I hear … and I forget
I see … and I remember
I do … and I understand
Ancient Chinese Proverb
Naturally this maxim predates findings about sense-based learning styles and multiple intelligences. Still, it is largely true that the surest way to know you’ve learned is to try your hand. One must learn by doing, Sophocles wrote; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty until you try. Actually we are action learners by disposition. For evidence, watch any child who is not warned off exploring. We naturally ask questions, structure investigations in pursuit of answers, and work with system, method and order.
Active Listening is a skill associated with Action Learning. Defined simply – that is, ignoring qualifying conditions such as emotional or technical complexity – you are listening actively if you can restate in your own words what someone else said and the speaker agrees you understood. It does not mean you agree or that the speaker was articulate; it means simply that you were paying attention. Active Listening helps improve communication during Action Learning projects.
The phrase 'Action Learning' was coined by Reg Revans (1907 – 2003), an Englishman working at the Coal Board in the late 1940s.
How much?
In a Harvard Business School blog, Chris Cappy, founder and CEO at Pilot Consulting who worked with Action Learning at GE and at IBM, writes that the essence of Action Learning is working through real problems, reviewing the results achieved and then analyzing the process by which you achieved these results. It is a structured process with four essential elements:
- Creating an experience that engages learners – something that stretches participants
- Debriefing the experience – reviewing the process and the results
- Generalising from results – identifying what happened and the implications for individuals and for the company
- Transferring lessons to the future – applying what’s learned to improving practice
Revans used the equation L=P + Q - learning (L) occurs through programmed knowledge (P) and insightful questioning (Q). He insisted that people learn more through questioning one another and developing answers to those questions within the group. He listed four major questions and three minor ones:
Major Questions
Where? Who? When? What?Minor Questions
Why? How many? How much?
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