Expansive Learning Theory
A transformative learning framework focused on collective activity systems where learners co-create new knowledge and practices to resolve systemic contradictions. Unlike traditional learning which transmits existing knowledge, this model facilitates 'learning what is not yet there' to drive institutional and societal change.
When learning happens best through collaboration and community
Your team learns best from each other and you want to leverage peer knowledge and social dynamics for better outcomes.
Best utilized during periods of organizational crisis, major technological shifts, or when traditional problem-solving methods fail to address deep-seated systemic issues.
Questioning
Analysis
Modeling the new solution
Examining the new model
Implementing the new model
Reflecting on the process
Consolidating the new practice
Multiplies learning by tapping into the group's collective experience.
Facilitators can implement this through 'Change Laboratory' interventions, using mediating artifacts (like diagrams or models) to help participants visualize their current activity systems, identify internal conflicts, and design new workflows.
- 1Create opportunities for peer teaching
- 2Use small groups for deeper discussion
- 3Celebrate shared discoveries
- 4Build learning communities that last beyond sessions
- Organizational transformation
- Systemic innovation
- Professional development in complex environments
- Community-based sustainability projects
- Contradictions as drivers of change
- The activity system as the primary unit of analysis
- Multi-voicedness within the collective
- Historicity (understanding the evolution of the practice)
- Object-orientedness
- Requires significant longitudinal commitment from stakeholders
- Focuses on collective agency rather than individual skill acquisition
- Can be disruptive as it challenges established norms and power structures