Why #5: Adapting to a New Learning Structure

WHY #5: Adapting to a New Learning Structure

Wow.  We haven’t figured this out yet.  When we work, we learn. As I have looked into this, I have been surprised at how we just don’t get it.  We are constantly learning as we work, but we don’t think of it as learning.  We think of it as working and we separate the two.

Have you seen the show “Hole In The Wall“?  If the contestants don’t fit into the holes cut out in the wall (which is coming at them) they are knocked into a pool of water.  Not surprisingly, these guys made it in the pool.

Within traditional organization learning, you have presenters, instructional designers, researchers, eLearning specialists and more.  And then you have models like ADDIE or the such to help you start at the beginning and end at the end and then loop around.  But (I was about to say ‘new’ but it isn’t new) this structure of learning doesn’t have a beginning or an end.  It is always.  For example, when you get up in the morning, when do you start breathing?  There isn’t that beginning to your day.  It is always happening.

Again, going back to the water cooler example, how would you organize the water cooler talks?  That is absurd.   You wouldn’t.    Not that there isn’t organization, because there is.  You let those who are in the conversation organize it, not try to impose one.

This learning organizational structure is created by the learner. Every person organizes it differently according to their own construct.  Yet so much of information is rigidly organized in a hierarchical form that may or may not make sense to each individual person.

QUESTION: What pros/cons do you see in this type of self-organization?

Related Posts:

Why #4: Distributing Ownership (Cont’)

Why #3: Discovering Experts

Why #2: Personalizing Learning

Why #1: Focusing on People (Part 1) (Part 2)

Tagged as: ADDIE, organization, water cooler, why