Learning Goals - Learning to Be, Learning to Do, Learning to Know

With the explosion of media available, including Web 2.0 and computer games, people now assume they will achieve three overlapping learning goals in everything from life to high school to the first day on the new job. They are: first, learning to be. Then, learning to do. Finally, learning to know.

Learning to Be: Social Networks and communities

In Learning to Be, participants experiment with and discover who they are. They might experiment with choosing their appearance or voice in a community (including community of practice). They might experiment by participating in different social communities all together, and even taking on different roles within groups.

They share anecdotes and comment on others' contributions to establish themselves.

Core questions of participants to be answered:

• Who do I like?
• Who likes me?
• About what do I like to talk?
• What do I do for fun? What is fun for me?
• How do I dress, and what is my brand?
• What is my role in a group? The funny one? The brave one? The stylish one?
• With whom do I like to hang?

Learning to be might be greatly influenced by a great novel, or even, in a professional sense, a branching story.

Learning to Do: educational simulation and microcosms

In Learning to Do, participants learn and practice how to influence and change their surroundings.

They learn how to apply Big Skills (such as adapting, leadership, nurturing /stewardship, communication) and Middle Skills( such as moderating ownership and containment), and of course, technical skills.

Participants focus on goals and missions, and learn about unintended consequences and the need to evaluate success against a complete balanced scorecard, not just one criterion.

There is a constant opportunity to understand and apply Actions and activities, including the ability to calibrate many different throttles.

Participants develop mastery level, and increased professional value.

Core questions of participants to be answered:

• How can I impact the world? How can I bring about change?
• How can I practice in virtual environments, and then transfer that to microcosms and full real environments?
• How can I add value to a situation? What can I do for a living? How can I increase my control and value?
• How do I know if I did the right thing or the wrong thing?

Learning to Know: books and lectures

In Learning to Know, participants begin to increase their awareness of their place in the universe. They make sense of the world they inherited. They understand connections to what came before us and what might come after.

They hear stories, and learn to tell stories themselves. They are briefed on anecdotes, background material, and case studies

Core questions of participants to be answered:

• How can I make people care about outcomes?
• Can I evaluate the work of others?
• Why are things the way they are? What are the rules?
• What is a good life?
• What did my parents do? And their parents do? What is my ancestry?
• What are the labels of things? How can I process my knowledge to make it easier to broadly communicate?
• How do I describe characters?

The tragedy is that the staggering success of the old technology of books have made Learning to Know the cornerstone of schools and training programs (at least what is formally taught, practiced, graded, and recorded). But until people first learn to be and learn to do, learning to know is not only useless, it is impossible.