Engaged un/learning models - a collection to extend from

An array of models about engaged learning and unlearning - there are more you might like to research

Action learning

A favorite source of inspiration for us, action learning was first codified by Reg Revans from England.

Action learning involves people from different fields of engagement (projects, workplaces ...) coming together (as an action learning set) to talk through the issues they are experiencing with a view to supporting each other to think well and more widely about their own situations.

The participants extend each others thinking through asking questions that promote insightful responses. Meanwhile participants would be seeking patterns that possibly inform actors across all fields (which is, essentially, a systems view).

A core idea is that it is not possible to fully 'know' complex situations and, therefore, prescribed solutions are of limited value. What counts is the flexible (collective) intelligence of the actors working to develop successful strategies in their contexts.

Of particular interest (and representing a particular style of describing theory/models) is the Revans/Marquart formula: -

Learning = Programming (content) + Questions (of various sorts) + Reflection

Wikipedia has a good overview of action learning here.

Gaia U roots in action learning

IMC Association, which is the organization that accredits Gaia University, is founded in action learning and was strongly supported by Reg Revans during his active life.

IMC Association is focused on developing managers in the business world; in the process of Gaia University making a relationship with IMC Association we found it useful to describe ourselves (all of us in the ecosocial world-change community) as 'managers' (people taking leadership) in the grand ecosocial 'corporation' (thousands of projects in a potential network).

This 'systems view' metaphor/pattern has been a great aid towards mutual understanding across the two organizations

Other action based approaches

Since the 1960's there has been an explosion of interest in action based approaches. Some of these have sought to 'academify' action learning (sometimes thought of as too hands-on, a little too vocational, possibly rather working-class, perhaps somewhat lacking in intellectual rigor by some scholars), some have been concerned to deconstruct the myth of the 'objective outsider' and some have introduced novel features and extended thinking.

This has not been an organized, orderly process and has all the characteristics of emergent system in which there are a dozen, overlapping schools of thought developing without necessarily referencing each other.

This may be familiar to you as it is very similar to the situation regarding the ecosocial movements we are part of ...

Thus it is a little overwhelming to get to grips with the whole field and yet there is a wealth of informative thinking and practice contained there-in.

Here are some of the principle branches that you may like to explore.

Action Research - which may have a tendency to re-invent the myth of the objective outsider and also may reinforce memes such as positivist science
Participatory Action Research - an explicitly Latin development (Paulo Freire and Orlando Fals Borda) that emphasizes critical pedagogy and emancipation issues
Praxis Intervention - that looks for ways in which the researcher can bring support resources to the grass-roots participants in order that they can develop better self-help approaches
Action Inquiry - (has a big emphasis on the development of leadership and, a very helpful perspective on the issue of timing as a significant dimension of interventions in systems)

Reg Revans (of action learning) warned against the over "theorization" that could occur once the Academy got its hands on action learning and, maybe, after you have looked at some of the derivatives linked above, you might think he was right?

Let us know ...

Experiential Learning

Now we progress to the detail. How can we conceptualize the different aspects of learning from experience? These range from hands-on doing, debriefing successes and disasters, looking for clues as to how to do things better next time and trying out approaches in less than full risk situations ...

Kolb's model

David Kolb is very well known for his 1980's analysis of the qualitatively different activities and approaches required of well-rounded experiential learners.

His descriptions of learning styles allows us to do some powerful reflection on our own skill flexes as self-foraging action learners.

However the idea that you and I might have a somehow pre-determined learning style is losing favor*** - it may well be better to imagine that each of us has an infinite capacity to develop skills in all approaches.

In the graphic below you will see the learning style approach writ large - the boxes containing 'Accommodator', 'Diverger' and so on are meant to suggest that we can think of types of learners whereas, in Gaia U we think of types or modes of learning instead.

'Accomomodator and Diverger are Kolb's original terms. Honey and Mumford* later converted these to 'Activist, Reflector' and so on in an attempt to make the meaning more clear and to differentiate their work from Kolb's.

Kolb's model is widely quoted, modified, embellished and critiqued.

Read this summary here***.

And try this critique here**.

You will notice that this chapter makes good use of the infed*** (informal education) website at http://www.infed.org. It is highly recommended for self-foraging purposes.

Using the Kolb model - CE & RO

Andrew writes; - The Kolb model is one of my favorites - it was such a delight for me to find that someone had thought through and modelled the process of experiential learning is such a way as to give it substance and enough hooks (metaphor coming up ...) that I could apply my rope and pulley system to and thus be able to heave it about and make it work for me.

It is through the manipulation of models like this that I get to understand them and appreciate their value ...

