Colleen Aalsburg Wiessner

New Learning: a different way of approaching conference evaluation

New Learning (NL) is an innovative process aimed at collaborative learning in professional and scholarly events and is a new way of approaching evaluation at professional conferences. NL is a process integral to a conference that focuses on the learner and how and what they learn, rather than on presenters and presentations. Whereas most professional conferences claim learning as a primary objective, seldom do any structure or evaluate to maximize that objective. The NL process helps to structure and assess organizational learning as a primary outcome in addition to providing avenues for collection of traditional evaluation information. This article explains the NL process, reviews the literature of learning and evaluation, describes what NL is and how it works, and then compares and contrasts it with traditional evaluation methods and theory. It concludes with implications for future applications and research for NL.

How a research conference created new learning: a case study

Purpose – The study presents preliminary findings from research begun at the 2005 Academy of Human Resource Development International Research Conference held in Estes Park, CO, USA. The qualitative case study captures what new learning occurred as a result of the conference and how the new learning at the conference occurred.Design/methodology/approach – The qualitative case study used conceptual foundations grounded within critical theory and focused on learning organizations, communities of practice (CoP), and knowledge generation.Findings – Participant reactions documented on approximately 1,000 data forms were categorized for this preliminary study as critical perspectives on HRD where typically underrepresented voices critiqued the conference, CoP as relationships between theory and practice where participants reported that theory to practice was a rich research topic, and learning organizations where results indicated that the academy benefits through conferences in terms of creating a learning org...

Encountering New Information and Perspectives: Constructing Knowledge in Conference Contexts

Abstract Conference contexts are settings where participants often encounter new, unfamiliar information and perspectives. Conference organizers can benefit from understanding how adult learners interact with new ideas and concepts. This study is based on research conducted within a conference focused on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Data analysis resulted in an emerging model for conference learning. Engagement and Intention to Act constitute two overarching categories that represent two major reactions conference participants reported in response to new information or perspectives. Each broad category includes three to four related reactions to conference content. Leap to New Idea serves as a category that bridges the two major categories. The model has potential to aid conference planners in reaching their goals and objectives related to participant learning.

Book Review Essay: Using Narratives in Research and Practice

Having conducted multiple studies on uses of narrative processes in education, and having used narrative inquiry approaches for those studies, we were eager to read and reflect on these texts. Whereas the first book is practitioner based, focused to stimulate the use of narratives in practice, the second comes out of European Studies in Lifelong Learning and Adult Learning Research (ESREA) as a “significant body of writing across language barriers and cultural difference, creating a basis for deepening conversations and research collaboration,” as stated in the Preface. Both books succeed in different ways, and together they offer guidance for using narrative in practice, which then can become the subject of research and venue for applying research findings. Both books offer the opportunity to consider narrative as serious pedagogical and research approaches and to move beyond conceptualizing stories as peripheral to teaching and learning intentions. Between them exists a space for research studies on multiple uses of narrative for learning and change. Rossiter and Clark build a strong anecdotal case, grounded in theory and in their practices, to encourage adult education practitioners to tap the potential of narrative with greater intentionality. They argue, “What is missing in our field is an understanding of the theory of narrative and the implications it has for how we conceptualize the teaching/learning process” (p. 10). In this book narrative refers to a fundamental structure of meaning making that presents “lifelikeness” rather than scientific proof. They explore how narrative, a naturally relational (as opposed to analytical) linguistic structure, can contribute to learning. Key elements of narrative that they identify are its foci on meaning rather than fact and on verisimilitude rather than logic. Two prominent examples, among others that they discuss, include facilitating narrative in the classroom and applying it to program planning.