can adults learn in group writing?
DESCRIPTION
Personal Development of adults in writing groups; combining concepts of change, learning, interaction, flexibility and Sense of Coherence to arrive at an operational definition of Personal Development.TRANSCRIPT
Personal DevelopmentinStructuredWriting Groups of adultsfrom a general,non-clinicalpopulation
1Tuesday, 16 July 13
Personal Development,what is it in this study?
operational definition
2Tuesday, 16 July 13
Personal Development,what is it in this study?
operational definition
Perceivable change towards lasting flexibility in
2Tuesday, 16 July 13
Personal Development,what is it in this study?
operational definition
Perceivable change towards lasting flexibility in behaviour,
2Tuesday, 16 July 13
Personal Development,what is it in this study?
operational definition
Perceivable change towards lasting flexibility in behaviour,
cognition,
2Tuesday, 16 July 13
Personal Development,what is it in this study?
operational definition
Perceivable change towards lasting flexibility in behaviour,
cognition, emotion,
2Tuesday, 16 July 13
Personal Development,what is it in this study?
operational definition
Perceivable change towards lasting flexibility in behaviour,
cognition, emotion,
coping,
2Tuesday, 16 July 13
Personal Development,what is it in this study?
operational definition
Perceivable change towards lasting flexibility in behaviour,
cognition, emotion,
coping,intra- and interpersonal communication
2Tuesday, 16 July 13
my metaphor
3Tuesday, 16 July 13
Personal Development is the container for all concepts:
the contour of the tree
4Tuesday, 16 July 13
A flexible tree is resilient, it can grow in various ways
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Rigid trees are vulnerable
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parts observed for changing flexibility
emotion
cognitioncoping
communication
behaviour
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Sense of Coherence
What holds the ‘tree’ together is
the core self image
8Tuesday, 16 July 13
A high Sense of Coherence means
You can make sense of the world you live in.
You feel that you can cope with what you encounter.
Your life feels meaningful.
SoC concept and scale developed by Aaron Antonovsky, 1979, 1987
cross-culturally validated to correlate with healthy ageing
9Tuesday, 16 July 13
Vectors of development over timegoing from
younger to older agestatic to movingrigid to supplefixed to permeable, adaptive boundariesvulnerable to resilient, resourcefulnone or few to more options/choices
10Tuesday, 16 July 13
more vectors of development going from
Lower to higher feeling of agencyMore dependence to more autonomyIsolation to connectedness:
external (with others) and internal (with aspects of self)
other vectors are conceivable
11Tuesday, 16 July 13
LearningWhat is known What is not known
Zone of Proximal Development
with ‘more knowledgeable others’ = older people= society’s impact on education
In adult groups everyone can be more knowledgeable to another in some way
concepts taken from Lev Vygotsky, 1978
Model for cognitive learning in children
12Tuesday, 16 July 13
Learning in writing groups is:cognitive: skills of communication
with others and with selfAND
affective: how to be safe with othersFeeling safe enhances openness to learning
13Tuesday, 16 July 13
• Generative Learning is a logical model of levels: each level is of a different logical type, a higher abstraction, than the members it classifies
Personal Development is a form of Generative Learning
concepts developed by Gregory Bateson, 1964
A change in the frame of reference, a shift to higher-order thinking, creates ever more changes
14Tuesday, 16 July 13
How Generative Learning connects to the other concepts
• To reach a ‘higher’ level - ‘meta’ to the one below - a process of increasing openness and integration of learning is necessary
• Learning requires Openness, which is a prerequisite for flexibility as defined in this study
• Integration of learning means fitting new information to the existing coherent structure of the self
15Tuesday, 16 July 13
System-dynamic process of personal development by writing in a group
• structured writing exercises and group interaction stimulate flexibility bound by coherence
16Tuesday, 16 July 13