Here are some of the hooks I like to pull on and some short descriptions of the sense I derive from them: -

Hook - Concrete Experience (CE)

The doing part of learning from experience in which we dance with the paradox of being fully engaged in the doing and yet keep some of our attention available for noticing how things are going, ready to call time-out if pauses and adjustments are called for.

Questions I ask when doing are: -

• Am I able to fully engage? (sometimes my attention is being pulled elsewhere ...)

• Are my senses, including spatial awareness, working well? (this is a long-term question and, in my case, I have worked to overcome a severe case of tunnel-vision that interfered with my capacity to see the 'whole' field)

• Am I making things go better for everybody (including myself) in some ways?

• How is my stamina, hunger, strength and self-care? - I need to avoid exhausting myself these days as the quality of my thinking/doing deteriorates fast when I am tired

• How am I feeling and how do others seem to be feeling? - best to check-in and find out ...

• Is my neck free? (I am an Alexander Technique fan and this is always a critical question AT folk ask when engaged in doing)

What questions come up for you when reflecting on doing?!

Hook - Reflective Observation (RO)

This is the time to gather together the information sensed during the doing and also a time for a critical (celebratory) look at the overall outcomes in relation to the goals and visions ready to pick up any tensions that can be resolved in the next go-round.

Reflection questions I ask are: -

• What went well? (and how could I make sure that we get more of this next time?)

• What was challenging and why? (and how could I see to it that we get less of this next time?)

• What would I do differently next time? (a way of engaging gently in self-critique that yields concrete next steps)

• What got re-stimulated/triggered for me? (important to notice these, not act on them at the time and then take them to my Re-evaluation Counseling sessions to defuse them)

• Were there any critical incidents? (moments when the whole energy of the 'doing' changed for better or worse) and why?

• Is my neck free? (more evidence of "freak status" ... but always an important question for me to ask)

What questions come up for you when thinking about reflecting?!

Using the Kolb model - AC & AE

Hook - Abstract Conceptualization (AC)

This 'hook' has been the most difficult for me to get a grip on - abstract conceptualization, what on earth is that!

But I think I understand it enough for it to be useful these days ... It has to do with being able to handle models, theories, data, make sense of research and find metaphors to make abstract ideas concrete enough to be useful.

It includes a capacity to know my own worldview and biases and to be able to identify the worldview and biases of people whose work I want to explore (I have a strong sense these days that everybody has a valuable part of the picture that I want to incorporate whilst, at the same time, they are just as likely as me to show distress in some of their thinking and I need to be able to spot the distress AND find the valid insights ...)

Questions I ask when abstractly conceptualizing are: -

• What theories, models, metaphors, research and data can I find and draw on to help me widen the conceptual framework for making sense and meaning of my experiences

• Is my worldview coherent, flexible and capable of absorbing new thinking?

• How are my perspectives contaminated by my distress patterns?

• What are the likely distress patterns of my sources and what can I trust from them and what do I need to discard?

• Does anybody else think like me?

• Is my neck free ...?

What questions come up for you when you are experimenting with the idea of thinking?

Hook - Active Experimentation (AE)

Active experimentation has become a strong theme for me these days as I am often working with tools and ideas that are new to me and I am not at all sure how they will play out unless I try them, rapid prototype style, as a whole system, however roughly the system is assembled.

It is a phase that I have commonly left out of my approach in the past preferring instead to over-think things through when a quick test would have relieved me of the need to endlessly speculate ...

Questions about active experimentation include: -

• How many ways can I test out the quality of my thinking before committing to full scale roll out?

• Can I rapid-prototype any of the elements and/or the whole system and get feedback now before trying to 'do' the job?

• Just how does this work?

• Is my neck free ? (oh, not again!)

What questions come up for you when you are doing active experimentation?

Using the Kolb model - Kites & Profiles

More uses for the Kolb model

A quadrant model like this is just asking to be used as a diagnostic tool. If we inscribe each of the 'arms' with a scale from zero to 10 we can reflect on and evaluate our own experiential learning skills and come up with a 'kite' shape as in the two examples below. The 'kite' or profile will tell us a thing or two and suggest to us where we might like to develop better capacities.

2 Profiles

Above - A person with this profile is probably very good at doing things and tweaking the designs of jobs & artifacts but is maybe limited (by distress) in their capacity to see the bigger picture and to shift their thinking flexibly to accommodate new ideas.

Above - A person with this profile is likely a practiced thinker with good knowledge of the field although their thinking may have little grounding in either tests or real-life situations. Their distresses may have them resist applications of their thinking to ‘messy’ live situations as these could disturb the elegance of their theories.

What does your profile look like?

Engaged Pedagogy, Critical Praxis and seeing off the Patrix

Warning! - experiential learning, as described by Kolb and others, is just as much at home in the service of neo-liberalism and globalization as it is in the service of ecosocial progressives. It could be described as politically neutral and easy to co-opt.

