adult education: scaffolding for adult learners working with learning to change

Dianne Allen Understanding Adult Education Assignment p.1

A Discussion Paper - Scaffolding for Adult Learners Working with Learning to Change

Discuss in more depth one of the issues addressed in this subject. You need to design a question around which you will focus your discussion. This may be based on one of the questions in the reader or it may be a question that has particular relevance to you, your work or your interests as an adult educator.

What is the best strategy for professional advancement and career satisfaction for someone working in learning and development in contemporary Australia? What kind of skills are likely to be most marketable?

A Discussion Paper - Scaffolding for Adult Learners Working with Learning to Change .................................1 Introductory Remarks......................................................................................................................................2 What is the Current Situation (Context) for 'someone working in learning and development in contemporary Australia'? ................................................................................................................................2 What kinds of skills are likely to be most marketable? ..................................................................................3 What might be the best strategies to .. ?:.........................................................................................................4

How does a person learn to read context, and to read context for change, and to read change for change of context and its implications?...................................................................................................................4 How does a person help another learn to read context, and to read context for change, and to read change for change of context and its implications? .................................................................................................5 But ...('Tis … a Puzzlement) .......................................................................................................................5 How then might we scaffold this kind of learning?.....................................................................................7

Summary and Implications for Postgraduate Studies in Adult Education.......................................................8 Bibliography..................................................................................................................................................10

Dianne Allen, 2003


Introductory Remarks

A current objective in my practice in adult education is to consider how I improve my practice. Recently,

participants in one of my learning activity facilitations provided feedback that the learning activity was not

well-scaffolded. In reflecting on that critique, and other indications that lack of appropriate scaffolding may

be a particular failing of my practice, I have been trying to think about what is involved in, and implied by

scaffolding, for adult learners, and especially for adult learners working with learning to change. The

material compiled for the study unit Understanding Adult Education and Training is designed to introduce

students of adult education to issues of their practice in adult education and training. Consequently, that

material touches on some aspects of change and learning in the milieu of change. In this discussion paper I

frame my preliminary explorations of scaffolding for adult learners working with learning to change in the

context of what might be 'the best strategy for professional advancement and career satisfaction for someone

to be working in learning and development in contemporary Australia.' I do this because those currently

working with learning and development are working with learning to change. I also choose to explore this

concern in this context, because one of the key aspects of learning to work with change involves learning to

recognise the role of context in such learning. In undertaking preliminary explorations I firstly consider what

might be involved in formulating 'the best strategy for professional advancement and career satisfaction for

someone to be working in learning and development in contemporary Australia.' I find that the answer

involves the learning necessary to be able to engage, effectively, with change. Then I ask myself what might

be a way to scaffold that kind of learning. In this preliminary exploration there are indications that work

done with change management and with action learning offers some clues to appropriate scaffolding in this

instance.

What is the Current Situation (Context) for 'someone working in learning and development in contemporary Australia'? For someone to be working in learning and development in contemporary Australia there is a need to be able

to engage with, and manage, adjustments to change (see (Johnson 2001), (Chappell 2000), (Australian

Association of Adult and Community Education (AAACE) 1992), (UNESCO 1997), (Alheit and Dausien

2002), (Payne 2001), (Burstall 2000)). Such change is coming from a number of sources. Australia is part

of the industrialised world, though a small player amongst nation states. As such it is impacted by the rapid

rate of change in technology, and changes stimulated by change in technology. At the individual level,

within a certain socio-economic range, Australians are known for their rapid uptake of technological

improvements, some of which flows into the workplace. On the technological front, and moving into the

economic realm, Australia is now impacted by global changes in a way that it has been protected from for a

significant period of its nationhood by government policy - both the restrictive migration policy and the

restrictive trade policy. Australia is now trying to compete in a world market economy. This has resulted in

significant changes in the last 20 or more years, to almost all work places, and to the nature of work. There


have been consequent changes for the learning associated with the capacity to undertake this change in work

and the work of change ((UNESCO 1997), (Alheit and Dausien 2002), (Payne 2001), (Johnson 2001),

(Chappell 2000)). The catch cries are: 'working smarter'; as well as 'structural', including 'enterprise',

efficiency. For a person 'working in learning and development in Australia', the changes that they need to be

able to recognise and respond to are occurring at a person level and within the organisational framework of

such work. They are experiencing it themselves, for themselves, as well as needing to be able to help others

manage different kinds of changes, but within the same dimensions - at the personal and the organisational

level.

