Some Factors that Support Creativity and Innovation

Posted on December 9, 2010 by howardjohnson

A couple articles relevant to my 12-6 post, which may also form the beginnings of a partial psychological explanation of Richard Forida’s Spikey World and Creative Class theories. (Note – Florida’s data is primarily a correlative macro-analysis, however, these theories must also function and be analyzable at a micro level in a way that represents people’s everyday relationships.)

First, the opposite perspective – What will not help Education

Recent news is reporting on America’s falling test scores and the potential dire consequences if improvement is not found. Now, I really can’t make a judgement without delving deep into the data, but I suspect that the most direct route to improving test scores will be some form of discipline and it will be exactly the opposite of what would help us devise a competitive advantage vis a vis the rest of the world. Test scores are not the answer. The answer is innovation for business and economic success.

How to Create Innovation and a 21st Century Economy: Play

I’ll examine 2 articles that make the case for the importance of play and a positive playful attitude for creation and innovation. Furthermore, read below the surface and you will find that this is not just for children. A playful attitude is important wherever creativity is needed and today that is almost everywhere.

Tracing the Spark of Creative Problem-Solving by Benedict Carey

Main point –

. . . people were more likely to solve word puzzles with sudden insight when they were amused . . . positive mood, is lowering the brain’s threshold for detecting weaker or more remote connections” to solve puzzles. . . . “It’s imagination, it’s inference, it’s guessing; and much of it is happening subconsciously,” said Marcel Danesi, a professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto and the author of “The Puzzle Instinct: The Meaning of Puzzles in Human Life.” “It’s all about you, using your own mind, without any method or schema, to restore order from chaos,”. . .

Those whose brains show a particular signature of preparatory activity, one that is strongly correlated with positive moods, turn out to be more likely to solve the puzzles with sudden insight than with trial and error . . . “At this point we have strong circumstantial evidence that this resting state predicts how you solve problems later on,” Dr. Kounios said, “and that it may in fact vary by individual.”

The second article is from Fast Company’s Design Blog; Frog Design: The Four Secrets of Playtime That Foster Creative Kids

There is a myth, common in American culture, that work and play are entirely separate activities. I believe they are more entwined than ever before. As the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget once said, “Play is the answer to how anything new comes about.” A playful mind thrives on ambiguity, complexity, and improvisation—the very things needed to innovate and come up with creative solutions to the massive global challenges in economics, the environment, education, and more. . . . How then can we get our youngest generation to embrace the role of designer rather than (game) player? Fundamentally, it starts by letting children be the inventors of play.

The article recommends 4 ways to make this happen.

Open Environments – open environments are those in which the child gets to be the author and the medium is open to interpretation.

Flexible Tools – Part of being open is being flexible. Technology has given us a whole new set of tools, though they’re being used in ways not necessarily planned for.

Modifiable Rules – Being open and flexible within parameters is necessary and even helpful, but what happens when the parameters themselves no longer fit our needs?

Superpowers – the physical and mental skills that we develop to adapt and thrive in a complex world while exploring the creative opportunities made possible by global progress. . . . It’s crucial to understand that we aren’t born with playful minds, we create them. . . . When 85 percent of today’s companies searching for creative talent can’t find it, will more focus on standardized curriculum, testing, and memorization provide the skills an emergent workforce needs? Not likely. Play is our greatest natural resource. In the end, it comes down to playing with our capacity for human potential. Why would we ever want to limit it? In the future, economies won’t just be driven by financial capital, but by play capital as well. (Emphasis added)

The Play Ethic

In the Afterword to the book Education in the Creative Economy (Play, the Net, and the Perils of Educating for the Creative Economy) Pat Kane speaks of a new basis for work informed by the play ethic (and a new common sense):

(A)fter the obsolescence of the work ethic . . . (t)he play ethic is an alternative belief-system that asserts that in an age of mass higher education, continuing advances in personal and social autonomy, and ubiquitous digital networks (and their associated devices), there exists a surplus of human potential and energy that will not be satisfied by the old workplace routines of duty and submission.

Kane calls neoteny (the retention of juvenile features in the adult animal) the basis of our biological non-specialization that allows us to respond uniquely to unusual circumstances.

