Dear organlearners,
> Is anyone aware of any resource information, systems, or
> tools that will help us to identify our unknown learning
> needs?
>
> Is anyone aware of any resource information, systems, or
> tools that will help us to prioritize all identified
> learning needs?
Gary, you have articulated a very important matter.
Vana Prewitt replied in LO13961 with
> Gary: your questions fall into 2 very well researched areas (a) needs
> assessments and (b) learner profiles. There is an abundance of books,
> journal articles, and software out there that can help you with this. In
> short, you need to determine what the peformance goals are for individual
> tasks (how well are they expected to do what they do/ know what they know
> / in measurable terms) and assess the gap between existing skills /
> knowledge and the goals. This also means realiably measuring the existing
> skills/knowledge of your intended learners.
She has given you valuable advice. However, look also into Maslow's work
on psychology and creativity. His hierarchy of needs is quite famous, but
seldom understood.
Whenever we consider creativity to be the foundation of learning, whether
in an individual or in an organisation, the WHOLE spectrum of
needs/wants/wishes/desires becomes very important. I wonder if you were
not articulating to know more about the full spectrum when you wrote
"unknown learning needs"? Allow me to write the following:
You will not discover the higher end of the spectrum by making use of any
tools like the filling in of forms. You will have to make use of one or
more of the four creative learning templates: problem-solving,
exemplar-studying, games and dialogue. You will have to become a very
sharp observer to identify the higher end of the spectrum WHILE your
clients create freely in these templates.
As I will show in my forthcoming book, the WHOLE spectrum plays an
incredibly important role. We must think especially in terms of an
hierarchy of 'wishes', each level emerging for specific reason from the
previous level. The higher a level, the more it contributes to the
spontaneousness of learning!
It is very important to distinguish between spontaneous and nonspontaneous
learning. Spontaneous learning will happen on its own accord. Spontaneous
learning may thus be harnessed as a source for ordered changes. However,
nonspontaneous learning will only happen if forced by external work and
control. Furthermore, as soon as the external agent is removed, learning
stops and a process of degeneration (immergence, trivialisation) sets in.
There is a harmonious oscillation between chaos and order when learning
happens spontaneously. But when nonspontaneous learning is forced to
happen, there is a gradual build-up of chaos until something somewhere
gives in with destructive consequences. Learning emergences are common
when the learning happens spontaneously, but are almost nonexistent in
nonspontaneous learning. Learning immergences are seldom in spontaneous
learning, but very common in nonspontaneous learning. A typical example of
a learning emergence is an insight into a concept. A typical example of a
learning immergence is an indifference towards quality.
It is difficult to connect either energy or entropy to chaos, order,
complexity and spontaneity. But whenever we combine entropy and energy,
spontaneity and complexity are the first thing we have to think about, as
any textbook in physical chemsitry will tell us. The combination of the
quantities energy and entropy leads to the quantity free energy (potential
energy). What we observe in spontaneous self-organisation is a pulsation
of free energy - the throbbing heart of creativity. But what we observe
in nonspontaneous trans-organisation is the gradual burnout of the system
- the killing pain of a cancerous tumour.
To conclude, should we concentrate on the needs of the low orders and
neglect the desires of the higher orders, we will end up with a learning
system (individual or organisation) which has become nonspontaneous. It
becomes costly to force learning in such a system because external agents
have to be hired. It will also become dangerous to be part of such a
system because it will eventually explode/immerge.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>