A conversational framework for individual learning applied to the ‘Learning Organisation’ and the ‘Learning Society’

Abstract

The paper sets out to test whether our understanding of the individual learning can be used to help us understand better the concepts of ‘the learning organisation’ and ‘the learning society’. It begins with a systems-oriented description of one model for the learning individual, the ‘conversational framework’, and extends Laurillard's earlier framework to one that makes explicit the learner's internal conversation. This extended framework is then reinterpreted for the university as a learning organisation. If the distinctive features of the conversational framework describe the minimal components and relations necessary for learning, to what extent can we find this structure mirrored in the way a university works? The application of the framework exposes the potential or missing links. The same argument is then extended to the higher education (HE) sector as a whole, and finally to ‘the learning society’. In the context of the HE sector, the analysis demonstrates the need for an ‘institute for learning and teaching in HE’ such as that proposed by the Dearing Committee in the UK. In the context of the wider society, it shows how universities must play their role in enabling it to be a ‘learning society’. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.