(W)e are not determined by our environment, but make and construct our worlds? This is mirrored by the “permanent precarity of jobs,” where we wander nomadically from one cloud in the nebulous world of labor markets to another.

While this state has the potential to produce anxiety, it also holds the possibility to unleash the “constitutive power of play” that can be productively used, especially if we can wed it to a resilience and supportive infrastructure

Testing can be for Learning: The retrieval Effect

Posted on December 9, 2010 by howardjohnson

Tests get high marks as a learning tool by Anne Mciloy — Science Reporter for the Globe and Mail

This article reports on a testing effect – testing students improves their learning. It’s also called a retrieval effect and can be achieved in other activities that demand recall. I would say it is also active learning in that students are using information in a different type of activity (answering a test questions as opposed to the original task such as listening to a lecture or reading a book. ) (The article claims the same effect for a good pedagogical activity where students pair off after reading a book or passage to summarize the reading and then to to criticize the summary and exchanging roles for the next reading)

Note – This supports the validity for testing, but it does not justify the validity of using testing for other purposes. Most testing is for rating, ranking, segmenting student into groups or planning instruction. The fact that testing is a good learning activity doesn’t justify its use for these other purposes which should be judged for their own purposes. Testing should be use as a way for achieving success for students, not a way to rate their final success. I saw this effect in my daughter’s schooling. She learned through testing activities and often had decent command of the content after a test was completed, but the grade and often her identity was already assigned. This identity is not about empty self-esteem. Identity is deeper and more important than self-esteem.

Content vs Pragmatic Knowledges

Posted on December 3, 2010 by howardjohnson

A McKinsey report Addressing China’s Looming Talent Shortage states:

China’s pool of university graduates is enormous . . . Consider engineers. China has 1.6 million young professionals . . . But the main drawback of Chinese applicants for engineering jobs, our interviewees said, is the educational system’s bias toward theory. Chinese students get little practical experience in projects or teamwork compared with engineering graduates in Europe or North America, who work in teams to achieve practical solutions.

I believe this is another example of a lack of knowledge transfer based on the difference between content knowledge and pragmatic knowledge. The memorization of content knowledge becomes pragmatically useful for completing educational assessments, but it lacks the contextual component that makes knowledge useful in other activities outside of education. Contextually relevant pragmatic knowledge is necessary for being successful in everyday problem solving activities. The practical solutions that the McKinsey report considers important in western engineering education do not support the accumulation of knowledge, but they do expand the capabilities of students to work in similar activity systems. The rap against Chinese students is that they excel at testing (an educational activity system), but not at the capabilities needed for workbased world activity systems .

New Eyes for Education

Posted on November 30, 2010 by howardjohnson

You can’t see the future using the eyes of the past.

It is a central problem we face as we move toward some type of post-industrial society. Our current institutional structures, based on industrial era models, attempt to re-create the past as a way to solve the problems of the future as opposed to envisioning the new.

What do I Mean by Old Eyes

What is new today? Let’s consider complexity. To some extent it’s the success of industrial standardization that has driven the emergency of complexity in the service economy. With increasing efficiency, fewer and fewer people are needed to continue standardized processes, but this success has uncovered worlds of complexity not only where standardization has failed (like in education and much of the social sciences), but also in new fields such as design. The problem is that most people today (even within standardized practices) need to address uniqueness and complexity in some way, but too much of our institutional structures are still geared towards a standardized industrial economy that emphasizes “one size fits all” solutions.

An example is NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s view that we need a more highly educated population to address globalized competition. This may be true, but what would happen if we suddenly started graduating 4 times the number of scientists and engineers. Well, we’d soon have a lot of unemployed or underemployed scientists and engineers. What the economy needs now is more entrepreneurialism of the type that fosters a creative interdisciplinary mindset. We can only succeed now by envisioning and creating the world around us anew, not by growing an economy that in many ways has already become outgrown. The educational systems is still seeing through old disciplinary eyes and training people to function in the past. We have seen how the world we face is increasingly requiring us to deal with complexity, but as pointed out by D.H. Haley, our way of thinking, seen as a cultural artifact in our everyday activity, rejects complexity and interdisciplinary. (free with subscription to the Social Science Research Network)

. . . despite their successful interpretations and applications, they (complexity and ecology) have been accepted by neither mainstream science, nor mainstream culture. Both of these powerful institutions have pushed such modes of thinking and being to the margins of normative knowledge and behaviour, without ascribing any real value or worth. . . . For here, I believe is the real issue, . . . it is embedded in how our society is educated to think. Just as an athlete trains their muscles to perform certain activities in particular ways, so too, we are coached to think about particular things in certain ways ␣ it is a question of epistemology.

