learning@maricopa.edu / pubs / oct97 /
	Redefining Assumptions
Our traditional, hierarchical management systems are designed for controlling . . . not for learning. Arie P. de Gues, Organizational Learning Pioneer We know a lot more about what can be done to improve higher learning. Solid research on how learning occurs, on how it can be best facilitated, and how organizations that foster it should be structured has burgeoned over the last ten years. Peter Ewell, "Organizing for Learning: A Point of Entry," 1997 Research about learning, both within education and in related disciplines, coupled with the abundance of teaching and learning improvement initiatives, indicate that learning is being discussed on many levels. However, Peter Ewell (1997) makes the following observation: Our limited success in actually improving collegiate learning has . . . not been for want of trying. Nor, at bottom, is it a result of our not really knowing quite a bit already about what works and what doesn't. Instead limited impact is the result of two key conditions that characterize most of the approaches to instructional improvement that we have actually tried: 1) they have, for the most part, been attempted piecemeal both within and across institutions and, 2) they have been implemented in the absence of a broadly-discussed and well articulated understanding of what "collegiate learning" really means in a particular collegiate community, and of the specific circumstances and strategies that are likely to promote it. (p. 1) We believe Ewell's statement accurately reflects the current conditions involving learning in the MCCD. The description identifies two dimensions of learning: individual and organizational. It implies that the MCCD's core mission, to foster deep and lasting student learning, is fundamentally linked to our understanding of both learning and the organizational system in which the mission resides. Responses to the Maricopa Roundtable Policy Perspectives, along with the prominence of teaching and learning initiatives, indicate that the three organizational assumptions referenced earlier do not apply to the MCCD. Rather, faculty and others who support learning appear to agree that: Extending our understanding of learning holds the promise of improvements in both individual and organizational learning, As we define learning for the MCCD through collective dialogue, the organization must be holistically reconceived to better support it, and Broad-based dialogue about learning is valuable. Members of MCCD's college community -- faculty, staff, administrators and the governing board -- are committed to an ongoing dialogue on learning. What appears to be missing is a coherent and sustainable system that: 1) promotes continued dialogue and, 2) facilitates our individual and organizational ability to align and act on the learning initiatives that emerge from the dialogue.
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