Collective Learning

Description

Collective learning is a social, distributed, iterative, and co-creative process, that cannot be enacted through a one-directional transfer of “expert” knowledge. Social learning theories show that collective learning requires the recognition of a joint purpose, building relationships through mutual engagement, and developing a shared vocabulary. Climate topics are especially complex and require diverse ways of learning: data-driven, story-driven, peer-based, practical, embodied, sensory, emotional, and dialogical. However, some of these forms of knowledge, such as embodied and relational, may not align with conventional academic or expert-driven learning.

To enable collective learning, CCAs need to create plural environments that allow for quiet reflection, hands-on experience, story sharing, technical explanation, deliberation, visual tools for knowledge representation and communication, and small group exploration. Space-making requires flexible design and facilitation, attention to accessibility, and methods that value all forms of knowledge. Knowledge generosity means providing open access to materials, making concepts understandable without paternalism, encouraging participants to learn from each other, recognising lived experience as legitimate expertise, and avoiding hoarding information or displaying expert superiority.

How-To & Examples

Create Communities of Practice (Playbook) How to Create and Manage a community of Practice

Co-create the assembly’s learning goals with participants to ensure a shared purpose. Foster mutual engagement through regular, respectful dialogue, and build a “shared repertoire” by developing common tools, routines, and narratives together.

Present evidence in multiple formats - texts, interactive videos, physical artifacts, and storytelling - to accommodate different learning styles. Information Booklet of the Global Assembly, Klimarat Documentation

Host an online platform that acts as a “knowledge commons”, where the public can follow the same learning journey as the assembly members.

Facilitating Collective Learning through Relational Pedagogy. Empirical evidence from a Citizens’ Climate Assembly (CCA) in the UK suggests that a “pedagogical pyramid” can support collective learning by emphasizing relational pedagogy, which goes beyond knowledge transfer to strengthen participants’ capacity, confidence, and contribution as democratically active citizens

Initiate networking activities amongst CCAs become part of KNOCA and learn from each other. The Consiglio dei cittadini per il Clima in South Tyrol invited speakers from Klimarat Austria, and Milano Cambia Area to share wisdom and lessons learned.

Literature & Sources

Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford University Press.

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge University Press.

Prosser, B., Flinders, M., Jennings, W., Renwick, A., Spada, P., Stoker, G., & Ghose, K. (2018). Pedagogy and deliberative democracy: Insights from recent experiments in the United Kingdom. Contemporary Politics, 24(2), 210-232. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/DELIBERATIVE-DEMOCRACY-%3A-INSIGHTS-FROM-RECENT-IN-Prosser-Flinders/cf3e12d99507a56e723c1397d1983c76b48763cf

Wenger, E. (1999). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press.

Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization, 7(2), 225-246.