What Would New Eyes See

So how should institutions now be thinking and functioning differently? I believe we need a new approach to learning and a new way to develop people and their capabilities.

A new approach to learning.

Learning has never been more important, but (as pointed out by Hagel, Brown and Davison) we can no longer predict what knowledge people will need in order to push it out to them. Instead the learner is in as good a position as anyone to judge what knowledge is needed and needs to be able to pull that learning to themselves as needed. (If nothing else, this is a condemnation of most approaches to curriculum development, and many forms of pedagogy.) To achieve a “pull” model I think we will need the following:

technological resources (internet, social media, applications as well as future innovation),
expert guides (a new role for teachers), coaches, mentors, etc. . .
peer networks that push our collaborative capabilities to new levels, and
a vibrant, engaging and vigorous environments (cognitive, social and physical)

All of these elements should by intricately interwoven into each learners learning environment.

A new approach to developing people.

We need people with both breath and depth in their repertoire of personal capabilities. Base assessment and development activities not on what you want people to know, but on what they will need and want to do.

Breath primarily means interdisciplinarity, especially as you are able to bring different capabilities from different disciplines into your own activity system. This also means going beyond specific task capability to also include cognitive development and psychological capital development, as well as the promotion of psychological health and wholeness.

Depth – The need for depth should be based on something like an activity system task analysis, the most important actions needed for everyday activity. I don’t like a disciplinary view of depth only because the scope of a discipline can be unrelated to everyday activity within an activity system. It is just that disciplines are historical artifacts with specific historical developmental trajectories, which may or may not fit with the needs of one’s activity system.

This transdisciplinarity need is where new forms of complexity enter into education. A one size fits all disciplinary education is no longer sufficient. We need an educational system that can easily be customized to fit individual learning / capability development needs and a system that can be extended over an individual’s productive lifetime.

So, I’m left with the question: what does this look like; what might new eyes see?

A Propagation Model of Learning and Acting

Posted on November 23, 2010 by howardjohnson

This post is to clarify some thoughts on a model of knowledge and development (adapted from Vygotsky’s model of an activity) that underly this previous post. There are three inter-related components to this model: a subject, a mediator and an object/output all of which always operate within specific contexts and culture considerations. They all orient toward activity, that serves as the unit of analysis. This model comes from observing people. All people are constantly active and involved in socially relevant activities. In order to compete these activities they depend on many higher mental functions, much of which we often refer to as knowledge. They are doing things like memorizing facts in preparation for a test, organizing projects for work, planning a family outing or doing the myriad types of activities we do everyday. If you look at the surface structure of the knowledge involved, much of it may be similar. But this is not the case if you observe how the knowledge is functioning in the activity. Consider first each part of the model.

The Subject

The subject is a person with a history. When you look at their development and participation in any activity system, you see what mediators they are able to use, what outputs they are capable of producing, and how all 3 parts of the model are related to the contextual factors at play. When I think of the development of the subject, I’m thinking of the subject gaining abilities in using mediators, in producing outputs, and in working in different contexts.

Knowledge

I think of knowledge in activity for its mediational properties, that is, how it allows subjects to actively produce outputs. I think it is more constructive to think of knowledge as enabling you to do something, as opposed to simply knowing something. What exactly does it mean to know something. Outside of the ability to act, the meaning is nebulous. Wittgenstein spoke of how language has more of a use than a stable meaning as expressed in this quote from John Shotter.

To state now explicitly the well-known Wittgensteinian slogan: in everyday life, words do not in themselves have a meaning, but a use, and furthermore, a use only in a context; they are best thought of not as having already determined meanings, but as means, as tools, or as instruments for use in the making of meanings . . . (p.78-79).

