My team (of graduate students) are working on a project for a business incubator that provides seminars, round table discussion and other educational programming. We are interested in best practices for forming, nuturing and sustaining learning communities.
I would suggest using problem based learning. PBL not only lends itself to group work, but can be used by individuals in an online or face to face setting.
Your students could establish a community of practice. (Communities of practice are groups of like-minded, interacting people who filter, amplify, invest and provide, convene, build, and learn and facilitate to ensure more effective creation and sharing of knowledge in their domain.) Article Building Communities of Practice
andPresentation Communities of Practice: Passing the Fitness Test
may be of interest.
Read Stephen Brookfield's 'Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher'. There are some excellent tools to promote learning in communities of practice described in the book that I think would work in many possible settings, not just educational.
I still like what Malcolm Knowles writes about adult education modified somewhat by P. Cross. The emphasis is on education being self-directed by the adults encouraging them to identify their educational needs, describe how that want to learn and evaluate when they have met their educational need. Cross and others have pointed out that sometimes adults don't know what's available to meet their educational need. The instructor and designer then encourage the adults to investigate what is known and/or provide information about options for meeting this need. The instructor becomes more of a mentor than an expert passing on information.
One of the best techniques that encourage adults to participate in programs is the use of a needs assessment. This assessment serves as providing information as to the needs of the adults but also as an advertisement of programs. I have not found focus groups to be helpful but surveys from places like Survey Monkey work well.
I like to keep in mind descriptions found in the Johari window. It is a description of how members of groups share information about themselves and others. Quadrant 2 describes what is known to others but not known to self. Most people, for example, do not realize how often they use words or utterances like, um, like, totally, literally etc or make certain expressions until they see themselves in a video. For providers of adult education this is significant. Managers can request programs that they observe is needed by their employees. If the employees do not recognize this is a learning deficit, they will not attend the program.
Good luck with your endeavor.
I Agree with Prof Gregg and Prof Olivier. Simulation Exercises might also help. This is what we do for Accounting Under-graduate projects sometimes.
We are working on a blended learning approach and so, for us, online connections forms the frame within which we challenge students. Complex PBL matters are raised to which students respond interactively ...
There's a balance between the "now" what's happening currently - which often lends itself to PBL, discourse, simulation
AND
Preparing students for the unknown - I utilize a variety of nursing theories and the Cynefin Framework to look at root cause analysis and application of meta-cognition skills to assist students to anticipate and respond in an efficient and effective approach
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