Peer learning

One of the most visible approaches to peer learning comes out of cognitive psychology, and is applied within a "mainstream" educational framework: "Peer learning is an educational practice in which students interact with other students to attain educational goals." Other authors including David Boud describe peer learning as a way of moving beyond independent to interdependent or mutual learning among peers. In this context, it can be compared to the practices that go by the name cooperative learning. However, other contemporary views on peer learning relax the constraints, and position "peer-to-peer learning" as a mode of "learning for everyone, by everyone, about almost anything." Whether it takes place in a formal or informal learning context, in small groups or online, peer learning manifests aspects of self-organization that are mostly absent from pedagogical models of teaching and learning. In his 1916 book, Democracy and Education, John Dewey wrote, “Education is not an affair of 'telling' and being told, but an active and constructive process.” In a later essay, entitled "Experience and Education", Dewey went into greater detail about the science of child development and developed the basic Constructivist theory that knowledge is created through experience, rather than passed down from teacher to student through rote memorization. Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who developed the concept of the Zone of Proximal Development, was another proponent of constructivist learning: his book, Thought and Language, provides evidence that students learn better through collaborative, meaningful problem-solving activities than through solo exercises. The three distinguishing features of constructivist theory are claims that: Learning occurs within a context that is itself part of what is learned Knowing and doing cannot be separated Learning is a process that is extended over time These are clearly meaningful propositions in a social context with sustained relationships, where people work on projects or tasks that are collaborative or otherwise shared.