Assessment of Learning LO16588

Mnr AM de Lange (amdelange@gold.up.ac.za)
Fri, 16 Jan 1998 20:13:41 GMT+2

Replying to LO16546 --

Dear organlearners,

Rick <rkarash@karash.com> writes

> The aim of the conference is "exploring and framing a research program
> into assessment of organizational learning... Broadly speaking the project
> grew out of the recognized need to better understand and document the
> linkages between organizational learning and business results. ...

...snip...

and asks

> What do we mean when we talk about assessment of learning?

Rick, just a short note to complement you from the strength of
irreversible thermodynamics which concerns phisical dissipative systems.

All measurements are irreversible (dissipative, entropy producing).

A measuring instrument outside the system will always have an irreversible
effect (perturbation) in the system. Thus we try to keeep such effects
small so as at least not to cause immergences (see non-destructive
measuring). We even try to make such effects as small as possible so as to
cause as little changes as possible. This is so because all changes are
the result of irreversibility - entropy production.

We can, on the other hand, have the measuring instrument inside the
system. Then we merely observe how the instrument dissipates to the
outside world (send out signals in the form of light, sound, etc.)

This distintion gives us a way to see the main difference between
philosophy (systematisation of knowledge) and system thinking.
Philsophers observed measuring instruments within the system. They did a
very good job. But that job is linited.

System thinkers observed measuring instruments outside the system - a
lesson which they learnt from the physicists and chemists. By having the
measuring system outside the system, a feedback loop is set up between the
system and the instrument. Instruments are designed to have a very high
negative feedback so as to disturb the system as little as possible.

The great sucesses of physics and chemistry were due to these very high
negative feedback loops. Since it never occured to them to experiment with
very high positive feedback loops, the never got further than the
dissipative aspect of entropy production into its constructive aspect.

Were the philosphers to become aware to feedback loops early in the days
of philosophy, our knowledge today would have been different.

Now to get back to Learning Individuals (LI) and Learning Organisations
(LO) and the assessment of learning in them.

If we merely observe how a learning in a KI or LO happens without making
use of a feedback loop, then we have to look carefully for signs coming
from them. This causes a lot of work for us, but it allows the LI or LO to
learn spontaneously, i.e it does not disturb the system.

The following is a sign that an organistion is beginning to function
as a LO:
A person belonging to the organisation exclaims spontaneously that
he/she is very happy to be a member of the organisation because
he/she find it increasingly possible to create the results which
he/she desires.
But the moment when the observer ask a question, for example,
"how do you find your work in the organistion", the very question is
a measuring instrument from the outside. Thus it sets up a feedback
loop.

If we make use of external measuring instruments, then we introduce a
feedback loop. Thus we destroy the spontaneous development of the system.
A questionaire is a typical example.

Best wishes

-- 

At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za

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