Weekly post: Wednesday's discussion on CL

I don't hear the term collaborative learning often, and I've never read theories on its practice, successes, and failures. Our in-class discussion on Wednesday, complete with sticky notes and comparative analysis, was one of my favorite academic activities in the professional writing program and, come to think of it, all of college. If I hadn't been prepared with the readings, I obviously wouldn't have gotten as much out of it, but it felt spectacular writing down five distinct ideas relating to the readings, choosing a favorite from the board, and having a thorough, intellectual discourse over the merits or lack thereof of each author's text.

I'd like to raise a particular idea more or less shared by each author: fact and idea as a social artifact. I'm sure all of my ideas and beliefs were generated by the thoughts and beliefs of someone else, and I distinctly remember individuals who were catalysts to some of my most prominent ideals. I had a discussion once in 2004 with Ryan, a jazz drummer, who sculpted the edges and contours of my in-and-out agnosticism, my abstract commitment to the tenets of postmodernism, and my deep conceptualization of realism fitting within the denominations of Christianity. I would not feel how I do today, nor would I be the same person, without Ryan's challenging me to think and rethink, explore and re-examine, what I considered to be reality and thought. Through social interaction, conversation, and internal conversation, I deconstructed my convictions and gave way to new principles of fact and belief.

I'm convinced this happens to everyone, whether they acknowledge it or not.