Tag: learning strategy

  • Mentoring

    Fostering relationships that enable and sustain collaboration and inquiry requires building trust about both technical competencies and each person’s interest in dialogue. Therefore, two contexts require special attention. First, when newcomers come onboard to the team, they may or may not be familiar with the general organizational context or the specific working conditions. This requires…

    Benjamin West, Calypso's Reception of Telemachus and Mentor (Daniel Reinberg/flickr.com)
  • I have no idea

    What do we do when we cannot achieve certainty? We increasingly accept that we need to make decisions without the comfort of certainty. It is okay to not know. It is healthy to accept the unknown as we no longer seek certainty. It is when we are no longer certain that we learn. In some…

    Crossing Golden Gate (Noël/flickr.com)
  • Patterns and trends

    How do we navigate these rules while achieving intended purpose? When we need new knowledge, where do we go? How do we go about it? How do we limit our exploration to ensure that we can still deliver on our tasks? What if we need to upset or question assumptions about how we work in…

    Islamic mosaic pattern (Jörg Reuter/flickr.com)
  • Dialogue and inquiry

    We learn from each other through dialogue and inquiry. We are excited that we can participate in a rich, diverse world of different perspectives and opinions. Conversation, as George Siemens says, is the “ultimate personalization experience. We ask questions and offer views based on our own conceptions. We personalize our knowledge when we socialize” (Siemens…

    Conversations.1 Stills from a music video for The Hole Punch Generation (Gwen Vanhee/flickr.com)
  • E-mail is formal learning

    Technology has enabled new conversations across time and space. Yet e-mail, for example, has become a formal medium, subjected to some of the same rules of consensus that prevail in other formal spaces for dialogue. It can be argued that reading and responding to e-mail requires stopping our (other) work. We also have to figure out…

    Express (Darien Law/flickr.com)
  • Eureka

    If informal learning constitutes an important way in which we learn, adapt and grow, it is important to be able to describe when, where, and how such learning occurs. Only then can we determine how the organization might provide or improve an enabling environment. We can begin such a process by recalling “aha” moments of…

    S.S. Eureka, paddle steamer "Eureka" seen at the San Francisco Maritime Museum (Dave Wilson/flickr.com)
  • Learning habits

    What are the learning habits that we perform on a regular basis to stay current? As professionals, we organize our personal learning habits in different ways that reflect our interests, personalities, and career paths. We rely on a variety of information sources, engage in reading, attend seminars and conferences, or take MOOCs or other online courses. And,…

    10 habits (Audrey Low/flickr.com)
  • How do we solve problems in work?

    What do we do when we are confronted with a problem?  Problem solving begins when we encounter a new experience. We do this out of necessity, but also because we enjoy it. We also need to be able to solve problems fast. We develop our ability and willingness (including on a political level) to identify, analyze, and…

    Casse-tête (Frédérique Voisin-Demery/flickr.com)
  • The value of learning embedded in work

    Learning that is embedded into work resolves the dilemmas of (formal) learning that requires stopping work. What we learn as we work, we learn in order to apply, and such a learning process does not usually require dedicated resources. For those of us who see ourselves as “doers” and oppose our way of doing to…

    VIA VB7009 Embedded Board - Rear I/O (VIA Gallery/flickr.com)
  • Should we trust our intuition and instinct when we learn?

    How much of what we learn is through informal and incidental learning? When asked to reflect on where we learned (and continue to learn) what we need to do our work, we collectively come to an even split between our formal qualifications, our peers, and experience. As interaction with peers is gained in the workplace,…

    Smoke (Paul Bence/flickr.com)