Knowledge operates in a similar fashion in that it does not have an internal stability like a calculus, but has a use in enabling context specific activity. Said in another way, Katerina Clark and Michael Holquist give a similar account of the psychological implications of this dialogic way of looking at things when they quote M.M. Bakhtin saying:

(T)here is no reason for saying that meaning belongs to the word as such. In essence, meaning belongs to a word in it’s position between speakers . . . meaning is realized only in the process of active, responsive understanding. . .” (p.232)

Similarly, there is no reason to say that knowledge is embodied within specific content or concepts that would allow you to know something, but knowledge finds its meaning in its functional purpose within activity; knowledge is for acting. When you demonstrate knowledge on an assessment, you are using knowledge to engage in an assessment activity, but that knowledge, though it may apear similar on the surface or from an abstract point of view, it is different and differently formatted than it would be in different context and for different functional purposes. What I am attempting is to flesh out Edgar Morin’s perspective when he says:

The need for contextualization is extremely important. I would even say that it is a principle of knowledge (p.15).

Output

Output is the primary focus guiding activity. When assessing activity, looking at output is how we judge success. We can only assess the developmental level of a subject or their ability to use knowledge by watching them in activity. But, output is often found in the form of an artifact. When we want to improve something, it is often the output that we want to improve. This is usually done by furthering the development of the subject or the knowledge (mediation) available to the subject, but the improvement is usually seen in the object.

(Note – Outcomes are often the final product we are trying to achieve. The output should lead to the outcome desired, but this is not always the case. Science exist in some ways to help us judge whether the output of activity are in fact achieving the outcomes we desire.)

Inter-relationship within the Model

The inter-relationship in this model are also critical. In example, knowledge must be molded to match the capabilities of the subject to appropriately use the knowledge and both must be joined in a way to meet the output requirements. Also, the subject must be sensitive to and must make all aspects of the activity conform to contextual and cultural needs present. This is a complex model of activity and its complexity is one of the reasons that I have generally abandoned transfer as the primary metaphor in learning. Instead I often think of a propagation metaphor. What we transfer are seedlings or cuttings, but these are not useful in activity until they can be grown into mature plants within the garden that is the mature subject in the cultural context of this activity system.

#PLENK2010 Thoughts on Fiedler and Väljataga’s Paper, Personal learning environments: concept or technology?

Posted on November 17, 2010 by howardjohnson

I agree with Sebastian and Terje’s paper on this point:

“The development of Personal Learning Environments represents a significant shift in pedagogic approaches to how we support learning processes” . . . “(and it) is not a separate space on the internet, it is an essential part of the users’ workspace”.

As S&T point out, many people are already experiencing a self-directed life in the digital realm, often with an essential PLE workspace, and they are finding that traditional institutional power and pedagogical relationships are incompatible with this new world. Just from a practical point of view, PLEs are usually embedded in users workflow and daily routine. Classroom activities are not and can seem contrastingly irrelevant to one’s daily activities.

In addition to the specific socio-historical incompatibility that Sebastian and Terje point out, I also think that there are more incompatibilities lurking behind the academy’s veil. Higher Education pedagogy was never intended to be vocational training in line with the expectations of most students. (Professional schools with substantial practice components, like medical schools with residency requirements are the exception.) Higher education was designed to make a class distinction, whether you were headed for the nobility or the clergy. Higher education in modern times made entry into business management or the military’s officer corp the primary path for graduates. Those with less education were expected to do the grunt work. This changed when college degrees became common and the diploma no longer assured one of entry into a “high class” well paying job. To that extent, higher education no longer serves the same goal and people are not willing to submit to something that no longer has a traditional end-game. In contrast , PLEs are a natural adjunct to one’s everyday activity systems and in some ways may prove more directly relevant to people’s life goals when compared to traditional pedagogical forms.

I also agree with their concluding remarks:

A simple collection of potential resources (artefacts, natural objects, people) does not make a “personal learning environment,” if there is no personal model of intentional learning activity in the first place, or if people run on out-dated models from previous times.

So we need to move toward a learning model that is appropriate for the digital realm, one that re-envisions how learning functions in our everyday lives and how we are able to grow our ability to act in productive ways.

