is someone who contributes to the common resource (e.g. someone who edits Wikipedia, or even someone who submits a bug report related to a piece of open source software). The contribution may be small but it is the act of making the contribution that matters. Someone who merely reads Wikipedia without editing it isn't contributing to the production process. The main reason Wikipedia is said to be "peer produced" is that it is NOT produced by a firm, and it is NOT produced by buying and selling in a market. It is a loose form of "collaboration".

So, to put it simply, a peer learner is someone who learns in collaboration with others. The "definition" above is just meant to make that more precise. Hopefully this is more comprehensible than last time?

Thinking about my new and more detailed description of the idea -- it seems clear that in cases where one student does all the work, the students aren't "really" collaborating.

I think that in a case where a strong student and weak student are paired, you're more likely to find a case of "peer mentoring" than of "peer-learning". In peer learning, you'd tend to see students with *different* strengths coming together -- perhaps to solve a problem of mutual interest. Again, peer learning can include peer mentoring and vice versa -- but if the students are "polarized" as strong/weak, then they aren't really on "egalitarian" footing.

By now, I think I have explained who a peer is (or at least I've tried!), but if it's not yet clear I can't have explained it very well, so by all means let's try again -- this time, I think an analogy could help.

Imagine a fishery or a forest. If someone just comes along and harvests fish or wood, they aren't a "peer". If someone comes along with a *company* and asks the employees to harvest fish or wood, the employeers aren't peers. However, if the local citizens get together and come up with some rules and/or infrastructure for how to manage the fishery or the forest (limits on how much can be taken at a time, a layout of timber roads, a fee for using the boat dock, etc.), and they put together some way to enforce these rules -- then I would call these people "peers". Another word would be "commoners".

It would be much the same if instead of a "forestry association" we had a "learning association". Instead of extracting fish or wood, the people involved extract "knowledge". There don't need to be rules about "how much" knowledge can be extracted, but there may still be a need to co-create some rules or infrastructure (a place to meet, a syllabus, etc.). But also, critically, the peers *create* the key resource -- the "learning opportunities". They do this by asking and answering questions, suggesting readings, and so forth.

If all of the learning opportunities exist already in a pre-packaged form, there aren't "peers" but consumers (and producers).

As for evaluating or measuring learning, I see two ways to go about it. The first is to use some sort of outside measurement (in which case it doesn't really matter whether the person is learning from a peer or from a book or from an on-the-job experience, so long as they are learning). The other is some sort of "peer-based assessment" which requires peers to be evaluated by their peers. Clearly you're right that unless we know "who is a peer", that type of evaluation isn't going to be feasible.

But I think in any given case it is going to be fairly clear who the peers are: they are the people who co-create the common learning environment.