14 December Advent: Learning context - learning situation

Understanding learning in practice: Reproductive, Productive and Creative learning

Based on the theories from for example Argyris and Schön (1986), Lars-Erik Ellström (1999) have elaborated three main types  of learning context/situation and we have elaborate it further concerning the focus on problem formulation, the fourth dimension of mutuality and the labelling of Learning by “Adjustment to Prestructured Certainty” vs “Developmental Learning/Uncertainty[1]”:

By this model we can discriminate our own contexts and situations. We are sincerely not

often in the reproductive learning situation, which we could call the extreme type of formal learning processes where the teacher or production manager formulate the problems/task, the goals, the methods for solution and thereby the results. More often we are in a productive learning situation which differs concerning the degree of prestructure by somebody else than the professional himself or the colleagues themselves.  But sincerely we are according to the “power theory of learning”, more often than we believe, in “Creative learning situations” since the professional him-/herself do have the power of doing her/his own initial formulation of the problem and by that it guides the continuing process. But all types from reproductive and productive to creative learning situations are still “a professional perspective on learning”. It does not enough stress, the mutuality lying potentially in learning. The mutuality do necessary include a client perspective, what can we learn from clients and the clients learning, during a process of support from a professional. When did you last reflect upon what you learnt from a client and checked for mutuality in problems, goals, methods and results?

 

Per Skoglund, project leader & Tone Engen Wegleiter, Specialpedagogiska Institutet, Sweden