P.S. A small pet peeve. I don’t like the way they refer to (adult) learning. We can speak of adult activity systems, adult expectations for learning, or how learning occurs in adult activity systems, but I’ve never seen a convincing explanation of how the process of learning differs by age. See Wikipedia’s critique section on andragogy.

Knowles himself changed his position on whether andragogy really applied only to adults and came to believe that “pedagogy-andragogy represents a continuum ranging from teacher-directed to student-directed learning and that both approaches are appropriate with children and adults, depending on the situation.

#PLENK2010 Knowledge is for Acting; Schooling is for Development

Posted on November 12, 2010 by howardjohnson

Premise: Knowledge Enables Acting, While Schooling Leads Development

The ability to act in specific contexts is limited by one’s capabilities and by one’s ability to acquire knowledge that is an appropriate fit to that context.
Schooling is not about acting in specific situations, but is about developing capabilities along a specified developmental trajectory as a foundation for future action.

In light of this weeks discussion of PLE in the classroom I will restate my view that we should make a distinction between learning and knowledge on one hand and development and capabilities on the other and the differing purpose served by each.

Learning and knowledge are for acting in specific contexts. Useful knowledge is highly linked to the situations for which it is devised and it makes no sense to attempt to acquire that knowledge before you are in the situation. Inevitably, the knowledge gained in this way will not be a good fit for the situation. Learning and knowledge is therefore inherently tied to acting and is a lifelong need. Knowledge, to be useful, must be fit to the contexts where it is used.

Schooling is for the development of human capabilities. Using language, calculating, participating in debates, discussing important cultural topics, engaging in scientific experimentation, etc. . . .; these are all capabilities that schooling should develop in students. We know what they look like beforehand, we know of processes to build these capabilities and we can assess successfully acquired capabilities. Yes, studens will need to acquire specific knowledge to complete the actions specified by our assessments and classroom activities, but that knowledge will be incidental to the assessment or activity. Using the capability in new situations will require different knowledge (even if it is only slightly different) every time. My point is that assessing a students capability and developmental trajectory makes sense. Assessing the knowledge he/she has acquired does not, because that knowledge will not be relevant to the student’s future; although their developmental trajectory will be highly relevant.

Knowledge is important for acting and PLEs are needed. From birth, until we take our final breath, we need to acquire knowledge in an ongoing manner. PLEs should be part of schooling because their development is an important capability. Likewise George’s (4) student centered items in this list are (I believe) about capabilities not knowledges. The problems come when we mistakenly take knowledge as the reason for schooling instead of capability development. It is usually not particularly hard to acquire the knowledge we need in any given circumstance if we already posses the requisite capabilities. Unfortunately, most educational assessments are oriented toward measuring knowledge when they should measure capabilities and the developmental trajectory the student is following. If they would do that, they would be a much better guide for teacher’s practices.

#PLENK2010 The Elements of a Network Learning and Development Platform: A Beginning

Posted on October 27, 2010 by howardjohnson

I’ll begin today by summarizing my last post, orient this post toward an educational view and consider what it might mean in terms of the practical elements of a network learning platform.

Summary of My Last Post

When we look at our everyday activities and the communities where those activities are embedded, what becomes important in enabling our actions is not rarified decontextualized content knowledge, but rather the knowledge and understandings that are fashioned between us. We are shedding the industrial era hierarchal rule based structures because they no longer fit the complexity we face, a complexity that now require collaborative ways of working. We are also switching from a focus on the prediction and control of behavior to the joint pursuit of emergent practices and from what is the case on the ground, to what values we ought to pursue on behalf of our customers. Learning in this view does not have a measurable essence, but it can have a use, which can become meaningful when it enables joint action. It’s an approach to Dewey’s learning by doing that centers cognition in collaboration.

The Practical Side

Time to get concrete. How do you help people not only learn, but also develop their capabilities? Previous educational world-views are looking unsustainable and it’s only increasing given the trends toward what David Jones calls The Commodification of Knowledge.

(The) fundamental problem that I see in this (commodification) response is a limited and incorrect view of higher education. . . . It’s a market driven, techo-rational approach that assumes a traditional analyse, design, implement, evaluate cycle that fails to understand the full complexity of what is required and the changing nature of surrounding environment. . . . It assumes that there are people who are smart enough to predict what “consumers” will want from the University.

