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=Welcome to S-O-C-I-A-L, which is the acronym for= = __S__ELF-__O__RGANIZED __C__OLLABORATION FOR __I__NTERACTIVE __A__DVANCED __L__EARNING !=

Rasmus Kamper and I have decided to launch an experiment (more impressive to call it an action research project) - I with my IB Business and Management grade 11 class (May 2012), he with his Mathematics HL class of the same year.

I thought of the SOCIAL acronym, because the intent of the experiment is to explore the possibility of fostering the SOCIAL disposition (of Self-Organized Collaboration for Interactive Advanced Learning) in an otherwise conventional school environment.

The idea came to me during one of my many conversations with Rasmus about teaching and learning. One of our recurring discussions is about the extent to which student learning can be autonomous and student-directed, and the role of the teacher in fostering such learning. I thought: //why not try and get my Business and Management students to run the course as if they were in an organization// (whether business or non-profit is not really germane at this point).

After all, all members of any organization have to be capable of the following:

1. Achieve a set of commonly agreed, time-bound strategic goals, themselves derived from a common mission or purpose 2. By organizing their effort and activities 3. Using limited resources 4. Within a set of systemic constraints imposed by the context and the environment through laws, rules and procedures.



Similarly, my students would need to //organize themselves// to develop their interest in the management of business and non-business organizations, succeed as well as they wish to in the May 2012 exams (as well as in the school's internal assessments), using the limited resources they have at their disposal (including time, and any help or guidance they wish from me, except that I will only provide that help if I am convinced they need it), and within the systemic and legal constraints affecting all courses offered by the school (such as those that relate to assessments and grades and other academic requirements).

Rasmus was immediately very encouraging, and later returned to tell me that he would be willing to run a parallel experiment with his mathematics students as well. Our preliminary discussions spread over a few days in January 2011, and covered a good deal of ground: how we could structure our own interactions with students, and how we could encourage the "self-organized collaboration for interactive learning". Before the semester vacation, we had managed to gain the informal approval of our High School Principal, Koray Özsaraç, for the idea, as well as discuss the idea informally with our students.

Rasmus organized a discussion with his Mathematics students, and handed them an [|agenda] for discussion. The discussion was also video-recorded, and will be up on this wiki as soon as it has been edited into a format that can be displayed here.