ORGL 2

Module 2: Ethics and Decision-Making

Events Model of Learning from Experience

Experience involves feedback from Event to Attention to Experience to Reflection to New Learning

Here is another diagram from Fiddler and Marienau that shows how our previous learning is always influencing and shaping how we see new experiences. We may have a new Event, like the manager who has a new truck, but isn't sure who should get the new truck or what criteria should be used in making the decision. The manager may have certain preferences for certain employees, or certain social pressures about trying to please the higher managers to whom he answers or who watch his decision-making ability. That shapes his Experience; and, therefore, he focused on some things more than others. The manager may have a certain set of assumptions or biases, but he has to engage in self-evaluation and recognize the limits of his own beliefs as he makes his decision. He may find his own assumptions, his beliefs, have to be adjusted because of the Event and the Experience.

Figure 7.1 from Fiddler, Morris, & Marienau, Catherine. (2008, summer). Developing habits of reflection for meaningful learning. In, S. Reed & C. Marienau (Eds.), Linking adults with community: Promoting civic engagement through community-based learning. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 118. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 75-85.