This is similar to the problem of push as described by Hagel, Brown & Davison (henceforth HBD) and their answer to my question is similar to David’s suggestion: Focus on what you do well, build a learning network around that, and allow the emergent practice to grow. Sounds like a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) supported practice.

So what are the elements on which to build a high functioning PLE? What do you need to develop and grow your practice?

Need # 1 The Network(s)

Build a diverse, visionary and engaged learning network. HBD suggests that you find the smartest people in your field (what you do well) to include in your network. Get into their networks, learn what problems they’re attempting to solve (presumably the same problems you are or will encounter) and work jointly on solving them. The time to build that network is now. It’s too late to start when a pressing need arises. I think there needs to be sufficient similarity to allow connections to form in any network, but there is also a need for diversity. Achieving high levels of both is an important goal.

Need # 2 – The Environment

You can not predict where the next important idea or resource will come from in HBD’s world of “pull” learning; serendipity plays a great role. This means that your daily environment is almost as important as any wider, but occasional network. This fits in with an idea (mostly from Richard Florida) that we want to be in diverse, vibrant and exciting environments. This isn’t pie in the sky thinking. If you’re in a field that needs innovation (and what field doesn’t today) a diverse, vibrant and exciting environment is a worthwhile business investment.

Need # 3 – A MOOC (Massive Open Online Course)

I see this concept serving many more and differing goals than is possible in a traditional course. At one level it is a people curator, a natural network supporting device. It’s is likely where the “smartest people in the room” will be (except that in a world ruled by serendipity, many people may become the smartest person at one time or another). It is a place where the field leaders can connect with people and network their leadership role without becoming overwhelmed by the demands of the network (at least I hope the leadership in this course would concur). People involved will have many differing goals, but I think that a MOOC will be most beneficial when it is understood as something larger in purpose and more connected with the world and with people’s everyday activities than a traditional educational course. There may also be other forms in the future that fulfill a similar role, but this seems like a good start in defining a network learning platform.

Need # 4 – Access to a Network Weaver

A Network Weaver is

(S)omeone who is aware of the networks around them and explicitly works to make them healthier (more inclusive, bridging divides). Network Weavers do this by connecting people strategically where there’s potential for mutual benefit, helping people identify their passions, and serving as a catalyst for self-organizing groups.

There are many potential roles in a network, but one of the most valuable may be that of a connection propagator in a fluid network that is able to change with the needs of its members.

Not a Need, but maybe an adjunct: The Un-conference

An unconference is a facilitated, participant-driven conference centered on a theme or purpose. . . . (and that tries) to avoid one or more aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees and sponsored presentations.

I’m looking at the concept of the un-conference as networked, distributed and collaborative open research. More focused and directed than other network forms, but one that may help to round out the different types of network learning and development platforms that serve important purposes in people’s practices.

This is Only a Beginning

This is a beginning list and I would welcome any additions and ideas. I don’t consider myself an expert, but I’m strongly interested in better understanding this project we’re involved in as a new type of learning and development platform. Comments encouraged!

Network Learning: an Initial Summary

Posted on August 30, 2010 by howardjohnson

A new Model of Learning: from the Classroom to the Network

Learning has always been multifaceted, but where the old concrete model of learning activity was exemplified by the classroom, a new concrete model of learning activity will be exemplified by a network. It’s not a change in what learning is, but more of a change in the why, where, how, and when learning happens.

Why New Ideas for Learning are Needed.

The pace of market change and creative destruction is increasingly requiring innovation and adaptive responses just for business survival. John Hagel points beyond product and process innovation ot the need for institutional innovation is we are to counter the movement of innovation to Asia. The complex understanding and responses needed requires greater access not just to to innovative ideas, but also the social spaces that contain both knowledge flows and the diverse capabilities needed to actualize those ideas. Businesses need to move beyond the traditional boundaries of the firm.
Human development, once thought to be relative unchanging after age 25, now highlight the ability for all kinds of growth in mental complexity and ability throughout one’s active adult life. In response, new theories of performance are now available to support development and increase performance throughout one’s career.

