Curiouser and Curiouser! on learning

To teach is to learn

Thu, 22 Aug 2002 18:32:43 +0100

Follow-up thinking from previous post.

Sometimes I catch myself wishing to do some kind of teaching (training, coaching). Although Im in research now, previous few years of helping others to learn has impacted me badly. I miss it, and I use any opportunity to do it even as an extra workload.

I was curious about a driving force behind it. I thought about this energy and excitement I get when people are growing with my help, but this was not explaining the whole. Now it gets clear: this is my own way to learn. It also explains why Im not so eager to give the same course more than three times: probably this is enough to understand.

I wonder what connections exist between learning and teaching, or, in KM context, between learning and sharing. Are those who dare to share and eager to learn are the same people? Are these two sides of the same coin? May be its a coincidence in my case :-)

[Mathemagenic]

» What an excellent question: "What connections exist between learning and teaching?"

To sides of the same coin? Not sure. Rather I see that when you care about teaching something to someone you make a commitment that requires deep understanding to fulfil. The act of committing to teaching is the act of committing to understanding, to learning.

As an example Stephen Covey advises everyone who wants to learn about the 7 habits of highly effective people to begin teaching it within 24 hours of starting to learn. Of course I had no-one to hand so I had to use my cats. Have you ever tried teaching a cat to "Think win-win"? Go on, I dare you!

Maybe this is why I find the 7-habits so hard...

Can teach. Won't teach.

Thu, 22 Aug 2002 22:16:14 +0100

Learning, sharing, and doing both.

... I wonder what connections exist between learning and teaching, or, in KM context, between learning and sharing. Are those who dare to share and eager to learn are the same people? Are these two sides of the same coin? May be its a coincidence in my case :-) [Mathemagenic]

I believe that all sharers are learners. However from my experience there are perhaps five to ten times more people who can learn but won't teach than there are people who'll do both. The implication would be that you can only klog 10-20% of an organization. But watch the generation of kids who are going to grow up with the medium.

[Seb's Open Research]

» I'd be interested in any conjecture about the, possibly many, reasons why those people won't teach?

e-mail and virtual learning environments (why its a bad idea)

Mon, 09 Sep 2002 18:35:34 +0100

DM Review: The Intelligence in E-Mail: Are You Ready to Listen?. Quote: "It is becoming more clear that when one tries to make a CRM system do everything (ERP, data warehousing, e-mail management, billing, telephony, chat, etc.), one gets something that does nothing well. This realization is leading to unification of data, but specialization of channel."

Comment: We're about to embark on a fairly significant e-mail project - giving all classes a listserv - and managing the knowledge generated will be a trick. I know the impulse will be not to keep archives and to lock them away if created. Also to make the lists instructor-distribution only. [Serious Instructional Technology]

» A few years ago I was involved in a virtual school project. Although I would not call it a success per se, it had many successes and we learned a lot.

My reason for dredging this up is that one of our bedrock principles was that email was part of the problem. At the time there were growing voices suggesting email as the solution to all our woes. A good example was student submission of coursework. This struck us as particularly crazy given the problems people were already having managing their email (especially lecturers) and the lack of any solution for managing email.

Here is an example of where this can easily go wrong:

"You failed because you didn't do the coursework"

"But I submitted my coursework in the e-mail"

"No you didn't"

"I did it was attached to the e-mail I sent you"

"There was an attachment but it was empty."

"But the file was in there"

Who is in the right here? Is this an honest student, victim of a mistake, or someone trying to pull a fast one.

The solution we ended up recommending was based upon Livelink a web-based knowledge (content) management system. In particular we were interested in whether we could implement workflow to manage a number of the complex problems in this space (the answer was no we could not for reasons more complicated than I want to go into here).

However the approach was right. It gave us:

Web based
Secure
Workspace based metaphor [in particular the personal workspace which we hoped would address the need to build a student profile]
Discussion forums with e-mail integration
News channels
Full-text searching of everything
Document management
Integrated workflow
Scalable to tens of thousands of users
Scriptable at the back end (if you were a very patient person)

These kinds of features were what we were looking for to address the concerns of building a virtual learning environment for real.

Okay long pointless ramble over...

Teach metaknowledge instead of knowledge?

Mon, 09 Sep 2002 21:10:33 +0100

The concept of formative assessment. Boston, Carol.

Quote: "In addition to these classroom techniques, tests and homework can be used formatively if teachers analyze where students are in their learning and provide specific, focused feedback regarding performance and ways to improve it. Black and Wiliam (1998b) make the following recommendations:

Frequent short tests are better than infrequent long ones.
New learning should be tested within about a week of first exposure.
Be mindful of the quality of test items and work with other teachers and outside sources to collect good ones."

