The Relationship Between Change & Learning

Learning for change

In professional learning communities, the members believe that change requires learning according to the principle that a person cannot improve without knowing how to improve. For example, the staff of a school that functions as a professional learning community not only needs the reasons to make changes but also to have a clear understanding of bringing change in their teaching and learning processes. To value the change, educators first learn what they need to know about the change. Reciprocally learning motivates change. The learning among the members motivates them to make significant changes in their patterns of thinking and actions. 

Once the members of a professional learning community begin to learn that there are other ways and means for achieving goals, they initiate the necessary actions for learning and making changes (Fullan & Miles as cited in Morrissey, 2000). While Senge (as cited in Retallick & Datoo, 2005) agreed that “Systems thinking of a discipline involves leverage which means observing where actions and changes in structures may result in significant, enduring improvements” (p. 14).  For observing actions and changes, an individual needs to have a clear understanding of the ways of taking actions and making changes in structures. If the person finds out improvements in the result of actions and changes, he/she gets motivated to incorporate new and innovative strategies to improve practices for making changes.  

Suggested site for reading

http://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol2/iss4/4/

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leadership/change.html