What kinds of skills are likely to be most marketable? 1

How does a person engage with, and manage, change? One answer, indeed the fundamental answer in

human culture, is: by learning. Learning is the adaptive process by which humans engage with their

environment. Learning is the inbuilt flexibility to adapt to an environment and any change in that

environment (attributed to Kolb in (Foley 1995), and also (Bateson 1972)). Learning is in fact itself change,

and part of change. So learning to change involves learning to learn, and is a second-order process (Bateson

1972), (Argyris and Schon 1996). A person 'working in learning and development (in contemporary

Australia)' is then working with second-order processes, and expected to do so with greater facility and

flexibility than in the past.

As I understand second-order processes, the skills required to deal with second-order processes tend to be

generic skills, but operating at a deeper level. Bateson indicates that in learning, and learning to change, one

of the areas of information the learner needs to attend to, more intentionally, is context (Bateson 1966;

Bateson 1972). Context provides the cues that indicate to the attentive person that a different response,

change, is needed now. The effectively attentive person is the one who has learned that attention has to be

given to these contextual cues, as well as recognising which of these contextual cues are significant in calling

out a different response in order to be effective. So, to equip a person to engage as a professional in the area

of learning and development in contemporary Australia, involves equipping them to recognise that context is

of the essence (Johnson 2001). Further, they need to recognise that responsiveness to differences in context

is the key to the efficacy that leads to a sense of satisfaction (or agency as Argyris calls it (Argyris 1993)) that

in turn is likely to lead to professional advancement (ignoring the Peter principle for the moment!). To

1 (What kinds of skills are needed? Will those skills be marketable? If those skills are subtle, they will probably not be marketable, since it will involve the buyers comprehending the need for such skills. The buyers need such skills, but if the worker/s in L&D in Australia hasn't recognised them and/or hasn't been able to help others recognise them, and the need for them, they won't have been able to alert the buyers to the fact that there is a need for them, and so there may not be a market… One of the market responses is to recognise and buy performance, without worrying overly much about understanding or being able to enunciate its sources. So, a competent business manager will know that a certain kind of change is needed, and will be able to identify a worker who is currently delivering on that change. The competent business manager doesn't need to be able to enunciate what is needed, but they do know it when they see it. Similarly, the competent worker in learning and development who is able to deliver that change need not be able to enunciate what it is that is needed. In this case learning and development, to respond to change, happens - as a matter of 'art' rather than 'science'.)


attend, adequately, to context, in a way that yields conscious knowledge that can be seen to inform decision-

making, in my view, involves literacy/proficiency with the process of inquiry.

What might be the best strategies to .. ?:

How does a person learn to read context, and to read context for change, and to read change for change of context and its implications? Using my own life experience, and reflecting on it, and working with the logic of it, tells me that a person

learns how to read context and effective activity in that context, by:

• experiencing various contexts,

• taking actions in each context and

• reflecting on that experience and activity in each different kind of context

• reflecting at a level that is 'critical' - ie looking for the differences that are significant, and being able

to challenge taken for granted assumptions (Kressel 1997), (Toulmin, Rieke et al. 1984), (Mezirow

1991), (Brookfield 1995; Brookfield 1996)

• working at the kind of task that is the reflection-on-action that becomes the designing of a creative

adaptation (Schon 1983)

It also helps to have an educational experience that raises the issue of context and variety of context, in order

to discern in what way variations in context call out the necessity for change in response. Such an

educational experience will include tapping information of the experience of others with a variety of contexts,

and sharing how they are reflecting on that experience to show how they are reading context to inform their

effective actioning. Having learned that it is context that provides the cues to direct appropriate action, and

change of cues that suggests change of action, the next capacity that needs to be developed is the capacity to

read the context and its cues and the significant changes in cues that suggest change in action is required.