[Serious Instructional Technology]

» These all sound like good ideas. I guess the 2nd one should be "New learning should be tested within about 24hrs of first exposure" if you really want people to score well.

And that in a roundabout way made me question: What is the value of my education.

I have a degree in Computing & Mathematics and yet I can remember practically nothing about the math I learned and I don't remember learning any computing. I guess I was tested reasonably regularly (at least once a year) and passed them. But what was the value of all of that?

If I had been heading for a career as a research scientist I could probably answer that question. For almost any other job my degree syllabus was no more useful than a decent reference book and the ability to learn.

What would be the effect if, instead of teaching knowledge, we tought metaknowledge for 3 years:

How to learn 101

Introductory social networking

Advanced collaboration

Social capital for beginnings

Communities 200

and then handed you a copy of Google on your way out the door?

Learning for yourself or the company (or in my case both)

Tue, 17 Sep 2002 19:27:33 +0100

Learning for yourself, or for the company?. In her introduction, Janice Reid raises an interesting point about what happens if you focus too much on learning about the company you work for. I'll let Janet's words explain.

One thing that I've learnt recently is that there's a limit to what one's learning when working with a corporate. After a couple of years you start to capture more about the company, rather than building your own functional knowledge. You create a personal database of information which is very valuable to your work colleagues, but worthless to you once you move on. In hindsight I would recommend 'job hopping' in order to develop your personal knowledge of different environments, ways of doing things, attitudes etc, rather than a prolonged period at any one firm, even if you are frequently changing roles.

[thought?horizon] [Seb's Open Research]

One more characteristic of knowledge workers - they go to find more learning. Would be interesting to study how knowledge workers work and what motivates them next to how one becomes a knowledge worker.

[Mathemagenic]

» A strong motivator in wanting out of my last job was that I'd reached the point where I wasn't learning anything new. A strong motivator for starting my own company was that it put me on a path of constant learning (and how!) Now I have the best of both worlds I am learning for myself and for my company at the same time.

When my company grows to the point that I take on staff one of the things that will be most important to me is to ensure that we create, together, a learning culture. I've experienced it before so hopefully I'll know it when we hit on the right formula.

Example: In a previous company my manager used to like to ensure, when we weren't in fire-fighting mode, that we always had some time to persue our own interests and follow things that weren't strictly on the critical path. Quite often we would later discover that these topics came up, centre stage (Windows NT, Java and LDAP are cases that spring to mind) but I don't think that was really the point. He was interested in us, and letting us grow.

Apart from the obvious potential benefits of learning, and of potentially discovering new things before they become important, I believe this to be a great way to motivate without acting. I also think that, as an employer, it pays you back fourfold in psychic dividends. But it does require flexibility, a long term view and courage (to take the flak from those above who still believe in 100% efficiency).

A personal manifesto for growth

Tue, 08 Oct 2002 09:58:36 +0100

Manifesto for Growth

via Absolute One:

Allow events to change you
Forget about good
process is more important than outcome
love your experiments like ugly children
go deep
capture accidents
study
drift
begin anywhere
everyone is a leader
harvest ideas, edit applications
keep moving
slow down
don't be cool (cool is conservative fear, dressed in black)
ask stupid questions
collaborate
an image which email won't replicate
Allow space for ideas you haven't had yet
Stay up late
Work the metaphor
time is genetic
repeat yourself
make your own tools
stand on someone's shoulders
avoid software (everyone has it)
don't clean your desk
don't enter awards (its bad for you)
creativity is not device dependent
organisation is liberty
don't borrow money
listen carefully
take field trips
imitate
make mistakes faster
scat (break it, stretch it, crack it, fold it)
explore the other edge
coffee breaks, cab rides, ream (?) rooms
avoid fields, jump fences
laugh
remember
power to the people

[via NotExactly] [via Sebs Open Research] [via The Universal Church Of Cosmic Uncertainty]

» Thought provoking list. I would add:

always write it down

listen to lots of good music

seek first to understand, then to be understood

review often

ride change

go do something different instead

...

Nonaka's knowledge transfer patterns

Sun, 13 Oct 2002 20:42:41 +0100

Nonaka and technology. Last week, I ended a blog entry with the question, "Do current collaboration tools effectively facilitate Nonaka's four patterns of knowledge creation?" [Kumquat's Musings]

» Unfortunately I haven't found a reference to the Nonaka paper on-line. Nevertheless Andy's summary is interesting. Nonaka, he say's, identifies four interaction patterns that describe how knowledge is created/transferred in a company.

