The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to continue to learn and change.

—Carl Rogers

A learning organization requires all of its members to see themselves as continual learners working toward personal mastery. Yet as people gain experience and competence, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to place themselves in the position of acquiring new skills and competencies. They are concerned because they know that new learning often requires valleys before arriving at peaks.

For example, in learning how to use the word processor, many people experience the following scenario. First, they read a manual that seems unintelligible—unintelligible because it contains a whole new vocabulary, a new set of options and commands, and menus that are not clearly understood. Although they have been assured that writing will be made simpler with a word processor, it feels far more complex. Every time they sit down to write using this new machine, they assume that what would normally take one hour might easily take three. They must be prepared to persevere rather than fall back on familiar but supposedly less efficient ways. Finally, after personal mastery, come three observations:

• Writing is, indeed, more efficient and effective.
• Using the word processor has changed the way they now think about writing.
• Perhaps other options and programs could be used to add style to the text—importing graphics, for example.

Learning in an information age will require continual personal mastery of new skills and competencies as job descriptions expand, change, and shift. And collectively, the organization will have varying levels of expertise to draw from.

Although many schools set outcomes intended to recognize and celebrate diversity as a value in their learning communities, they may not learn sufficiently how to make use of varied personal mastery to maximize profit from the group. Unless we really understand that each of us brings a different talent, ability, and knowledge to the learning environment, we will never reach that outcome. It requires thinking of learning from the perspective of strength rather than deficiency, a paradigm at the heart of our shift in reassessing assessment. We must be able to accept the fact that each of us is a novice in some aspects of our learning and that each of us brings expertise to the learning community. Our role as educational leaders in the classroom, among the faculty, and in the larger school community is to continually find ways for people to bring what they know to the environment and to find ways to stimulate the new learner in everyone.

An example of this point is nicely made with the concept of shared decision making—a place where different group members have different perspectives and knowledge to bring to the group. Or we might consider the sailing experience of a group of educators. A number of years ago, a schooner set forth into Boston Harbor with several teachers and administrators on board. Roland Barth set up the event so that participants would have the experience of guiding a ship through the harbor as a metaphor for teamwork. An Outward Bound instructor on board helped teach various participants skills for setting the ship on course. As we set forth, the unequal knowledge base in the group was clear. That inequality was not based on hierarchical position in the school organization but on knowledge of sailing. Traditional leadership roles in school gave way to captains of the sea.

When the Outward Bound instructor told the group at 11 a.m. that they would be on their own for the rest of the trip, a growing uneasiness spread among the crew. What? There would be no designated captain? Each novice thought, "I only learned a small skill. How am I supposed to function in this large harbor with such a small amount of knowledge?" The experts were equally uncertain. They knew that they were able to bring the ship safely to shore, but it wouldn't reflect teamwork if they took over. The ensuing struggle within individuals and groups led to a number of novices going to the galley and preparing lunch, a number of apprentices asking for assistance, a number of practitioners with modest sailing knowledge coming forward, and the experts finally taking leadership.

After we were safely in the harbor, we had a debriefing session. It was at this time that people expressed their concerns. Novices felt literally and metaphorically at sea. No one came forward to help them enter the culture, and they were so uncertain about what to do that they went to an area that felt more comfortable: the kitchen. The dialogue between the experts who could have become teachers but faced the dilemma of not having been designated as such and the novices who could have been learners but were not designated as such provides the perfect metaphor for a learning organization.

Multiple Continuums

It is simply not enough to say that we respect diversity and various kinds of knowledge brought to our learning environment. We must provide appropriate structures that facilitate novices to learn what they do not know and experts to become the novice's teachers. If we place too high a premium on expertise in only one area, we may shut out the potential teachers in many other significant areas. Consider Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983) or the work from group dynamics suggesting different inclinations for working in groups. Consider also the work from learning styles. It also suggests that if learning is described on a continuum, it reinforces the possibility of learning without embarrassment or inadequacy. As soon as learners in the classroom see the teacher attempting to learn something new (a novice) they will realize that she, too, is learning. When the Spanish speaking student is invited to share his expertise about language and learning a second language, he, too, is an expert.

We have often heard the comment "knowledge is power." This was never more accurate than in this information age. Information is data; knowledge is making sense out of the data. All learners will have to make sense out of new data at an ever increasing rate. All learners will bring different experiences to the database and will become more or less expert in sense-making depending on how many opportunities encourage them to know the power of knowing. Our present system makes the reward of knowing a scarce resource. We create finish lines and reward systems that fly in the face of a continuously increasing information base.