In order to achieve complex adaptive change in activity, we must further our own development, improve the tools we have available, and make sure we are applying them and attending to the correct object or focus. This entails

Human development – The ability to grow to meet new challenges
Tool development – psychological and technical tools matched to our complex adaptive challenges
all with concrete opportunities for application and feedback

The next section explain some background behind this categorization.

Where will Learning Occur

Traditionally the classroom was led by an expert who was guided by a set curriculum and a transfer metaphor of learning. In contrast, the network contains a diverse array of individuals interacting with learning as an emergent phenomenon. This is not to say that experts, classrooms and the transfer metaphor will disappear, and learning, as a psychological and behavioral phenomenon, will not change. It’s just that the most valuable and ongoing form of learning will emerge through network participation and will emphasize it’s natural connection with relationships and activity instead of focusing exclusively on knowledge content. It will bypass the problem of learning transfer through learning in situ, in a just in time manner. Instead of teachers, we will depend on a variety of people who’s role will be more like a guide, facilitator or collaborator.

Network learning has a built in efficacy benefit in that it’s so closely tied to activity and action in which the learning subject is engaged. In a recent Charlie Rose episode Daniel Wolpert mentioned that the only purpose for a brain is to enable complex adaptive behavior through the motor systems and that the motor cortex and muscle system is the end-path for all of our sensory systems. To think of content and knowledge as separated from activity is to ignore the way the brain is inherently organized. Just in time network learning is tied closely to enabling action, which is more in line with the natural organization of brain systems. If for no other reason, this type of learning is productive because it replaces the huge amount of knowledge that is committed to memory just in case it might be needed in the future with targeted knowledge that leads directly to action.

While learning is just in-time, building robust and diverse networks is the preparation we need. When you need resources is not the time for network building. The network building that taps us into vibrant engaging relationships and social spaces should be an ongoing activity. The support needed for this are learning institutions, but not like institutions of the past. Not the institutions that horde experts, but ones that foster these vibrant and engaging social spaces and excel at building business relevant social networks. This does not succeed by some network magic. Networks need to be filled with passionate and talented people. You need to be hooked in with the smartest people on the block, just as they need to be hooked in with talented and passionate you.

What will be the focus of Network Learning

I believe that learning as a psychological and social phenomena is not substantially changing, only the focus of learning will be on the activities and challenges we face. I will rely on an older model of Vygotsky and Leonte’v to explain a model of the architecture of human activity. Vygotsky gave three poles that combined to drive human activity: a subject, a mediator (tool) and an object, all leading to an outcome. This table gives examples for a carpenter and a loan officer.

Therefore the focus of learning is on:

the development of the subject’s identity and capabilities (achieving one’s developmental potential)
the development of tools (especially mental tools like frameworks, theories, concepts, etc. . .)
making sure we are focused on the right objects with the right tools
People who can guide us and give us nudges in the right direction, in a timely fashion while on a self quest to complete this mission.

What Ideas are Emerging to Meet these Needs

The idea of “pull” (Hagel Brown & Davison, 2010) encourage us to get involved in relevant networks and tap into the knowledge flows existing there.
Richard Florida points out the importance of vibrant and engaging social spaces as a key driver of innovation related to business growth.
Developing psychological based performance supports systems such as interventions to develop individual psychological capital (Luthans, 2008) or developing the psychological means for personal and organizational change (Kegan, 2010).
Opportunities for collaborative practice -based research (eg. localized unconferences) to maximize development and learning within or around one’s specialities.
Opportunities for creating and maintaining mentoring as well as other diverse types of relationships within one’s local environment.
Networks that are institutionalized to allow you to pursue and developmental goals and identities while conducting business. I say institutionalized to mean that the infrastructure may need to be created and supported. Like Hagel’s “Pull”, we rely on serendipity for opportunity, but we plan to make serendipity more likely to happen.

This is not the end of my “theorizing” but a good summation from which to begin a more active research process.