Tacit - Tacit (knowledge transfer by socialization)
Explicit - Explicit (formal and systematic, e.g. RTFM)
Tacit - Explicit (someone documenting their knowledge, e.g. a weblog posting)
Explicit - Tacit (as people read formal documentation it becomes, over time, part of their greater understanding)

Since tacit knowledge is, by and large, hardest to come by that makes capturing it the more interesting problem.

The question in my mind is:

How important do most companies think it is to capture tacit knowledge?

It seems to me that it is only those organizations that see themselves as learning organizations are interested in this sort of stuff and willing to invest time and money in it. I need to find people who see the capture & transfer of knowledge as bottom-line activities.

I haven't come across too many organisations like that. Oh well, networking is a major part of my Get Clients Now! program for the coming month. If there out there I'm going to try and find them.

[The Marwick article referred to in the posting looks very interesting]

People still use Lisp!?!

Fri, 31 Jan 2003 09:57:26 +0000

Language of the year.

The Pragmatic Programmer suggests learning a new programming language (at least) once per year. Specifically, you should learn a language that changes the way you think about things - learning C# if you know Java doesn't count.[Joe's Jelly]

I've been debating this myself. My problem is that I try to learn about three languages a year, hence, 6 years after I first started learning Python, I haven't done anything useful with it. And that's part of learning a language; it doesn't do you any good to just read the book, you've got to do something with it. So I'm conciously trying to limit myself this year. I've already decided that my new book buying this year is done: I've got The Python Cookbook, ANSI Common Lisp, and How To Design Programs. That I'm limiting myself to those 3 probably explains my problem. However, given the list, it's likely that the language of the year will be Python, Scheme, or Lisp. Python is probably the most practical, and I already have a passing familiarity. I started learning some Scheme last year so I've got a bit of a head start there. But I read the first 2 chapters of ANSI Common Lisp on Paul Graham's website, and half the 3rd chapter as previewed on Amazon, and I have to say that Paul got me excited about learning a new language for the first time in a long time. [Gordon Weakliem's Radio Weblog]

I too have been on the brink of adopting Python. I've crossed it's path a few times and been intrigued. I wish Radio used Python instead of Usertalk, you'd think that with an Outliner as the built-in programming editor Radio would be an ideal home for Python scripting. It'll never happen though.

So Python was looking good. Then I made the mistake of reading Chap 1 of "ANSI Common Lisp" and I have to say I'm hooked. Guess I'll be looking for a good Windows based LISP implementation. Any recommendations?

Faculty on the Floor

Tue, 25 Feb 2003 13:26:57 +0000

Matt Mower asks:

"How do you bring knowledge management to people who do not see knowledge as part of their job?

For example the workers in a process plant. There is knowledge all around them and embedded in the work that they do. How, in practical terms, to do you make them knowledge workers?"

One of the companies in the UK who have embedded KM into a nuts and bolts business is Unipart, which operates in the automotive components and logistics industry. At their head office in Oxford, you're confronted by the Unipart U and various learning facilities before you even get to reception. They also take the Unipart U and put it onto the shop floor where it is immediately available to production workers who need training for the task they're doing right now, who want to learn or share best practices, or who want to discuss issues with colleagues via the web and videoconferencing. Their approach is about "learning at 10:00am and doing at 11:00am". They call this the Faculty on the Floor.

Take a look at their introduction to what they're doing. If you want more information, try contacting Unipart Advanced Learning Systems and talk to some people who enthuse about knowledge workers within production processes with real passion and understanding.

[Making Connections]

I was asking yesterday about how to make KM work with people who do not see themselves as knowledge workers.

My thanks to Simon for providing a spot on example of a production business who seem to be doing something about making KM work. I especially loved the "learning at 10:00am and doing at 11:00am" idea.

Contexts for Business Journalling

Fri, 28 Feb 2003 12:32:54 +0000

David Buchan has prompted me to think a bit harder about the contextual problems faced by business journalling.

I think that there are at least two problems which we must solve for business journalling to be a widespread success. I'd be interested in hearing about other problems people have specifically identified.

The first problem is what I would describe as: knowledge as a separate activity and the second as lacking a voice. I think that the solution to both of these problems lies in finding contexts that enable people to journal more easily.

