Elizabeth Kasl

Teams as Learners A Research-Based Model of Team Learning

Organizational literature heralds the value of team learning but does not provide a research-based description of it. This article describes a model of team learning that was derived empirically from case studies in two companies, one with a cross section of employees in a petrochemical company and the second in a data-processing unit that had been reorganized into self-managed teams in a manufacturing company. The authors draw conclusions about changes in learning processes, conditions, and perceptions of time and explore research implications regarding human dynamics.

Toward a Theory and Practice for Whole-Person Learning: Reconceptualizing Experience and the Role of Affect:

Although the importance of affect is acknowledged in the North American literature on adult learning and adult education, its role remains undertheorized. We argue that the influence of American pragmatism contributes to a cultural bias favoring reflective discourse and, thus, theoretical inattention to the role of affect. We describe a theory of personhood developed by John Heron to explore how his phenomenological lens on experience provides a more serviceable framework in which to understand the affective dimension of learning. Taking a phenomenological perspective suggests how adult learning strategies can be linked to a group habit of being that we call learning-within-relationship. Posited on what we describe as the paradox of diversity, we argue that there is a direct relationship between the degree of diversity among learners and the need to create whole-person learning strategies that fully engage learners affectively.

Towards a model of team learning

Team learning is not a well researched or examined phenomenon. This paper describes a team learning model that grew out of case study research in one company. The model is derived in part by drawing on the literatures of both group dynamics and adult learning. Team learning processes and phases are described and illustrated. The paper concludes with implications for adult educators who work with teams in organisations.

Whose Inquiry Is This Anyway?: Money, Power, Reports, and Collaborative Inquiry

Collaborative/cooperative inquiry (CI) is both a method for engaging in new paradigm human inquiry and a strategy for facilitating adult learning. Adult educators who use CI in institutional settings must be aware of potential corrupting influences. The authors alert educators to three factors interjected by institutional affiliation that challenge the integrity of the CI process: financial support, power inequities, and reporting requirements. These factors are examined in three different contexts: inquiries used for dissertation research, inquiries in the workplace conducted for professional development, and multiple inquiry projects sponsored by an institution to serve its mission.

Contextualizing Team Learning: Implications for Research and Practice

The problem and the solution. Cultural dimensions such as power distance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity, and cohesiveness all influence team learning processes, conditions, and outcomes. This creates unique and diverse challenges for human resource development professionals working with teams. These challenges require mindful and creative approaches to interventions to facilitating team learning through the use of metaphors and methods of providing for equivocality and anonymity.

A Response to Michael Newman’s “Calling Transformative Learning Into Question: Some Mutinous Thoughts”

Editors’ Note In a previous issue, Michael Newman presented a provocative article on transformative learning. The editors thought that it would be of interest to extend the discussion by inviting several authors to present alternative views. In the following articles Patricia Cranton and Elizabeth Kasl and John Dirkx present their critiques and Michael Newman responds. We realize this dialogue may prompt further thoughts and discussion and invite further response from readers. We will try to publish these as space permits.

Do I Really Know You? Do You Really Know Me? Empathy amid Diversity in Differing Learning Contexts.

We explore the need for empathy in diverse groups, conceptualize the epistemology of empathy in relationship to whole-person dialogue, and examine strategies for creating empathic space that take into consideration the paradox of diversity. Two examples from our practice illustrate the role of empathic connection in personal learning and organizational change.

Team learning: A model for effectiveness in high performing teams

Team learning — what does it look like and why is it important? Peter Senge (1990) made the statement in The Fifth Discipline that teams are the fundamental units of learning in organizations. In order for the organization to learn, teams must learn. The literature, however, has not yet provided much in the way of a research-based description of either team learning processes or the conditions that foster them. This discussion presents the results of a seminal study on team learning conducted by the authors, which produced a model of team learning. It also relates highlights from two dissertation studies that affirm the model and provide additional insight into the nature of team learning in corporate settings.

Celebrating 40 Years of Transformative Learning.

The following pages of this article contain six essays on transformative learning (TL) that were written to celebrate the 40th anniversary of TL. The essays were written by Elizabeth Kasl, Laura Markos, Victoria Marsick, Vanessa Sheared, Ed Taylor, and Lyle Yorks. These authors belong to a ‘‘wave’’ of scholars who joined the field of TL between the mid-1970s and mid-1990s. Their stories describe the chronicle behind their engagement with the TL theory and its community. This is evident in the essays written by five of them, since they primarily focus on their experiences regarding the first stages of their involvement. Adding another perspective, Laura Markos describes the foundational orientation of the Journal of Transformative Education, reflecting the viewpoints of leaders of various educational institutions engaged in transformative education whose input was central to the journal’s founding. I believe that this tribute is useful in many different ways. It offers lucid indications for the reasons that lead scholars to engage in the field of TL, and it also