Building Learning Cultures: Learning

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Building Learning Cultures Learning Thriving
in Risk Society

• Professor Bob Fryer CBE
• National Director Widening Participation in
  Learning
• Department of Health
• Bob.Fryer _at_dh.gsi.gov.uk

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Living in an era of profound widespread social
cultural change

• Changes in social, political cultural
  institutions (Family, Politics, Consumption etc)
• Restructuring of work, employment industry
• Shifts in personal group identities
  aspirations
• A growing tendency for choice
• An information knowledge revolution
• Changing technologies
• Greater localism within globalisation
• Social fragmentation division
• New forms expressions of citizenship

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Turbo Capitalism an Age of Uncertainty
Insecurity?

• No jobs are guaranteed, no positions are
  foolproof, no skills are of lasting utility,
  experience and know-how turn into liability as
  soon as they become assets, seductive careers all
  too often prove to be suicide tracks. In their
  present rendering, human rights do not entail the
  acquisition of a right to a job, however well
  performed , or - more generally - the right to
  care and consideration for the sake of past
  merits. Livelihood, social position,
  acknowledgement of usefulness and the entitlement
  to self-dignity may all vanish together,
  overnight and without notice.

Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodernity its Discontents,
page 22
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Towards Risk Society (Beck)
Ubiquitous Change
Unreliability
Uncertainty
Risk Society
Unpredictability
Un-sustainability
Fuzzy Boundaries
Choice
Beyond Conventions, Rules Structures
Multiple Contested Information Knowledge
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Living at the Crossroads - Bauman

• The overwhelming feelings of crisis (in
  education), of living at the crossroads, have
  little to do with the faults, errors or
  negligence of the professional pedagogues or the
  failures of educational theory, but quite a lot
  to do with the de-regulation and privatization of
  the identity-formation processes, the dispersal
  of authorities , the polyphony of value messages
  and the ensuring fragmentation of life Beyond
  all this slicing and spicing, one can sense the
  crumbling of time. (Crisis) plays havoc with all
  the rules the fragmentary life is lived in
  fragmentary time.
• Zygmunt Bauman, The Individualized Society, 2001

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The Core Purposes of Learning

• According to the celebrated Delors Commission on
  Lifelong Learning, The Treasure Within, they are
  fourfold
• Learning to Know (learning to learn, general
  knowledge understanding)
• Learning to Do (skills, competence, practical
  ability in a variety of settings)
• Learning to Live Together (tolerance, mutual
  understanding, interdependence)
• Learning to Be (personal autonomy
  responsibility, memory, aesthetics, ethics,
  communication physical capacity)

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Endorsement of the value of learning from
business leaders

• Our behavior is driven by a fundamental core
  belief The desire and ability of an organization
  to continuously learn from any source and to
  rapidly covert this learning into action is its
  ultimate competitive advantage.
• Jack Welch, CEO General Electric

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What do we mean by learning cultures?

• Learning is woven into life, work community
  engagement
• Learning takes many forms formal informal,
  explicit tacit, certificated or not
• Everyone is involved in learning
• Learning learning opportunities are ubiquitous
• Learning learners are well supported
• Learning increases self-esteem well-being
• Learning brings rewards progression
• Learning is endorsed by all organisational
  societal signs, symbols, myths, emblems,
  representations material character
• Learning is normal around here

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Why do organisations employers want to develop
learning cultures at work?

• Very elusive slippery concept, often sloppily
  deployed. But such cultures are said to
• Secure or maintain competitive advantage
• Recruit, retain motivate staff
• Promote key organisational knowledge, skills,
  attitudes behaviour
• Underpin organisational values priorities
• Inspire creativity, innovation enterprise
• Drive respond to change
• Are not judgemental about failure, but learn
  from it
• Link learning to effective action
  implementation

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Advantages of work-based learning to
organisations employers

• Motivated engaged staff
• Facilitate workforce flexibility
• Breaks out of the inherent limitations of formal
  educational settings
• Recognises informal learning tacit knowledge
• Modern ways of managing people, in tune with
  times
• Serve as a basis for employee appraisal
  assessment of performance
• Learning drives innovation change
• Recognise the centrality of knowledge gain
  knowledge advantage in organisations
• Learning contributes to the bottom line
  competitive advantage

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The importance of critical reflection in
effective learning

• Critical action has to be accompanied by
  critical thought, interpretation insight.
• When critical thought, the critical self
  critical action come together, we are in the
  presence of critical persons (who) can come about
  only through the critical company of other
  critical persons.
• Notions of the learning organisation have to be
  seen as efforts to articulate a sense of
  critique
• The world of work of work understandably shrinks
  from spelling it all out, if it did it would have
  to understand that there can be no limits to
  critique.
• Ronald Barnett, Higher education a Critical
  Business

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The seductive attractive notion of a learning
space e-portfolios as a paradigmatic example

• By facilitating capturing the evolution of
  concepts ideas through revisions of work
  interactions with instructors, mentors,
  classmates friends, electronic portfolios can
  be much more than a Web site that simply
  organizes and presents final projects. They can
  foster learning spaces where the author can gain
  insights a better understanding of him/herself
  as a learner

Source eportconsortium, Electronic Portfolio
White Paper
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Raymond Williams three vital functions of
learning in periods of rapid widespread social
change

• For Making Sense of Change - Information, ideas,
  knowledge, concepts, understandings, insights,
  theories, a critical challenging mind
• For Adapting to Change - Maximising benefits
  minimising costs, making the most of change,
  capturing applying knowledge
• For Shaping Change - As authors of change rather
  than its Victims, navigating risk uncertainty,
  at the heart of citizenship for the 20th century
  the democratic project

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Current or recent participation in UK adult
learning 1996 -2004 by social class
Source Niace
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UK Employees Receiving Job-related Training in
Last Month by Occupation Location of Training
Source DfES
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Towards tertiary learning

• The world in which post-modern men and women
  need to live their lives and shape their life
  strategies puts a premium on tertiary learning
  - a kind of learning which our inherited
  institutions, born and matured in the modern
  ordering bustle are ill prepared to handle and
  one which educational theory, developed as a
  reflection of modern ambitions and their
  institutional embodiments, can only view with a
  mixture of bewilderment and horror, a
  pathological growth or a portent of advancing
  schizophrenia.
• Source Bauman, op. cit.

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An emergent model of learning
Source Jarvis 2001
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From mass production to personalisation
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Personalised learning learners needs
Personal, pastoral, motivational developmental
Learners needs, sociabilities interactions
Place/space
Time/pace
Academic, pedagogic, content technical support
Administrative, financial organisational support
Resources, facilities technologies
Lifestyles, cultures work-life balances
Learning outcomes credit
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Only the well educated will be able to act
effectively in the Information Society.

• The key to the Learning Society is to seek the
  learning potential in everyday situations.A
  learning culture must, after all mean finding
  learning in the most unlikely places.
• Michael Barber, The Learning Game

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The Learning Citizen for the 21st Century

• High levels of technical skills competences
• Curious, inquisitive eager to explore
• Creative, inventive innovative
• Knowing how to know - having learned how to
  learn
• Critical analytical thinker - including
  auto-critique
• Skills to shuffle back forth between ideas
  concepts and data, evidence experience
• Confident able to sift, evaluate, review
  synthesise
• Tolerant of difference- open to the experiences
  perspectives of others
• A sense of both self society both independent
  cooperative
• Both learner teacher
• Comfortable with own identity, with confidence
  self-esteem