Student Learning - Learning Organizations

Parallels Between Paradigms

 Will Barratt, Ph.D.

Department of Counseling
Indiana State University
Terre Haute, IN 47809

ACPA '98

 Gateway to Learning: Promoting Student Success

Monday, March 16
9:30 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.
Adams Mark, Room 24

Learning and Action

Do you apply all that you know every day in your work?

Attitude and behavior are only tentatively connected.

Is what you believe and what you always in harmony?

The correspondence between knowledge and action, between attitude and behavior, are the essential characteristics of student learning and learning organizations.

Who or what learns?

Formal organizations are abstract fictions co-evolved by people with some common purpose. Organizations are not real, but are useful ideas in describing the way that people organize.

People learning, and acting on that learning, affects organizational structures and processes.

Interpersonal processes in organizations, and organizational structures are dynamic, adapting to changing conditions. When the people change, the organization changes.

If and only if structure and process change do you get organizational change. The learning organization is a changing organization. The learning student is a changing student.

Learning is the act or process of acquiring knowledge or skill, the modification of behavior through practice, training or experience.

The Random House Dictionary of the English Language

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Learning is the act or experience of one that learns, knowledge or skill acquired by instruction or study, modification of a behavioral tendency by experience (as exposure to conditioning)

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hallmarks of a college educated person include:

• (a) complex cognitive skills such as reflection and critical thinking;
• (b) an ability to apply knowledge to practical problems encountered in one's vocation, family, or other areas of life;
• (c) an understanding and appreciation of human differences;
• (d) practical competence skills (e.g., decision making, conflict resolution); and
• (e) a coherent integrated sense of identify, self-esteem, confidence, integrity, aesthetic sensibilities, and civic responsibility.

The concepts of "learning," "personal development," and "student development" are inextricably intertwined and inseparable.

Student Learning Imperative - ACPA

Senge, P.M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of learning organizations. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Learning organizations are guided by a shared vision that focuses the energies of organizational members on creating superior value for customers. These organizations continuously acquire, process, and disseminate throughout the organization knowledge about markets, products, technology, and business processes. They do not hesitate to question long held assumptions and beliefs regarding their business. Their knowledge is based on experience, experimentation, and information from customers, suppliers, competitors, and other sources. Through complex communication, coordination, and conflict resolution processes, these organizations reach a shared interpretation of the information, which enables them to act swiftly and decisively to exploit opportunities and defuse problems. Learning organizations are exceptional in their ability to anticipate and act on opportunities in turbulent and fragmenting markets.

Slater, S.F. & Narver, J.C. (1995). Market orientation and the learning organization. Journal of Marketing, 59, 63-74.

These companies place emphasis on generative learning, called 'double-loop learning' by Chris Argyris. Generative learning emphasizes continuous experimentation and feedback in an ongoing examination of the very way organizations go about defining problems. . . By contrast, adaptive or single-loop learning focuses on solving problems in the present without examining the appropriateness of current learning behaviors.

A learning organization has a culture and value set that promotes learning. A learning culture is characterized by its clear and consistent (1) openness to experience; (2) encouragement of responsible risk taking; and (3) willingness to acknowledge failures and learn from them.. (p. 76)

McGill, M.E. & Slocum, J.W. (1993). Unlearning the organization. Organizational Dynamics, 22(2), 67-79.

"A learning organization is an organization that institutes OLMs and operates them regularly. . . . OLMs' are organizational learning mechanisms, which are defined as institutionalized structural and procedural arrangements that allow organizations to systematically collect, analyze, store, disseminate, and use information that is relevant to the effectiveness of the organization.

Lipshitz, R., Popper, M. & Oz, S. (1996). Building learning organizations: The design and implementation of organizational learning mechanisms. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 32(3), 292-305.

Three frames, paradigms or images of learning organizations:

Normative - Learning organizations must be like this . . .

Developmental - Learning organizations are the acme of organizational development.

Capacity Building - By enhancing the learning already inherent in the system, organizations enhance their capacity as learning organizations.

Scientific Learning
Logical positivism, modern epistemology, emphasis on observable and repeatable data.
Exemplified by Reflective Judgement (King and Kitchener).

Learning Organizations:

Quantitative and qualitative research and evaluation, exemplified in Student

Affairs Research Office reports, student evaluations of teaching and student affairs programs, market analysis and demographic studies.

Intentional Learning
Structured Inquiry, Method Based Inquiry
Exemplified by pedagogy models.

Learning Organizations:

TQM, CQI, QE, and Quality Circle programs, Institutional Research Offices, staff development programs.

Skill Learning

Customer interactions, work process re-engineering,

Post-Modern Learning
Politics and The Personal as interpreters of experience.

Learning Organizations:

Organizationally influential leaders use politically mediated interpretations of events to make meaning of experiences and to learn about the organization.

Belief Learning
Rumor, Gossip, Unstructured Inquiry
Best exemplified by Religion and Values and Gossip

Learning Organizations:

Reliance on social interaction for learning. Meeting with pre-selected student leaders

Vicarious Learning
Learning from others’ experiences rather than from direct experience.
Best exemplified by Bandura’s Social Learning Theory

Learning Organizations:

Bench marking, best practices models, observing the competition.

Organization Process and
Structure Examples

Probabilistic Thinking

(King and Kitchener)

Post Conventional Reasoning (Kohlberg)

Participatory Management Group Collaboration

Lead Management (Glasser)

Goal based management

Principled management

Laisez Faire management

Delegation

Mixed models of directing and delegating.

Rule and social system based management.

Dualistic Thinking (Perry, King and Kitchener)

Pre Conventional Reasoning (Kohlberg)

Directive 'telling' management Directed learning

Limited individual autonomy

Authority based learning

Boss Management (Glasser)

Operations Manual based management

Rule based management

People

Org. Structures

Things

Outside
Influences

P x OS

OS x OS

P x T

OS x T

T x T

P x OI

OS x OI

T x OI

OI x OI

Extroversion

Intuition

Feeling

Judging

NF - Student Affairs Type

SEA - Student Affairs Type

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Autonomy

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Heterarchy

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Distributed

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Passive

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Powerful

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Inward Looking

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Grounded

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Feeling

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Non-Judgmental

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Things

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Ideas

1

2

3

4

5

5

6

Social

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Enterprising

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Artistic

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Closed

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Opinion

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Tradition Driven