Grazing - a personal blog from Steve Ehrmann

Steve Ehrmann is an author, speaker, and consultant.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Education as Choir. As Distributed Choir?

As people do research together, write together, teach and learn together, the experience can be something like a choir of people singing, the whole more than the sum of the parts.
Do you agree?
If so, take a look at this TED Talk about two choirs of singers, each organized by composer and conductor Eric Whitacre:
http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_whitacre_a_virtual_choir_2_000_voices_strong.html

It's been a truism that, the smaller the class, the better.

So, what kinds of teaching, learning, research, and service in the arts, humanities and social sciences can be become better, more engaging, richer and more effective as the numbers of students and faculty grow? as the participants become more diverse? as they are drawn from across a larger geographic area?