©2001–2008 Global Learning Resources, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Please enter a search term to begin your search.
We all know how to learn - it's built into our genetic makeup- but we struggle to articulate and explain how we do it. Piaget developed his constructionist theory of learning by watching and studying how children learn. In his theory, children acquire information and then, by testing it with experience, add to it. If for any reason the higher level of learning cannot be used, they revert to lower levels. I believe this is the way we all learn at every stage of maturity. It is by a mixing observation, experience, facts, procedures and other knowledge that we move up a learning hierarchy.
Our traditional school and corporate training systems primarily impart facts, information and procedures in an attempt to build these higher levels of learning. This is an incomplete model for fostering learning, yet it has become our framework for thinking about it. Learning is always personal and can only be learner-centered by that definition. To think we can impart learning to others is mistaken. We can only create learning environments and frameworks. We can motivate, guide and excite.
Our current teacher-centered, teacherer-knows-all framework is hard to challenge because it is familiar and because we are all products of what it delivers. But it prevents change and inhibits new architectures. It limits creativity by confining behavior to established norms.
I believe we need to deliberately create frameworks where experimentation, non-verbal communication systems, social networks, learn-by-doing, and other tools and concepts enhance our learning.
This is happening in some places. The Idea Lab and other innovation centers practice much of what I am talking about. The corporate university has an opportunity to resist the "develop-a- curriculum" challenge, break the habits and frameworks of traditional learning, and create a more complete and complex learning architecture.
By creating learning environments that encourage dialogue and that motivatedated people together to solve problems, overcome challenges, or develop new approaches they could actually become important to the business success of the organization.
These environments seem to need several components and are based on two assumptions:
The assumptions:
-People learn best through interaction with others and when focused on doing something meaningful to themselves.
-People adapt behavior (learn) as needs arise and only rarely learn much prior to a need arising.
The components:
1. Robust links to technology of all kinds: e.g., the Internet,
networking software, collaborative tools, email and anything else that
brings people together no matter where they are.
2. A facilitator
(not a teacher) who provokes and stimulates individuals to reach out
and explore by using technology and by engaging others in the process.
Any individual can be this facilitator.
3. A loose
process/structure/framework that can be modifed and ammended as the
need arises. This structure serves as the simplest level of glue to
hold people to a common theme and keep them focused until they
consciously decide not work on the issue anymore.