Relating to my previous post and Louise’s and Jim’s comments:
@Louise Yes, I see your points – It’d be extremely hard to translate these skills to short-term measurable, observable learning outcomes. The notion of becoming remains a bit obscure. That’s why a different perspective, a shift of lens and frame of reference is often needed, to go beyond the short-term measurable, observable learning outcomes. Sometimes, the learning outcomes could be either too complex, or too simplistic that we don’t even understand how they would help learners in learning. Rote learning, testing may reveal to learners that they are 100% right, and have achieved the learning outcomes. However, what happens when the learning landscape has changed, which is often the case when learners have completed a course, joined the business, and finding that they have to start learning again, as what may be required at work is not “text book” knowledge, or mere declarative knowledge, but “procedural knowledge” and conceptual knowledge, critical thinking, digital literacies (technology, media etc.), and social and emotional intelligence etc. These are all part of the becoming in learning, in the enculturation in the community and organisation, and thus not just learning by atomising the units of competency. This relates back to a reductionist approach to learning, in traditional education, where we believe a breakdown of those skills would help us in learning. We may be able to assess individual units of competency, but what happens if these units of competency are changing so rapidly that they soon become out of date. Are we going to assess continuously, with ever changing units of competency? Who would then be competent? How to design such assessment metrics? In informal learning where emergent learning occurs, this could be challenging for formal institutions.
@Jim What do you mean by parallel parking?
John
Learner Weblog 