My experience in learning organization in my workplace

According to Senge's Schools that Learn, the five principles for learning organizations are

1. Personal mastery
2. Mental models
3. Shared visions
4. Team learning
5. Systems thinking

I will share my experience with my workplace with regard to these five principles.

1. Personal mastery

I would say that as a teacher, each of us do possess the basic subject and pedagogical knowlege to be a teacher. But in the ever changing world nowadays, all these tacit knowledge is no longer sufficient. It is more important to adopt an attitude to be a life-long learner to suit the needs of the world.

2. Mental models and shared vision

Both mental models and shared vision will be extremely useful to guide us for the direction ahead. Schools with regligious background will have strong characteristics of these. Unfortunately, from my experience, the work of a teacher is too much and we seldom have time nor opportunity to really take the time off to formulate shared vision among staff members. It is mostly the case that we have to follow what is decided by the administration and implement without going into the details of why or how these are being formulated.

3. Team learning

The most obvious experience is the staff development programme for schools. However, the effectiveness of these is questionable, mostly due to the vast variety of needs of various staff members. Should there be a common goal to align the learning, the effectiveness can be much enhanced.

4. Systems thinking

Usually the big picture is left for the administration to worry about, a teacher can only deal with his/her own responsibility most of the time.