To sharpen things up we need to look at ways of learning and unlearning that have world change, according to the permaculture ethics, on the agenda.

Margaret Ledwith has written a strong piece around this theme. Ledwith, Margaret (2007) 'Reclaiming the radical agenda: a critical approach to community development', Concept Vol.17, No.2, 2007, pp8-12. Reproduced in the encyclopaedia of informal education.

Here we move into the crucial fields of critical pedagogy, engaged pedagogy (bell hooks), praxis (Paulo Friere and others).

We are not making much of these fields (critical/engaged pedagogy) here although we consider them essential if we are to emerge new human cultures that are not merely rearrangements of old oppressions - this is because using intellectual tools only (thinking, discussing, reading, theorizing, researching) to work on eliminating oppressions is often not enough.

Liberation from oppression (both as a receiver and as a giver) is a life-long process that involves a sustained effort in coming to recognize and eliminate our own hidden oppressor patterns, our (also hidden) patterns of internalized oppression (through which we act as victims) and the similar patterns of others. Doing this by only intellectual means is slow, ineffective and often incomplete leaving open the possibility of re-infection ...

It is common, for example, for progressive left thinkers to be intellectually clear about the need to liberate people from the effects of the class system but not notice either that racism, gender oppression, anti-semitism, homophobia and many more oppressive memes intersect with class oppression and also need attention or that their own thinking may be subject to distortion through the operation of their own hidden patterns.

It is also common for a group of people to identify themselves as 'the oppressed' and other people as 'the oppressors', an analysis that is incomplete and often raises strong feelings of hostility towards 'oppressors' (when, according to the theory of intersectionality, the theory of the matrix of domination (the "Patrix" as we call it in Gaia U speak) and according to the thinking in Re-evaluation Counseling, we are all programed to receive AND deliver oppression).

Clearing the Patrix from our lives, the lives of others and from the designs we have on human cultures is priority work and it requires a sharp, flexible and focused tool-set that comes with the support of committed allies, themselves working on their own liberation. Thinking about and espousing liberation is not enough. It needs to be embedded in our lives as 'theory in action ..."

We are active in creating a Re-evaluation Counseling Community in Gaia University explicitly for the purpose of Clearing the Patrix - you are welcome to join in - watch for the announcements.

Double loops and forked tongues

Now is the time to think about learning and unlearning that goes deep, that results in changes to the way we think and the value systems we use. These deep episodes of transition may arrive unexpectedly (or perhaps we find it hard to read the signs) and/or may be consciously invoked.

Very often they are preceded by a period of what is sometimes called 'cognitive dissonance' that arises from a dawning realization that our current ways of thinking can no longer meet the existential demands of now and thus we need to let go of familiar constructs and risk all to find new ones.

Strong feelings are likely - support systems required!

Argyris and Schon have written effectively about this using the ideas of espoused theory (meaning the way we think we think about life, the world and everything) and theory in action (the way we act which may reveal a different theory than our espoused theory that is likely invisible to us). Their proposal is that we could use double loop learning to bring fresh congruence into our lives so that espoused theory and theory in action match up. Read more here.

Imagine a world in which everybody is skilled in and willing to engage in double loop learning/unlearning!

Transformative Learning

Transformative Learning is a field recently developed by progressive academics and is somewhat similar to the concept of unlearning that we use in Gaia University.

"Transformative learning is the process by which we call into question our taken for granted frames of reference (habits of mind or mindsets) to make them more inclusive, discriminating, open, and reflective so that they may generate beliefs and opinions that will prove more true or justified to guide action. Transformative learning often involves deep, powerful emotions or beliefs and is evidenced in action."

Patricia Cranton writes: "There are now several perspectives on the process of transformative learning, each of which may be relevant in different contexts.

Critical reflection is one means by which we work through beliefs and assumptions. It helps to talk to others, not only exchanging opinions and ideas or receiving support and encouragement, but also engaging in discussions where alternatives are seriously considered.

Connected and relational learning emphasizes connected knowing rather than separate knowing and relationships among learners.

Social change or social action is described as a goal of transformative learning by some theorists. The theory has been applied to understanding how groups and organizations change, and it can be seen as an approach to world views on globalization and environmentalism.

The extrarational approach to transformative learning sees the learning as mediated by unconscious processes beyond the level of rational and conscious awareness. Insight, intuition, emotion, relationships, and personality may also play roles."

Site:	GEL
Course:	TALC 1: Learning & Unlearning
Book:	Engaged un/learning models - a collection to extend from
Printed by:	Patrick Gibbs
Date:	Friday, 12 July 2013, 1:42 PM