This 'reading' is a matter of undertaking inquiry, of being open to the need to be attentive to the particular, and

not to be captured by the routine. And since this inquiry is happening in the midst of change, it is a process

of continuous, in-practice inquiry that is needed. This reading by inquiry for human activity includes

developing a sense of history - the use of reflecting on experience in its chronological context as one of the

steps of identifying relationships between factors. This reading by inquiry is also part of the development of

one's sense of agency - having some mechanism for predicting relationships like cause-and-effect, especially

for design causality, and having enough confidence, in that reading, to act on it. The quality of the learning is

then assessed by the way in which it develops actionable knowledge. The assessment process involves

taking that intentional action, and is part of the ongoing process of continuing to learn about the context, and

changes in that context, especially changes wrought by taking action.


One of the strategies for professional advancement and career satisfaction will be putting oneself in the way

of such learning, for oneself.

How does a person help another learn to read context, and to read context for change, and to read change for change of context and its implications? How does one person help another to learn to learn, to learn to read context, to inquire in a way that leads to

meaningful change? If one is to do it intentionally, the first step is to know the nature of what it is that we

are trying to help. In this instance then, the second step is to establish a context in which the person being

helped can have the same sort of experience, as an educative experience. (Experiencing variety of context

and taking action in different contexts and reflecting on that experience and being open to hear about how

others are dealing with context difference including change.) The third step is to encourage them to engage

with the kind of inquiry about context and responsive action that keeps them open to the need for change, and

how to undertake effective change in the circumstances.

Another of the strategies for professional advancement and career satisfaction will be putting oneself in the

way of learning how to help others learn to engage with and manage change, and testing that learning by

doing it, oneself.

But ...('Tis … a Puzzlement)2 For learning to learn, and learning to inquire, as with other learning of generic skills, there are a number of

problems. The learning of generic skills begins early, at the moment of birth (if not before), and occurs by a

variety of mechanisms, including imitation and trial-and-error. The generic skills (of language and

communication on which other cognitive activities are based) are more than cognitive, and involve the

engagement of the whole person. Also, Gardner (p.xxii-xxiii) indicates that current 'constraints' research

suggests that early models of progressive, developmental, stages in cognitive learning is not as

straightforward as might be supposed (Gardner 1993), suggesting that some of our strategies relying on

constructivist process and assumptions may need review.

Further, while learning is the essence of adaptation, teaching can be considered to be the quintessence of

conservation. Whether we are talking about the teaching involved in acculturation, or socialisation, or

schooling, the process of inculcating learned understandings in the next generation of learners is in fact

handing down second hand clothes, or more accurately, second hand structures - meaning structures. It is the

yin of the yang. The paradox of these two activities and the tension between them, in the paradox, is often

overlooked.

2 The associative reference to Rodgers & Hammerstein's "The King and I" (1951) is intentional. I find Rodgers and Hammerstein's material, especially Hammerstein's lyrics, deal with many aspects of the need for transformative learning - learning to change, in change


Also, teaching can, if conducted in a certain way, hide the need for inquiry. Teaching involves one party

knowing, or having a certain quality of knowledge, for instance a structuring of explanation, or a structuring

of how to identify what information to attend to (data selection). Some teaching is designed to then impart

(reproducibly, replicably) that quality of knowledge to another. In doing so, both structure and selection

represent second-order views of the environment, of phenomena and experiences of interactions from/with the

environment of the learner including the learner/ learning teacher. The closer those structures represent

reality, the more difficult it will be for the learner to discern non-compliant detail, and so challenge the

inadequacies of the structure, and learn the necessity of critical thinking, and the kind of independent thinking

for oneself that is the touchstone of inquiry. The saving grace of the environment, life and development, is

that no teacher can know everything about everything, and the innate curiosity that leads to exploratory

behaviour (Lillard 1996) can take a learner into an area that for the teacher is unknown. Then the learner

needs to learn how to inquire, and find out for themselves.

