Educators are familiar with collaborative learning—students working together on projects or assignments. Collective learning goes a step further. It describes how groups create, share, and preserve knowledge together, so that the wisdom of the group is more than the sum of its parts.
- Shared wisdom: The group’s knowledge isn’t held by one expert but is distributed across members.
- Cultural memory: Ideas and strategies can be carried forward by the group, even as individuals come and go.
- Action-oriented: Collective learning often results in joint problem-solving and collective action, not just individual achievement.
The term is used in fields as diverse as anthropology, organizational theory, and education, but the process is familiar to any teacher who has watched a classroom build understanding through discussion, storytelling, and lived experience.
At the Highlander Folk School, Myles Horton trusted this process: when people came together to share their struggles and ideas, they learned collectively how to challenge injustice and practice democracy. This was the model that the Foxfire Approach used as well; trusting the participants to own the problem and the solution. Collective learning is evident in too few classrooms today but when it is observed student engagement, interest and learning increase significantly.
Why is it used to infrequently? Fear of failure on the part of the teacher.
Progressive Teachers Network 
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