A Circular Approach to Learning

 A few years ago in one of my OD classes, the following question was asked, “How do we know that all learning is based on previous learning?” A person in the class  used the example of a new child recently entering the world and wondered how does an infant learn? How do humans learn? Since that class I have reflected on this question. Learning to me is the process by which each individual interprets the world and then translates that interpretation into knowledge. I think there are 3 major stops on a circle that each of us use to interpret and translate the world around us into knowledge. They include Genetic Makeup, Mental Maps and Intrinsic Motivation.  

Genetic Makeup

I think each of us is predisposed to interpret the world based on our genes. As children, our raw talents will manifest themselves in activities we enjoy. Think about how you spent your time when you had free time. What activities did you like the most as a kid? What things did you do where you lost track of time or when time seemed to fly by? These are questions asked by Marcus Buckingham in his book, Now Discover your Strengths. I think the answers to what our natural talents are lies in thinking about what we did as kids and how we enjoyed our time back then. Honest self reflection is essential to understanding how we interpret the world around us. It seems ironic, that the first step in understanding how we relate to the world, is first trying to understand how we are naturally wired internally.  

In the article titled “The Neuroscience of Leadership” David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz talk about strengthening connections in the brain. It would seem logical that each of us is wired a certain way, and then depending on our environment, each of us will strengthen our neuron connections in an effort to help better understand the world. Our genes are the blueprint by which we build knowledge. The environment we find ourselves in can alter how we construct knowledge. Our past knowledge, will also affect how we translate new information into knowledge. All of this is happening simultaneously from the time we have a brain big enough to start interpreting our world.

Mental Maps

Mental maps are a person’s own individual perception of the world. Our genetic makeup will influence how each of us perceives the world. Mental maps can create meaning from unknown information through analogies, and connections to previous knowledge. Loewenstein, Thompson and Gentner studied the importance of analogies. They found “a consistent and powerful advantage for analogical encoding method in which learners compare two cases over the more traditional and currently more popular method of teaching by single case studies.” Mental Maps help us organize the multiple stimuli each of us receives daily into meaningful knowledge. We start to generate mental maps as children, and as we get older, we usually seek information that fits into these maps. It becomes inherently difficult to change these maps substantially. A major piece of these maps is the formulation of values. Values are emotional connectors that drive and motivate our behavior. Often it is these values which shape how we interpret the world as adults and how we create meaningful information from our world.

Intrinsic Motivation

The most effective learning happens when someone is intrinsically motivated to make a change. For someone to stop an addiction, like smoking, the person needs to want to internally make that change. For someone to develop meaningful connections of information with the possibility of retaining those connections for a lifetime, the person needs to be intrinsically motivated. We are typically intrinsically motivated to experience things in the world we are genetically wired to enjoy. This in turns helps us to develop and strengthen our mental map. For example, I have always been an active, rambunctious person. This led me into sports at a very early age. Over the years I perceived much about life through analogies with sports. Things like team work, communication, competition, cheating, winning, losing, etc. are interwoven into my mental map of the world.  My genetic blue print predisposed me to gravitate towards physical activities which in turn helped me to develop many of the mental maps in which I perceive the world. I was intrinsically motivated to continue learning sports, because it was in my nature to do physical activity and because playing sports strengthened my forming mental map.

Focusing the Model into Practice

Putting this model into practice requires the following simultaneous three pronged approach.

• Determine how we are genetically wired
• Determine our mental maps
• Determine what intrinsically motivates us

Personality and Learning styles tools such as the Myers Briggs and the Kolb Learning Style Inventory can be very helpful in understanding ourselves so that we can better understand how we interpret the world and transfer information into knowledge.   We also should be intrinsically motivated to authentically self reflect, and to seek people and tools around us to provide us with honest feedback. It is essential we recognize our true values, so that we can understand how our mental maps are filtering our world. If we are able to understand these three areas of ourselves, we should better understand how to coach others. If we are able to guide others in determining these three areas, we should be able to better help them navigate through life changes and ultimately see life change as learning opportunities.

Changing where we focus our energy can be an extremely useful tool when learning how to better manage change. Helping people focus on themselves can help people better understand their own filters, and hopefully allow them to learn more efficiently. Changing our focus can also be a useful tool in seeing opportunities instead of barriers when dealing with a changing environment. The only real constant is change. Those who are able to use change as a learning tool will increase their knowledge of the world and ultimately be in a better position for success. 

Below outlines a simple visual representation of the Circular Approach to Learning. As mentioned throughout, each of the three areas and their sub-areas are interwoven during the learning transfer process. In a Gestalt like fashion, the sum of the parts is much less than the whole. We build on the information, which makes the cycle turn faster and faster and information gets transferred into knowledge quicker and quicker. There is no end to the cycle, it is constantly turning, as we pick up new information each day and transfer that information into knowledge. 

The Circular Approach