For the learning needed to be able to engage with change, the difficulty is that we have learned to attend to

context and its cues by mechanisms that do not always include the open and the propositional. The context

can amount to the hidden agendas of each of the multiple social contexts we encounter, and we can learn to

adjust to them by imitation, by trial-and-error, without explicit expression of what is going on. Some inquiry

approaches prove to be far from adequate to the task of exploring what needs to be explored in these cases, to

unearth the implicit, to challenge some of the unspoken and uncritically accepted assumptions that frame the

understanding of context and its cues and effectiveness in that context.

Further, one of the lessons that need to be learned in order to engage with change is almost counter-cultural.

It is that context does matter, that the particulars are important. The present dominant tradition of generalised

universality that constitutes the objective, physical-world laws and predictability on the macro-scale, teaches

us to neglect the particular, or to control it in/by our inquiry techniques. The 'success' of that inquiry route, in

managing the physical-world, has been transferred, inappropriately, to the world of human affairs.

Also, we have learned that the process of attending to the particular takes time and effort. When we are

engaged with a peer with different particular experience, we recognise that what we learn, by spending the

necessary time to know the particular to be able to learn something from it, may mean we end up dealing with

something that is not relevant to our particulars. We can then learn to not waste time by going down that

track. This distances us, yet again, from recognising the value and gaining the necessary learning of working

with the particulars, especially of learning how to discern the significant in the differences in the particular.

We can only learn to how to discern the significant by experiencing the waste of time on the insignificant3.

3 This is part of the role of repetition, in learning, as understood by the phenomenographic analyses of learning Marton, F. and S. Booth (1997). Learning to Experience. Learning to Experience. Mahway, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: 137-165, Bowden, J. and F. Marton (1998). What does it take to learn? The university of learning: beyond quality and competence in Higher Education. J. Bowden and F. Marton. London, Kogan Page: 23-45, Marton, F. and K. Trigwell (2000). “Variatio est mater studorium.” Higher Education Research and Development 19(3): 381-395.


The current emphasis on the first-order change involved in procedural quality improvement exercises, and the

relatively immediate gains generated from such process also tends to postpone the need for second-order

learning, as well as upping the ante for the time required to undertake the second order learning. The first-

order learning, by comparison, is easier and quicker, and yields some results sooner.

How then might we scaffold this kind of learning? How then might we scaffold this kind of learning without exacerbating any of these problems? What is the

particular kind of scaffolding required in this context? Scott gives us some clues from his work on managing

change when he notes that effective change involves experiencing, and consciously living with, paradox4

(Scott 2000). Such a view resonates with the Bateson understanding about learning to change/ learning to

learn, and other explorers of creativity like (Koestler 1966), (DeBono 1991) and (Stevens 2003) and addresses

some of the reservations I have expressed above. Scaffolding in this situation will need to include having

some stability while experiencing change, having an internal and an external focus, having clear direction

while being flexible, and so on.

Further, it seems to me that the process of action learning (Pedler 1997) is one such form of scaffolding that I

know of that meets some of these criteria. It does this by providing for:

• Working with the particulars

• Focusing on actionable knowledge, in the particular circumstances, and helping the individual enunciate

how they understand those particulars to be operating

• Mobilising the particulars, and particular knowledge of peers, so that they are available for the problem

solving process

• Framing the experience as learning, and as learning to take an action, and in this way opening up the

experience to the process of effective inquiry, providing the participants are assisted to handle the

paradox of 'teaching' - that it is self-directed learning, and self-assessed learning, that the experience of

others is helpful, by raising alternatives, by helping focus on significant particulars

4 I still need to see the full quote to remind me of all that this might entail: p.187 "The change management approach which has been found to best account for the complexity .. involves not taking an either/or position but combining apparently paradoxical tactics. These include the adoption of: • top-down and bottom-up strategies • an internal and external focus • pan-institutional developments and uniquely local ones • clear direction and flexibility • stability and change • enhancement and innovation • learning program changes and milieu enhancements • attention to learning program change and associated administrative/support system change • an emphasis on implementation support as well as development support • attention to resistors and enthusiasts"


