Two Questions on Group Trainin LO27380

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@gold.up.ac.za)
Date: 10/11/01


Replying to LO27362 --

Dear Organlearners,

"ellens" <ellens@ntlworld.com> writes:

>I am trying to discover some new and creative
>ways to elicit personal views in group training.

Greetings "ellens",

Try using the five Elementary Sustainers of Creativity (ESCs). They are:

thoughts-exchanging (dialogue)
exemplar-exploring (discovery)
problem-solving (research)
game-playing
art-expressing

I suspect that for your situation you will find the dialogue most useful.

These 5 ESCs are not novel. But they are powerful. For example
almost 5 centuries before Christ Herodotus wrote:
. "What manner of men are these against whom
. you have sent us to fight -- men who compete
. in their games not for money, but for honour?

>I am also looking for simialr new ideas on ways
>to monitor individual learners process in the group
>setting. Any ideas please?

If you mean the same thing as in
Monitoring Individual Progress LO27367

>Does anyone know of any creative ways to monitor
>individuals progress in a expereintial learning group
>setting?

then I want to give you one piece of advice. Do not let your monitoring
interfere in any manner while the learners are experiencing. You will have
to learn how to base your monitoring on all possible "signals" coming from
the system to all five your senses without putting one signal into the
system so as to get the kind of signals which you prefer yourself. You
will have to become a "detached observer".

By using questionaires or tests, you will disturb the system with letting
the people of the group getting experiences coming from these very tools.
This will influence the spontaneity of the group very much so that they
will have much different experential learning than what you may have
intended.

I suspect that you will also play the role of a guide/steward/facilitator
in the "expereintial learning group setting". In that case you will also
have to become the "tacit teacher". What I mean is that you will have to
keep your mouth shut, your eyes closed and your ears deaf like the three
monkeys on anything directly related to your monitoring. It takes a lot of
will power, especially if things seems to be running out of hand.

However, I do not mean have to keep your mouth shut, your eyes
closed and your ears deaf on anything. You may use them, but only
by setting example as one of the group doing what the group has to
do. By doing this things will be running less and less out of hand.
In this case you actually open yourself up to the group for
. exemplar-exploring (discovery)

Lastly, your use of the word "training" makes me worried. I would strongly
suggest to you to seek all for the connections between sensations,
creativity, experience, tacit knowing, knowledge, information and wisdom.
This is a very heavy suggestion. But without it you will be groping in the
dark with your "expereintial learning group setting" despite all the
monitoring you can muster. There is a vast difference between rote
training and authentic learning.

With care and best wishes

-- 

At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa

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