Replying to LO28742 --
I've enjoyed this discussion lately. I've long been interested in the
question of just what is learning, and how does it occur.
While I was doing my research on natural workplaces, it was necessary for
me to define what I meant by learning. Like others have mentioned,
something bothered me with the more traditional conception of learning as
change (perhaps because so much change does not, in my mind, involve
learning).
Ultimately I was most satisfied with how Peter Jarvis (1992) described it,
where learning is the process of giving meaning to or making sense of
experience. Learning is the transformation of experience into knowledge,
skills, attitudes, etc, and contains both an individual and a social
component: what is learned within a given experience is the result of the
interaction between an individual and a social context of some sort.
As a constructivist, I also find it helpful to look at how people
construct meaning, (what is known and learned, a la Bruning, Schraw,
&Ronning). This constructivist, social view of learning is in contrast,
of course, with other traditions that view learning and knowing as being
somehow received from sources external to the person (received knowing,
where we simply take what we know from any external authority). While the
information can be (and so often is) gained externally, the process of
meaning-making, and thus of learning, is an internal construction.
Much of my own work and study background lies with adult development. I
also view the workplace itself as a curriculum. When it comes to
organizational learning, I see the most valued focus as being on creating
or cultivating an educative experience of work -- by that I mean any
process, setting, or experience that is associated with growth and the act
of growing *in a direction* that opens avenues for development in other
lines. Within an LO, as with adult learning and development (Dewey,
Jarvis, others), development is directional and shown in a physical,
intellectual, and moral continuity.
Unfortunately, what we too often end up with are miseducative experiences,
whose effect arrests, restricts, or distorts both the human and the
organizational growth. I see this in many workplace reforms, where
experiences may be vivid and interesting for people, yet also promote a
narrow or careless attitude that impacts the quality of later experiences.
It promotes nonlearning, characterized by such things as mechanical
action, received knowing, lack of thoughtfulness or critical thinking,
fearfulness, or the rejection of possibility.
Terri
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Terri A. Deems, PhD
WorkLife Design
"The Art of People at Work"
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