[Miscellaneous notes]
Managing change in complex, systemic situations, with uncertainty and the unpredictability of human activity, requires an interactive social learning approach (OU, 2010, pp. 99-100). A social learning system is a system with an “associated purpose of learning” (OU, 2010, p. 104). The aim is to create “learning systems” for “continuing transformation” (Schön, 1973, in Blackmore, 2010, p. xi). Learning is a “fundamentally social phenomenon” (Wenger, 1998, in Blackmore, 2010, p. xi). Also, learning fundamentally involves change (Bateson, 1972, in Blackmore, 2010, p. Xiii; OU, 2010, p. 100). It is “collective learning” (OU, 2010, p. 106), to “learn our way together” (Blackmore, 2010, p. 202). Ison (2010, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 204) characterises social learning as, inter alia, the “convergence of goals … co-creation of knowledge … [and] concerted action… the emergent property of the process to transform a situation”. A learning process, cybernetic-like (Blackmore, 2010, p. 1).
Bawden (1995, in Blackmore, 2010, pp. 203-4) a learning system was proposed as:
- an organised group of people
- collaborating purposefully to achieve transformations and transactions
- with appreciation of their own integrity
- a sense of emergence
- consciousness of their shared processes, levels and states of learning
- as they design and create new and responsible futures together.
Later, expanded to emphasise;
- epistemological, ethical and emotional dimensions
- the significance of world views and messy issues.
(Blackmore, 2010, pp. 204).
Diagramming:
- Influence diagram (cf. OU, 2010, p. 90, Appendix A) (Indicate stronger or weaker influences by changing the thickness of the arrows).
- Work out the likely effects or “unintended consequences” (Blackmore, 2010, p. xiii) of any interventions or factors, for example using sign graph diagrams (OU, 2010, pp. 101, 102-3, A.8).
OU (2010, pp. 94-): There may be “opportunities and constraints” in the “practitioner–context relationship”; “pervasive institutional settings” that must be considered in application of systemic ideas: (i) target driven, (ii) projectification, (iii) wrong framing, (iv) emotionally lacking (Ison, 2010, ch. 9).
Refer: Ison (2010, p. 326): “Opportunities for cultivation”.
(Ison, 2010, p. 326: “Opportunities for cultivation”)
Look at the list of opportunities to be cultivated for enhancing systems practice that is
given in Chapter 13.5.2 of Systems Practice [above]. Nominate from this list the main
opportunities that apply to your own context. Add other opportunities that may not be
on this list.
Refer: Different conceptions of client, systems practitioner and owner (Ison, 2010, p. 166, referencing Checkland). Refer: Implications [and difficulties] for practice (Ison, 2010, pp. 181-3).
Refer: ambiguity/complexity: “muddle-through” management (Ison, 2010, p. 196); self-organising and emergent (Ison, 2010, p. 197).
Ethics and emotion.
Cf. Saint Obama (OU, 2010, 169): The emotionally aware systems practitioner.
Refer: Colvin et al, In search of systemic innovation for sustainable development: A design praxis emerging from a decade of social learning inquiry
Note: Effects [on COPs] of client/service nature and formal factors [if relevant] (Gobbi, 2009, in Blackmore, 2010, ch. 10).
“In international development, cultivating horizontal communities of practice among local practitioners presents an attractive alternative to the traditional view of the vertical transmission of knowledge from north to south.” (Wenger, 2010, in Blackmore, 2010, p. 187).
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