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Dear Charles:

I teach in an undergraduate program on the east coast of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region></st1:place>.  My field of interest is entrepreneurship but I teach a core first year fall and winter class in organizational issues where   present a topic entitled "Practical Strategies for Learning How to learn" that walks through topics like cognition (Pinker, 1997; Wiig, 1993), the revision to Bloom's taxonomy which had both a knowledge dimension and a cognitive process dimension (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001), organizational learning (Senge, 1994), a brief comment on the "Knowing Doing Gap" (Pfeffer & Sutton, 1999),  a discussion of personal efficacy (Bandura, 1995; Zimmerman, 1995), the adoption of Problem Based Learning Strategies by our medical school,  and finally a discussion of expertise enhancement (Dreyfus, Dreyfus, & Athanasiou, 1986; Mitchell, 1994; Mitchell, 1995).   I am the father of eight children three of whom have now graduated from university.  It seems to me a key management topic is knowledge acquisition, retention and sharing.

As managers/instructors we need to appreciate the affective dimensions of learning (Gronlund, 2004; Smith & Ragan, 2004):

Attitude toward Learning –learning needs to be positioned as a core competency

Academic Self-Concept – this is an efficacy issue and can be addressed by understanding that enhanced efficacy/self concept leads to higher level of persistence.  Provision of appropriate learning strategies will help.

Attribution of Success (Locus of Control)- the learner needs to assume responsibility for their learning, create a strong internal locus of control.  By enhancing learning strategies learners can learn what they want to learn when they want to learn it.

Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.). (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Abridged Edition).New York: Longman.

Bandura, A. (1995). Exercise of personal and collective efficacy in changing societies. In A. Bandura (Ed.), Self-Efficacy in Changing Societies (pp. 45). Cambridge UK: Press Syndicate University of Cambridge.

Dreyfus, H. L., Dreyfus, S. E., & Athanasiou, T. (1986). Mind over Machine: The Power of Human Intuition and Expertise in the Era of the Computer.New York: The Free Press.

Gronlund, N. E. (2004). Writing Instructional Objectives for Teaching and Assessment (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River NJ: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.

Mitchell, R. K. (1994). The Composition, Classification, and Creation of New Venture Formation Expertise. The University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

Mitchell, R. K. (1995). Enhancing entrepreneurial expertise: Experiential pedagogy and the entrepreneurial expert script. Simulation & Gaming, 26(3), 288-306.

Pfeffer, J., & Sutton, R. (1999). The Knowing Doing Gap: How smart companies turn knowledge into action.Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Pinker, S. (1997). How the mind works.New York NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Senge, P. (1994). The Fifth Discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization:Currency/Doubleday.

Smith, P. L., & Ragan, T. J. (2004). Instructional Design (2nd ed.). New York NY: John Wiley & Sons.

Wiig, K. (1993). Knowledge management foundations: Thinking about thinking - How people and organizations create, represent, and use knowledge.Arlington TX: Schema Press.

Zimmerman, B. J. (1995). Self Efficacy and Educational Development. In A. Bandura (Ed.), Self-Efficacy in Changing Societies (pp. 45). Cambridge UK: Press Syndicate University of Cambridge.

Best,

Ed