The Shape of the Future of Learning: Seeding New Institutions

Posted on August 14, 2010 by howardjohnson

Richard Florida in a New Republic article; The Roadmap to a High-Speed Recovery, has put forth an interesting and believable proposition: investing in new economic infrastructure is the key to powering a quicker and lasting recovery, by putting the fundamentals of our economy on a sounder footing with today’s economic drivers. Umair Haque calls it a recapitalizing process when he says:

The real problem’s . . . in the institutional structure of the economy . . . America’s real capital gap, a widening fissure in social, organizational, and creative capital.

Florida mentions changing the current assembly line like organization of our education system (characterized by standardized mass production). What would a new take on educational infrastructure and institutions look like? I believe they will look much different then they do today, they will be designed to serve a much different population and they would occupy a much different role in society. In this post I will suggest some of the contours of this change and why it is needed.

1 From Rote Memorization to Building Accomplishments

Too much of education involved memorizing test answers when economic success depends on innovation, initiative, and creative intelligence. There’s little need for rote memorization. Most memorized knowledge is quickly forgotten unless it is frequently reinforced through everyday processes and even then it is seldom helpful when your focused on innovtion. Building real world accomplishments gets to a deeper and more authentic type of learning.

2 From Knowledge to Skills and Capabilities

Knowledge is great, and needed at times, but more than anything else, we need the capability to make things happen. Creating things is more dependent on developing skills and capabilities than it is on knowing the right thing. Help people to know things in the process of doing things.

3 From Mass Standardization to Mass Customized Creativity

Current methods of accountability have made education become more standardized – striving to make all people learn the same things, but what people keep saying we need is the creativity that requires diversity; everyone combining and bringing their individual strengths to the table. I’m not against accountability, but it seems to have become the primary goal, and it is not the goal we need.

4 From A Curriculum to a Network

Standards based curriculums have become larger and more detailed, but the knowledge they embody never seems to be the right stuff at the right time. Networks are even larger and more complex, but they’er also more fluid; able to be formed into the right configuration at the time it is needed. Curriculums attempt to determine what knowledge will be needed in all contexts and to transfer that knowledge to individuals, a process that is alway problematic at best. Networks create knowledge that is designed in and for specific contexts.

5 From Just Incase Knowledge to Just In-time Knowledge

Classroom knowledge seldom transfers to practice because students seem to have a hard time recognizing how to apply knowledge without real-world practice. It’s also becoming hard to predict what knowledge will be useful beyond the basics because the “half-life” of knowledge keeps getting shorter and shorter. Instead of giving people what they need to know, we need to give them the skills for finding the knowledge they need and for figuring out how to make use of it.

6 From Disciplinary Indoctrination to a Diversity of T Shaped Individuals

What does an educated person look like. The knowledge in disciplines has become deeper and disciplinary members have become more specialized till it is no longer possible for any one individual even to know their entire discipline. We still need individual with deep knowledge, now more than ever. But we also need everyone to have a breath of skills and knowledge to allow interdisciplinary collaboration, the basis of most complex problem-solving situations. These are the famed T shaped individuals; individuals with deep knowledge, but also with the fluid capacity to work across all kinds of disciplinary and other boundaries.

7 From the Classroom to the Social Lab

As pointed out by Sumeet Moghe, it is often observed that very little important learning can be traced back to classrooms. Learning occurs in collaborative project rooms. Knowledge is meant for doing things and it is through doing things that we gain what we need in terms of knowledge and capabilities. Instead of simulations in the classroom, move to real projects in a supportive experimental social laboratory of learning.

8 From the Training of Youth to True Lifelong Learning

Schools were set up for the socialization and maturation of the youth and schools can be great things. But for the most important learning, and this includes everyone, it will happen after graduation. Schools are great for maturation and skill building, but institutions dedicated to helping people learn are also needed by active and engaged adults in their everyday life, and these institutions will likely look and behave much differently than our traditional ideas of schooling.

9 From a Sequenced Curriculum to Learning Wherever People Are

All people’s ability to learn is very great. We cheat that ability when we insist on following a rote sequence to a standardized curriculum. People will need to adapt what they know to the immediate context anyway; assist them in gaining the skills and knowledge in any context they currently find themselves. The capabilities they gain will be deeper, more robust and it will be gained more efficiently. Wherever it seems logically permissible, have no prerequisites. Colleges and universities still have a large role to play in educating society, but infrastructure and learning support should always be available.