Summary and Implications for Postgraduate Studies in Adult Education I have indicated that to be able to operate as an effective professional in learning and development in today's

milieu, requires the capacity to learn to deal with change. Further, effective professional capacity in learning

to deal with change involves having a demonstrable capacity to learn to change for oneself, as well as

knowing what is involved, and knowing that in a way that includes knowing how to help another to do it. In

addition, I have indicated that learning to change requires an effective inquiry process, one that can operate at

the level required to develop second-order learning. The inquiry will be focusing on the cues in context that

signify critical elements of the change that needs to be adapted to, and identifying what learning is required to

make that adaptation. In the case of assisting others to learn these generic processes, such assistance requires

an approach to scaffolding which needs to be aware of the capacity of scaffolding to be counter-productive in

this instance.

The scaffolding needed to help adults learn to change, a necessary skill in today's world, involves generating

contexts that encourage the adult to exercise an inquiry process that helps them identify cues in context that

suggest difference, and change, for themselves. They also need a process that allows them to tap the

resources of variation available from others' reflective experience. Finally, they need an environment where

experimenting and playing with different actions is a part of the ongoing attention to change-of-context, in-

context. Such an environment will include the liberty and encouragement to be innovative and adventurous,

and especially to be able to engage in the learning available from 'mistakes' - the information available from

different actions that do not work. Some of this can be available in a formal learning context. It will be

more powerful if it is also/rather available in the context of one's normal work and life. Making that

available is part of the learner's responsibility, accomplished by acting as if it is available, something which is

sometimes counter-cultural, or paradoxical.

Looking at the UTS' masters studies for adult education indicates that most of these components that can be

available in a formal course (and not all can), for a range of learners (from a variety of contexts, at a variety of

stages of adult development), are available. I wonder:

• Is there more that could be done in terms of helping the adult identify their readiness for some of the

learning of generic processes at the deeper level?

• Can there be more focus on:

• the development of self-awareness, and self-awareness about one's own practice

• the development of an understanding of the nature of the shift from learning in the dependent,

structured mode that is one of the learning paradigms, to learning that is self-directed, self-assessed,

demonstrating more reliance on inquiry, and encouraging more innovativeness in action


• the development of awareness of ongoing change, and the need to remain in contact with change in

self and change in context, and the possibility of the interrelation and interactivity of change

between the internals of self and the externals of environment?

I find myself coming back to a position where I was when undertaking studies in Dispute Resolution in 1998

(Allen 1998). Can there be an elective unit for doing more focused work on case study of one's own

practice? And can it be scaffolded in away that allows some mechanism for doing it in the company of

others' engaging in case study work on their own practice? One way would be to have an elective unit

structured as an action learning set process. Another way would be to develop a more formal and in-depth

case study approach to one's own practice as a 'majoring' focus of studies. I call this second approach

'reflective research of practice'. I can conceive that this second approach could be of the order of 24+ credit

points, and be a progressive event over the life of the whole degree. The first round of descriptive and

reflective work of the personal case study would be done in the early part of the degree. The second level of

engagement would involve recording the interaction of practitioner thinking about the practice in the light of

peer experience of the literature and of other forms of peer experience expression (eg action learning set).

The third round of activity with the case study of practice would involve explicating a design of change in

action in order to improve practice in some intentional way, and then enact it. The final report on the

personal case study, including reflecting on, and self-assessing the whole process, would be the final unit of

the degree. Material developed in response to course assessment requirements along the way in other

electives could also be encouraged to contribute to that final report, by way of appendices. I can see that

such a process could be delivered by 'tweaking' 013332, 013348, 013349, and the Independent Projects

013356 and 013357, especially if it were identified as case study of own practice. It would need some

'supervisory' process to help support the integration over the extended time. It would also need to be

supported by occasional workshops with reporting progress with the case study work and findings to date, to

and amongst peers.


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