Dear all - I originally posted this on 4 March but the list didn't accept
my email address. Apologies for lack of timing.
Dear Enda and Jeff
Thanks for your interesting postings. I agree Jeff, that Senge's work on
systems thinking is very valuable in understanding the complexity
surrounding issues and decisions we need to make in relation to those
issues. It's particularly valuable for developing systemic responses to
issues, instead of treating problems in isolation. I have used it a lot
and have taught my students many of his systems thinking tools, and have
found the students respond to it very well (and in turn use it in their
settings).
I saw another issue arising out of Enda's story. I hear the struggle of a
professional with expertise, whose experience has taught her that the
'rules' as outlined in formula and in text books, don't always apply. Enda
has learnt when the rules do and don't apply, and the nature of those
variations, and very likely even the reasons for those variations. She has
learnt to trust her practical knowledge gained over time, over the formal
knowledge of texts. Now her dilemma is 'how do I communicate all of these
inconsistencies to my students? All of the exceptions to the rule? How do
I communicate how I make those judgements?' Yet Enda knows that she
started with those formulae, with those texts.
The research on skill acquisition, primarily work of the Dreyfus brothers
(Mind Over Machine 1986) and Patricia Benner (From Novice to Expert 1984)
shows how learners move from being novice to being expert over time, and
what type of learning events they need to help them gain skill over
time. Enda, their research shows that novices need rules to help them to
take action, to gain the practical knowledge. Over time and through
practice they will learn when the rules don't apply. They will learn the
complexity of a situation. This is why your postgraduate students are
better able to cope with and understand the inconsistencies, the exceptions
to the rules - they are no longer novices and have the experiential
knowledge to do so.
The key activity needed to acquire skill, to progress from novice to expert
is REFLECTION. If you are able to design in practical activities where
they are able to reflect on what they've done and how it did or didn't
match with what they intended to do, then you are well on the way to
helping them to first acquire rules to gain experience, and second to learn
about how the formula 'live' beyond the text books. These activities
could be in class or perhaps make their assessment for the unit an action
research project where they implement what they are learning and reflect on
the outcomes of what they did. My students find action research projects
very, very beneficial to them.
To learn and integrate new knowledge into their prior knowledge your
students will need to challenge the extent to which their prior knowledge
helped them to do the task. They also need to think about the beliefs,
values and assumptions they used in doing the task, and whether they helped
or hindered them. The complexities will then be something they find
themselves, and you'll be there to talk through the meaning of it.
Good luck with your classes, they sound interesting. Our semester has
just started here in West Australia.
best wishes
Fiona
Fiona Scott
Lecturer
Graduate School of Education
University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway
Crawley WA 6009
Ph: (08) 9380 2419
Fax: (08) 9380 1052
The University of Western Australia: CRICOS Provider No. 00126G