Learning in Organizations

Week 1, Monday

Psychology 360
My office hours
Wednesday, 4:30 - 5:30 PM, Cava Java, South University @ East University
Thursday, 10:30 - 11:30 AM, Cava Java
or by appointment
BUT -- please no drop-in visiting!
URL for the syllabus

http://www.umich.edu/~finholt/Psych360/Psych360-HomePage.html
Lecture Outline
I. Individualistic VS contextual tension
II. Classical models
III. Learning in communities of practice
A New Psychology
Classical model:
bounded, autonomous actor made up of preferences, traits, interests, and abilities
behavior is a consequence of these internal attributes
Contextual model:
importance of the relational, cultural, and interdependent features of human functioning
Classical Conditioning
Reinforcement Theory
The Trained Professor
Positive reinforcement:
students attend to lecture when move to left corner
Negative reinforcement:
students stop whispering when move from right corner
Observational Learning
Calvin's Guests
Attend to president
He knows what to do (mental image)
Follow his lead (reproduce behavior)
Training
Keystones:
participation, repetition, transfer, and feedback
Sources and occasions:
formal -- classroom and top-down
informal -- apprenticeship and peers
Learning in a Community of Practice
Situated learning:
activity in, with, and arising from interaction with people around you
Community of practice:
group that defines skill and mastery and provides the means to obtain skill and mastery
Legitimate peripheral participation:
learning through participation, organized through access to skilled practitioners
The Butchers' Apprentices
Barriers to learning:
lack of access due to physical separation
poor contact with skilled journeymen
For Next Time
How do organizations learn:
suitability of individual level models?
consequences for practice?
Copyright © 1996, The Regents of the University of Michigan, All rights reserved.
Revised - November 4, 1996