A good learning community blends the best of several different ideas and procedures. These include:
The learning organization - the systems foundation for it all;
Communities of practice - the ways colleagues naturally learn from each other;
Situated cognition - the ways that knowledge is unconsciously framed and organized by groups;
The social nature of the brain/mind - the discovery of mirror neurons that explains the power of imitation, modelling and peer groups;
Dialogue - the foundational process of listening deeply and letting go of preconceptions;
The art of hosting - An elegant way of guiding the combination of order and chaos that is common to all efforts to learn and plan together;
Process leadership - the art of simulateneously managing logistics, dealing with the interactions of participants and creating a deep field of listening and learning.
Active processing - the art of individually and collectively examining actual experience in and beyond any training program to mine them for all the learning that is possible.
Developing Learning Communities
I adapt these to suit the needs of any group that wants to create an occasional or ongoing learning space together. Where appropriate, I also use a unique process learning circle format as a practical frame for my work.
