Edited by Amanda Harrington-Vail, Thursday, 24 Apr 2014, 14:27
Interesting that research by Wesch (2008) on what learners believe contrasted with what educators believe, (Weller, 2011 p.6). Perhaps this is due to social construction of 'authority' figures and ineffective research where the learners consciously or unconsciously felt they needed to provide the 'right' answer without processing it. For example Seely-Brown and Adler (2008) have studied participatory learning whereas likely the learners researched by Wesch have not, therefore they may be referring to previous rather than 'new' thinking - maybe formed of their own experiences. As Siemens (2005) claims "decision-making is itself a learning process". Therefore I would suggest in my context as an OU Tutor that students best make use of abundance by reflective practice, action research and critical incident analysis to focus on their inner dialogue. However this is not just for students, "the process of self-reflection as described by Schön (1987) should be included in ... teacher’s professional development" too (Rowley, 2014 p.35).
Activity 17: The role of abundance