Learning in vivo

Workplace learning is learning-work

How is experiential learning structured for life in beta? In fast-paced realities the luxury of going into design-mode, to develop something, may not be feasible because the problem may have changed whilst not looking.

Simple work is outsourced and even complicated work automated. Holding onto best practices may result in falling behind. Emerging practices for continual changes requires knowledge-sharing. Complexity is often the order of the day, requiring problems-solving and continuous learning by probing. Learning is work.

The workplace learning part of educational programmes, I believe, should therefore be focussed on identification and solving of real-problems by applying knowledge gained from theoretical study and by making use of social-media to pool the expertise of others. Structured learning should entail the identification of a real complex problem in conjunction with a workplace mentor, not mundane recording of time spent in a logbook. Structured learning need not imply predetermined exposure and collection of a portfolio of evidence in this regard.

Learning in Social Media

Learning moves in the bytes and through threads of social media. Patti Anklam's taxonomy contains five types of social media (SM), which Harold Jarche equates to various forms of learning. Patti Anklam has been pondering about the way the term social media is used, not necessary meaning the same in different contexts. She observes that the use of social tools has forever shifted relationships to conversation as the centre of attention, which Harold Jarche argues is the essence of learning. He accentuates that it is necessary to stop thinking of learning as a separate issue or entity and gives the example that "when you learn with and from your customers" learning-marketing becomes one. He goes as far as to say eliminating the "L word is a start".

Media SM — Blogging software, for example, makes social computing fairly simple, coined mass amateurisation. With this post, for example, I share my learning with readers of learning in vivo.

Customer SM — is about building online communities — customer communities — sets of Internet tools and applications that are driven by the needs of organisations to control their brand; to be responsive to the needs of customers; pay attention to the marketplace; and the development of new products based on the ideas and feedback from customers.

Enterprise SM — is about the shift focus in the use of Web-based technologies from content to conversation; from publishing to interacting—technologies and practices are embedded in a web of relationships. The top five drivers of Enterprise 2.0 are the connectivity across teams and geographies; access to subject experts; increasing productivity; knowledge repository; and fostering innovation.

Personal SM — is the collection of technologies and practices in order to support the development of personal intellectual and social capital. I have, for example started this blog to capture my personal body of knowledge and share it with other, for what it is worth.

Crowd SM — encompasses "the ways that social media are used to promote causes, but also to respond to crises and natural disasters, to call up collective wisdom, or to stream events."

I recommend readers of this post to visit the hyperlinks and personally read the posts of Patti Anklam and Harold Jarche who much more eloquently elaborate on the taxonomy, learning and knowledge management.

Emergent practice for complex and novel practice for chaotic

Learning in real-life situation is shifting towards emergent and novel practice because best practices are restricted to simple situations. Harold Jarche advocates the nurturing of a linchpin culture—locking pin that goes through the end of an axle outside the wheel to keep the wheel from coming off; anything serving to hold together the parts of a whole; or something that holds the various elements of a complicated structure together.

An assortment of linchpins.

Harold Jarche points out that the industrial model is no longer of much use, because work is difficult, calling for innovation and is becoming increasingly one of a kind and creative. He sketches the Cynefin-model framework as follow:

Cynefin is a Welsh word, chosen by the Welsh scholar Dave Snowden, which conveys the sense that we all have multiple pasts: cultural, religious, geographic, etc. The term illustrates the evolutionary nature of complex systems, including their inherent uncertainty and serves as reminder that all human interactions are strongly influenced and frequently determined by our personal and collective experiences.

Domain		Cause and effect relationship		Response	Practice
Simple		Is obvious.		Sense - Categorise - Respond	Apply best practice
Complicated		Requires analysis or some other form of investigation and/or the application of expert knowledge.		Sense - Analyze - Respond	Apply good practice
Complex		Can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance.		Probe - Sense - Respond	Sense emergent practice
Chaotic		No relationship between cause and effect at systems level.		Act - Sense - Respond	Discover novel practice
Disorder		State of not knowing what type of causality exists		People tend to revert to their own comfort zone in decision making in order to respond.	Complacency leads to failure

In the Cynefin framework the boundary between simple and chaotic is seen as catastrophic. It's not enough that selected individuals are prepared (becoming linchpins); collectively society will have to be able to deal with change— communities need to be helped out of their comfort zones, overcome their fears and get innate creativity flowing (a linchpin culture).

Three key dimensions of work-integrated learning

When work-integrated learning is considered a necessary part of the curriculum of a qualification, it is important to systemically link three key dimensions, namely: teaching, marketing & counselling.

Two of the Ps of marketing are important considerations. Firstly, product—educational institutions are obliged to consult the relevant occupational field in the curriculum design of a qualification. Adequate representation of stake holders (including statutory, professional and/or vocational bodies) is important, not only for relevancy, but also for buy-in and support—an institution cannot offer a qualification that includes work-integrated learning, without sufficient host organisations willing to take students for real-life experiences in accordance with the curriculum outcomes. It follows logically that if there is good support within the occupational field that work-integrated learning is an important aspect of the curriculum, then less marketing (place, another P) efforts would be required to secure sufficient host organisations for students to undergo experience. It further follows logically that to ensure continuous relevance of the qualification and the support of the occupational field, continuous consultation is necessary—the formation and regular gathering of an advisory committee is therefore advocated. Advocates of academic freedom resist the idea of consumerism; however, public higher education institutions are accountable to its public and the state. Institutions might as well reap the benefit of sound marketing—satisfying the needs of the occupational/professional field the qualification intends to serve.

