deakin.pdf   From Ruth Deakin Crick's article

My Learning Journey goes here

Using the metaphor of ‘learning as a journey’ there are four ‘stations’ which require

attention from learners and teachers. The first is the learning self, with its particular

identity, nested sets of relationships, stories and aspirations. The second comprises

the personal qualities, values, attitudes and dispositions for learning—perhaps

twenty-first-century virtues. The third is publicly required and personally valued skills

and competencies such as managing situations, being an active citizen or managing

ambiguity (see, for example, Haste, 2001). The fourth is the acquisition of publicly

assessed and valued knowledge and know-how. Learning and teaching require

mentored, selective attention to be given to these stations in a spiral sequence rather

than a linear one, since they are mutually reinforcing.

Learning power

It is the second ‘station’ in this metaphor which has to do with the personal power to

learn, or its popular designation ‘learning power’. This refers to seven core

dimensions of the capacity to learn how to learn, which emerged from a factor

analytic study with nearly two thousand learners (Deakin Crick et al., 2004). It is

described as ‘a form of consciousness characterized by particular dispositions, values

and attitudes, with a lateral and a temporal connectivity’. Significantly, the

dimensions of learning power described in this study include affect, cognition,

desire and action and thus cannot be reduced to only one of these components; hence

the reference to dispositions, values and attitudes. Together these can be supported

through the development of self-awareness and intentionality; hence the term

‘consciousness’. Temporal connectivity refers to a ‘way of being’ in the world that

orientates a person towards changing and learning over time and in different contexts,

and lateral connectivity refers to the ideas embedded in a sociocultural view of

learning in which the learner is a ‘person in relation’ to other people and to cultural

tools and artefacts, in which learning is frequently mediated through the interactions

of learning relationships (Rogoff & Wertsch, 1984; Lave & Wenger, 1991). These

may often be within a community of learners: a group of people committed to sharing

learning in a purposeful and collaborative manner.

In relation to the ‘learning journey’, learning power reflects backwards to the

learning self, since it is deeply personal, and forwards as mediated scaffolding,

towards the development of competencies and the acquisition of knowledge and

know-how. The purpose of making judgements about, or assessments of, someone’s

learning power is to facilitate the movement between personal identity, choice and

motivation and the processes and outcomes of learning. It is in this sense ‘dynamic’

since it is both retrospective (diagnostic and reflective) and prospective (formative

and motivational).