Knowledge as a separate activity

Some of my underlying assumptions about people at work are:

most people do not love their job in the way that I (and other seeming KM enthusiasts) do
most people do not see themselves as knowledge workers (especially those who are not desk bound and do not deal primarily with electronic info and, or, paper)
most people have a view that learning is a discrete activity (we learn in a class-room during specified period, then go out and get on with the rest of our lives)

I think there is an "awakening" process that must happen before you begin to see how knowledge & learning are intertwined into everything you do. Until then, I think that they are considered to be separate activities practiced in specific contexts (e.g. I am going on a training course).

For the unawakened I think that a business journal is a big blank page that is quite scary and you need to be pretty bold to venture off without a map. In these times of "Axes in the corridor" boldness isn't the first thing on everyone's mind.

I think the answer lies in finding contexts which are less threatening and lead people to consider knowledge more often in their day and think about how knowledge affects everything they do. I hope to tie business journalling to these contexts in the hope that I will have more success with my clients that way.

Lacking a voice

I think most people are conditioned to not say anything they don't have to.

In school we are taught to be silent and only speak when questioned directly by an authority figure. This process of conditioning is continued right the way through education and into work. Hierarchies support this type of behaviour.

Business journalling turns this don't speak until your spoken to ideology on it's head. Now you're given a blank page and told to say whatever you think you should say (within limits). I think that the evidence so far supports the conclusion that people are not comfortable with that.

Drawing on my own experience I found beginning to blog was a challenge, i found myself afraid - not knowing what to say next. I persevered, I think, because I have always wanted a voice: I dislike authority and am opinionated. I don't necessarily think everyone else has the same drivers. I'm also cognizant that, when I started, there was no axe that could fall. I wasn't worried about saying the wrong thing, or having my words used against me. I think these are common worries for anyone speaking up (regardless of the medium).

Once again I think the answer is to look for contexts where people already think it's alright to voice their opinions and to leverage these contexts for business journalling success.

Contexts

As I mentioned in a recent post I think that two likely candidates are After Action Reviews and Communities of Practice.

The After Action Review (AAR) is a technique that compares actual results of a task or project with the expected results. The aim being to identify strengths and weaknesses and help teams to bond together and improve performance.

Don Clark gives an excellent summary of the process and some of it's benefits. From that I have highlighted some of the questions & talking points a good AAR should raise:

Ask why certain actions were taken
Ask how they reacted to certain situations
Ask when actions were initiated
Ask leading and thought provoking questions
Exchange "war stories" (lessons learned)
Ask employees what happened in their own point of view
Relate events to subsequent results
Explore alternative courses of actions that might have been more effective
Complaints are handled positively
When the discussion turns to errors made, emphasize the positive and point out the difficulties of making tough decisions.

These sound to me like fantastic material for building a business journal.

The second context that I think could be very useful is the Community of Practice. I don't want to write too much about these here because they're a big topic and I'm not an expert. However one of the definitions given on the page I cite above is groups that learn. In my mind, groups that learn by doing - not as a separate activity.

Within a CoP people have a context in which they can ask questions, share knowledge, raise awareness and it may be that a business journal will seem a more natural place in which to do that. Hopefully also within a CoP members can develop the levels of trust and respect that are required for any collaborative effort to be successful.

Conclusion

For me, all this leads towards a concrete realisation that business journalling cannot stand in isolation. That it is not a solution, but, part of a solution that has to involve contexts which complement it's strengths. It may be that After Action Review's and Communities of Practice may be good choices, time will tell.

However this also means that, in order to bring business journalling into an organisation requires that they have either already established programs such as AAR, or you have to introduce those at the same time. This sounds like a daunting prospect. Any AAR experts out there?

A few points to bear in mind:

I've highlighted business journalling throughout the text to emphasize my use of the term where I might normalling say k-logging. I'm open to better terms but I'm going to try and use this until someone comes up with one.
I'm making a lot of assumptions. Please challenge them. I'm trying to keep to the philosophy of "strong opinions, weakly held" and avoid becoming dogmatic about something so new and unproven.
I don't think I'm identifying anything new here. I think this is these are formulations of the same problems people have been wrestling with since KM acknowledged that it wasn't a purely technical issue. What is new is that I'm beginning to understand these issues better - your milage may vary ;-)

I'm also looking forward to hearing other peoples ideas for contexts for business journalling.

Scattershot learning

Thu, 11 May 2006 15:18:06 +0100

From Pauls tips comes a 6-step program for learning any difficult subject. It's a somewhat scattershot process and appeals to me because it is, more or less, how I approach the problem myself: fast paced immersion in a broad subset of the topic with regular breaks to give my brain a chance to cool down. I've noticed the breaks get a little longer and more frequent every year ;-)