Irv Rootman wrote:
>
> Is anyone on Click4HP using the concept of "learning community" in their work or know of people who are?

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I've been a regular 'lurker' on CLICK4HP for many months now, but this
is a topic that is very much a part of my work at the Ontario Prevention
Clearinghouse. So, looks like it's time to come out of the shadows...

As one respondent has already noted, the 'learning organization' is a
very popular concept these days. The link between LO theory and practice
and the wider notion of the learning community has been under discussion
for a number of years -- certainly long before Peter Senge's book made
the narrower term a mandatory part of a manager's vocabulary. Here's an
OPC discussion paper you might find helpful in exploring these links
(http://www.opc.on.ca/opc/chang821.html).

Here's a definition of the learning community that was developed
recently by Senge, et al, at MIT's Organizational Learning Centre --
their home page is at (http://learning.mit.edu/)...

"a diverse group of people working together to nurture and sustain a
knowledge-creating system. These communities, which are created by
improving theory and method, enhancing people's capabilities, and
producing practical results, can play a critical role in organizing
learning. The members of a learning community are thus stewards of a
knowledge-creating process, helping one another enhance their capacity
for effective action and reflecting on and conceptualizing their
evolving understanding.

A learning community necessarily links 'practitioners' with
'consultants' or facilitators involved in capacity building, and with
'researchers'. What truly characterizes a learning community is the
willingness to embrace all three of these perspectives as equally true
and equally important in creating knowledge."

Such a 'system', it is suggested, is a natural way of organizing
learning around three important perspective...

* research -- focused on 'generalizability' -- "How might others benefit
from what we are learning?"
* capacity-building -- focused on 'transformation' -- "How might we
change how we do our work?"
* practice -- focused on 'results' -- "What really happens when we apply
what we are learning?"

I hope the above provides a useful springboard for discussion on a topic
which has so many links to the work that many of CLICK4HP's members are
engaged in.

But, I also have a specific suggestion of how we might make this
discussion of benefit to an even wider audience. Peggy Schultz (also
from OPC) and have been invited to present a workshop at September's
'Systems Thinking in Action' conference in Orlando. This international
conference, launched by MIT and Pegasus Communications a number of years
ago, has gradually widened its focus beyond the world of business to
include health, education, and community building
(http://www.pegasuscom.com/stapage.html#anchor420667).

The theme of this year's conference is 'From Learning Organizations to
Learning Communities.' Our session is entitled 'Learning Together for
Healthy Communities', and CLICK4HP is one of several examples we plan to
share to illustrate some of the creative ways in which people create
knowledge together to accomplish important work in this area. Given the
learning community definition above, I'd be interested in your thoughts
on a few questions:

* How does CLICK4HP function as a learning community, as you see it?
* How do you see your role and contribution to such an undertaking?
* What helps, and hinders, the individual and collective learning that
takes place?
* How can such a community grow, not so much in membership but in terms
of shared understanding, shared vision, and collective action?

Peter O'Donnell
Ontario Prevention Clearinghouse
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