We need to think about a continuum that describes learning from two perspectives:

• What developmental stage is the learner at on the continuum (for example, novice or apprentice)?
• What is the quality of the work the learner produces at that stage?

Consider, for example, a rubric designating the difference between exemplary work and unacceptable work, as in Figure VI.1. This suggests a matrix that helps us to see not only where the student is on the developmental continuum but what the student chooses to produce given his or her developmental capability. Both kinds of information are necessary to describe learning. Our goal is to align such a matrix with report cards and portfolios. This will provide descriptive information to parents, students, administrators, and boards of education that shows consistency in forms of reporting.

Figure VI.1. A Developmental Continuum

Continuing to Learn How to Learn

In a focus group of business people, parents, and high school students, the question was asked, "What is it you want to know from a reporting system that will acquaint you with an individual being considered for employment?" A person in charge of personnel in a major insurance company responded, "I don't really look for report cards or transcripts. Basically I have two questions that tell me more than anything else. First, describe something that you do really well. Second, describe something that you don't do particularly well and tell me what you're doing about it."

This person recognizes that as long as you're prepared to do some learning, being a novice means only that you're at a new beginning—not that you're inadequate or lacking in some way. The story also suggests that you're never "there." Our traditional summative reporting system, therefore, delivers a false message to students. Rather than providing an incentive for further learning, we shut students down.

Art recently asked his 9th grade granddaughter, Shawn, what she was learning in social studies. "We're learning about the Constitution," she responded. "Great! Tell me three things you've learned about the Constitution," Art inquired. "I can't. I've forgotten it already," she replied. "Shawn, how could you forget it already?" Art challenged. "Well," she replied, "we've already had the test!"

This anecdote exemplifies how some students today may have developed a view of learning as an episodic process of covering some topic, passing a test on it, forgetting it, and proceeding to the next topic.

If you employ feedback spirals, never reaching an end product, summative assessment is irrelevant. If you assume lifelong learning, summative assessment assumes finality that dissuades one from starting anew. Living in an information age, in learning organizations, and in a learning society, humans will have to perceive themselves as continual learners.

The Walt Disney Company is known to have four levels of competency for their employees:

• Unconscious Incompetence: They don't know that they're doing their task incorrectly.
• Conscious Incompetence: They are aware of the fact that they've made an error or are doing the task incorrectly.
• Conscious Competence: The awkward performance of a task, having to think about it as they are performing it.
• Unconscious Competence: The easy flow of mastery of the task performance at the level of automaticity.

What distinguishes the Disney Corporation, however, is that when employees achieve the level of Unconscious Competence in one role, they are switched to a new job so that they start the learning process anew.

Perhaps another metaphor can illuminate this paradigm shift. Do you remember when you first learned to ride a bicycle? You may have had training wheels fitted to each side of your bike so that balancing would be easier, and you could devote your limited attention to steering and pedaling. Even so, there were spills and bumps. Just getting on the bike was an awkward maneuver.

It was a memorable day when you graduated to riding without those beginner's accoutrements. With a little more time and practice you may have become a serious bike rider. You could get to places in your neighborhood, to school, to visit friends, to deliver papers, and, perhaps later, to work. Bike riding was fun but more importantly, it was a mode of transportation.

For some enthusiasts, bike riding became more than just that interim means of transportation between walking and having an automobile. You'd affix your bike to the rack on your car and take your bike out on weekends to explore the byways. You may have joined a bicycle club and entered rallies, purchased a helmet and stretch pants, began using the language of "derailleurs" and "tenacious oils," and dreamed of titanium Serrotis.

Entering the Olympics in bicycle competition means perseverance and practice: devotion of time and energy to serious workouts, coaching, competitive racing, training, qualifying, and on to the medals. It involves employing the scientific principles of bicycling. It means deep concentration, developing style and rigor. It means world-class mastery.

The metaphor of mastering the bicycle may be analogous to the developmental continuum: from the novice stage using training wheels, through the free-roaming "graduate" and serious "aficionado" stages to the world-class Olympian level. There are certain attributes of participation, competence, knowledge, skill, intellectual process, and emotional attachment that distinguish each stage from the one before it. Each stage implies accomplishment of a certain level of skill, but with that achievement comes a new stage of complexity and standards to be met. Even with the mastery of the highest level, athletes are never satisfied with their previous accomplishments; they always try to beat the existing records.

The Motto of the Nike Corporation is that "There is no finish line." Similarly, educators must shift their paradigm of summative assessment and replace it with the concept of developmental stages along a continuum toward ever-increasing levels of achievement and skillfulness.