Teaching involves many aspects. It is among others very important to design a curriculum of a qualification as a whole and develop the learning of each part of the curriculum with the overall outcome in mind. Work-integrated learning as part of the overall curriculum requires special attention because students are generally removed from the institution—the learning takes place in a environment that academia do not have control over, yet the institution is ultimately responsible to ensure the learning outcomes were achieved. Orientation of students to the desired learning and a learning design that would bring about the desired learning is important. The workplace mentor needs to be given guidance in order to facilitate the relevant learning. The learning design includes the design of the appropriate learning evidence that will serve as substantiation that the student mastered the required learning outcomes. Formative assessment and summative evaluation of work-integrated learning also forms part of the teaching. In the South African context the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) of the Council for Higher Education (CHE) determined a number of criteria towards good practice with regard to work-integrated learning.

Students come from various contexts; some are better prepared for entry into the world of work than other. Those underprepared students need counselling-type interventions to aid their development. Often higher education institutions offer a range of career and counselling services, such as CV writing, business writing, life skills, assertiveness, communication skills, etc. In the South African context the Department of Higher Education & Training gazetted that institutions that offer qualifications that include work-integrated learning are obliged to make sure that students are placed for such learning. It is advisable that those institutional support staff responsible to secure willing host organisations work together with the career and counselling staff in preparing students for the selection for work-integrated learning placements. It should be evident that the marketing aspect outlined in the first paragraph is crucial to the gazetted placement obligation.

Revised 17 August 2010: What I omitted, in error, from the above is the organisational perspective of talent growth through programmes that include work-integrated learning. The entire dimension of succession planning, people/talent development and the facilitation of organisational learning.

Work-based learning model

Raelin (2000: 49-65) theorises about work-based learning firstly by comparing theory and practice modes of learning, there after explicit versus tacit forms of knowledge. He then builds a conceptual model by first looking at individual work-based learning, in terms of the two mentioned modes of learning and the two forms of knowledge:

	Explicit	Tacit
Theory:	Conceptualisation	Experimentation
Practice:	Reflection	Experience

He next turns to the organisation, as collective, and builds further on his model of work-based learning:

	Explicit	Tacit
Theory:	Applied science	Action learning
Practice:	Action science	Community of practice

Then he completes his pyramid-shape model (Raelin 2000: 64)

Raelin, J.A. 2000. Work-based learning—the new frontier of management development. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Learning organisation and work based learning

As individuals we (need to) learn lifelong in order to continue to actualise ourselves, we engage with our environment and grow (Raelin 2000: 27).

It is what we think we know already that often prevents us from learning — Claude Bernard (Raelin 2000: 27).

Organisations, as a collective, also need to learn in order to maintain themselves and improve. Raelin (2000: 28) observes that "Some pundits sell 'organizational learning' as another recipe for competitive advantage, but in fact it is more than that", he argues and indicates that the modus Vivendi (mode of 'living') of organisations that enables it to sustain—an ethos of ever adaptability to environmental surroundings, acting on intelligence and 'learning their way out' of challenges (Raelin 2000: 28).

• Trial-and-error learning only occurs after blunders
• True organisational learning should happen naturally when succeeding and upon breakthroughs
• There should be a deliberate continuous reflection

Learning organisations generate knowledge through a free exchange of information and experimentation. Whereas the focus of knowledge management is on improving accessibility and sharing of knowledge, the focus of organisational learning is concerned with the modus Vivendi, observes Raelin (2000: 29).

Raelin, J.A. 2000. Work-based learning—the new frontier of management development. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Make learning arise from changing work

The maxim of the inventor of action learning, Reg Rewans, rings true: "the rate of learning must equal or exceed the rate of change" (Raelin, 2000: 1).

Rate of learning ≥Rate of Change

Managers can no longer afford to continuously react to change; in order to compete successfully—urges Raelin (2000: 2)—managers must anticipate change and make time to reflect on actions. Raelin (2000: 1) calls the "need for continuous learning" the "sine qua non of organisational development"; learning has to become a way of conduct—part of the work ethic: "continuous reflection on actual experience" (p. 2).

Raelin, J.A. 2000. Work-based learning—the new frontier of management development. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Four schools of action learning

Action learning has a history of more than 60 years of practice. During the late 1920s a group of research scientists "found that meeting to question their successes and failures, in a very deliberate and precise way, and then reflecting on them together, helped them to gain insights and act more appropriately" (Rimanoczy 2007:247). The various types of action learning were organised in 1999 (p. 248) into four schools:

1. The Tacit School entail that people learn incidentally from real problems while working.
2. The Scientific School follow Lewin's action research cycle but focus on learning.
3. The Experiential School base their learning process on Kolb's learning cycle, by starting with action, followed by reflection on the action and changes to future action.
4. The Critical Reflection School does what its name implies; the reflection deepens to explore beliefs and assumptions. [Action Reflection Learning falls within this school).

Two consistent elements were found across the four schools, namely:

• Working on real problems that are ambiguous.
• Participants meet to report progress and discuss problems.

Rimanoczy, I. 2007. Action learning and action reflection learning: are they different? Industrial and Commercial Training, 39(5), 246-256.