From Teaching Smart People How to Learn

1. From Teaching Smart People How to Learn • Argyris: there is a systematic discrepancy between what people espouse and how they behave and they are often unaware of it. • Results in miscommunication, self-fulfilling prophecies, escalating errors • “Universal human tendency” to organize our lives around four basic values: • Remaining in control • Winning • Suppressing negative feelings • Making a rational pursuit of objectives

2. Mismatch Or errors Governing Values or Assumptions Actions Single-loop learning Double-loop learning

3. Comments from a recent class • Need to learn how to teach effectively and not take certain ideas as facts of the matter. • The grading system, while it worked, really punished students that don’t do well on exams. • Mandatory attendance at this level is unnecessary. • I did not like assigned seating. We are adults not preschoolers; we have working lives and to be graded on attendance is bad. I did like the extra credit – need more. • The bias of the teacher would often make it difficult to speak up. An opinion that differed from his would be faced with a disapproving look and sometimes ridicule from the class.

4. Final Thoughts • “The gap between knowing and doing is more important than the gap between ignorance and knowing” (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2000). • Change in thinking can lead to a change in behavior • Change in behavior can lead to a change in thinking • If you already know it all, you have nothing left to learn.