The number of levels may vary depending upon how finite the distinctive attributes of each stage are described. The labels given to that stage are also arbitrary but should connote increasingly higher levels of mastery. Figure VI.2 contains one way of describing four levels along a developmental continuum—from the entry level of novice through the next levels that we call apprentice and practitioner to the highest level being expert.

Figure VI.2. Defining a Continuum: Novice to Expert

Novice: Shows limited awareness of the problem. Is willing to engage in the task. Attempts task without strategy for how to begin. Organizes the problem in random or vague ways.   Apprentice: Shows a clear understanding of problem. Attempts to use strategies, though may not use them appropriately. Explains strategy randomly and uses vague or unclear terms.   Practitioner: Is able to perform the task. Perceives solutions from one perspective. Persists in solving problem but is not always concerned about accuracy. Is bound by rules of problem solving. Describes strategies used to solve problems.   Expert: Operates at a metacognitve level—is able to describe strategies and processes and explain why they are used. Expresses efficacy and confidence in own abilities. Spontaneously employs the Intelligent Behaviors (Costa 1991). Draws from and employs a repertoire of strategies beyond the context in which they are learned or normally performed. Can teach the strategies or processes to others. Generates alternative and creative solutions to the problem. Generalizes from pervious experiences. Experiments successfully to create multiple solutions. Elaborates on process or strategy used.

Obviously the distinctions among these levels are not as clear and precise as described above. An analogy may be made to waves and tides. While the tide is moving in the direction toward the shore, each wave is not necessarily higher than the previous one. While there is a general direction of growth, each performance may not include every attribute of that stage. Even Olympic athletes have their bad days! (For further information on developmental rubrics, see Kallick and Brewer 1993 and Marzano, Pickering, and McTighe 1993.)

Teachers, too, are in a continual state of personal mastery. The distinctions between the teacher in training, the beginning teacher, and the experienced and master teacher are fairly distinguishable. In an effort to assist mentors in enhancing the work of the new teacher, The California State Department of Education Beginning Teacher Project has described the distinguishing characteristics of each stage. The characteristics have less to do with time than with learning new skills, attitudes, and intellectual processes (Garmston and Bartell 1991).

Furthermore, organizations, just as individuals, proceed through stages of growth on the neverending journey toward that elusive level of mastery. Carl Glickman (1994), Michael Fullan (1993), and other researchers in organizational change process describe schools along a continuum as traditional, transitional, and transforming. School staffs are described as moving from "isolated" to "congenial" to "cooperative" toward "collaborative and collegial" in the ways staff members interact and support each other. Covey (1989) describes a continuum from dependence to independence to interdependence and a sense of community.

The purposes of establishing such developmental continuums with accompanying criteria are:

• So that learners (be they teachers, students, or school staffs) may know the objective criteria for each level of accomplishment so they may evaluate their own performances.
• So that such performances may be diagnosed and/or judged objectively by students themselves and by teachers, parents, or other panels so that further learning strategies can be geared for constant improvement.
• So that students may choose the appropriate levels of performance as their aspiration and understand the goals and criteria toward which they may strive.
• So that school staffs and communities can dialogue about, reach agreements on, and constantly revise their expectations and high standards.
• To provide standards to be improved upon, plateaus that can be broken, and aspirations that can be exceeded.

References

Covey, S. (1989). The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Fullan, M. (1993). Change Forces. New York: The Falmer Press.

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

Garmston, R., and C. Bartell. (April 1991). "New Teacher Success: You Can Make a Difference." California State Department of Education, California New Teachers Project. Sacramento, Calif.: Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

Glickman, C. (1994). Renewing America's Schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Kallick, B., and R. Brewer. (1993). Exemplars: Math Performance Tasks, Volumes 1-10. Underhill, Vt.

Marzano, R., D. Pickering, and J. McTighe. (1993). Assessing Student Outcomes. Alexandria, Va.: The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

From Paradigm to Practice VI: Personal Mastery: The Developmental Continuum As we consider the developmental continuum, we are faced with a common question: "How do we watch a flower grow?" It is so difficult to see progress. It seems that as soon as we achieve one level of mastery we are striving toward the next. In the following chapters, teachers demonstrate the powerful use of portfolios as a way of helping their students observe their own growth. These portfolios are organized so that they show developmental change over time and ask students to reflect on that change. Pat Monahan describes knowing what to look and listen for in portfolios. Darlene Johnson and Sandra Silverman begin with students and their teachers in an effort to demonstrate a continuum of growth throughout the primary years. Braden Montgomery asks his secondary students to reflect on themselves as continuously improving learners and writers. In addition, Victoria Bernhardt addresses portfolios and assessment of school improvement.