Learning enterprises

Learning Enterprises is the type of learning which reflected capabilities that combine types of learning into more general expertise developed by Gagné and Merrill (1990). This is additional type of learning to Gagné’s types of learning: declarative knowledge, intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, attitudes, and psychomotor skills. Learning goal not always include one learning outcome. The multiple objectives are frequently occurred when instruction handled not just single topic or lesson to the course. Integration of multiple objectives may usefully be conceived in terms of the more comprehensive activity in which the human performer is engaged, which we call an enterprise. An enterprise is a purposive activity that may depend for its execution on some combination of verbal information, intellectual skills, and cognitive strategies, all related by their involvement in the common goal. Given such an integrative goal of performance resulting from instruction, the various single objectives are viewed as being integrated as constituents of an enterprise schema. (Gagné & Merill, 1990)

Gagné ’s types of learning outcomes [1]

Robert M. Gagné (1985) divided possible learning outcomes into five large "Domains"; declarative knowledge, intellectual skill, cognitive strategies, psychomotor skills and attitude. In 1990, Gagné and Merrill added new type of learning which is learning enterprises.

• Declarative knowledge: Also called as verbal information. This type of learning requires a learner to recall in verbatim, paraphrased, or summarized form facts, lists, names, or organized information. It requires recall, recognize, or state contents in learner’s own words.
• Intellectual skills: Intellectual skills are typified by application of rules to previously unencountered examples or information. This type of learning outcome differs from declarative knowledge because learners learn how to not only recall, but also to apply knowledge to instances not encountered during instruction. The four most common types of intellectual skills are making discriminations, forming concepts, applying rules, and solving problems.
• Cognitive strategies: This is “learning how to learn”. Cognitive strategies are the metaprocesses that we use to manage our thinking about things and manage our own learning. A more complex cognitive strategy would be figuring out how to organize, cluster, remember, and apply new information.
• Psychomotor skills: This is the learning about how to performance. Coordinated muscular movements that are typified by smoothness and precise timing are called psychomotor skills(R.Gagné, 1985)
• Attitude: An attitude is a mental state that predisposes a learner to choose to behave in a certain way(R. Gagné, 1985). Attitudes affects the learner's choice, and this play a strong role in motivational aspect.
• Learning Enterprise: types of activities that require students to collaborate and use a variety of capabilities; translate those activities into a class project; translate the project into objectives by identifying the component skills

From each of the single categories of learning outcome, the instructional designer is able to analyze and prescribe the instructional conditions necessary for effective learning. When instruction is considered in the more comprehensive sense of a module, section, or course, in a macro level, it becomes apparent that multiple objectives commonly occur.

Base of learning enterprises

Macro strategy

First of all, micro strategies are ways to approach instruction on particular topics of learning goals. Typically, an instructional design and development task for either education or training involves more than one goal or topic. Therefore, we need to approach with Macro level. Developing instruction at the macro level is frequently referred to as curriculum development or design which is concerned with making decisions about the scope, organization, and sequence of content at the macro level. Posner and coworkers (Posner&Strike, 1976; Poser&Rudnitsky, 1994) classified curriculum sequencing structures, which is used in curriculum development, into five major categories: world related structure, learning-related structure, utilization- related structure, inquiry-related structure, and concept-related structure. Learning enterprise is based on macro strategy, because it is beyond the single topic, or goal. Especially it is connected with learning-related structure.

Diagram of Curriculum sequencing structure

Learning-Related Structure

Learning-related structures organize information in such a way that new learning builds on relevant prior knowledge. We use this into two ways. One is prerequisite-based structure which is based on prerequisite relationship of all the information and skills in the course. The other is Knowledge structure. The knowledge structure idea is seen in learning enterprises. The unifying element in an enterprise is a declarative knowledge representation of enterprise itself. A strong emphasis is placed on the purposeful and interrelated qualities of the knowledge, and hence, various theories related to schema. The declarative knowledge of the enterprise is referred to as an enterprise schema.

Components of learning enterprises

Each kind of enterprise is represented in memory by a schema that reflects the purpose or goal of the enterprise category, the various knowledge and skills required to engage in the enterprise, and a scenario which indicates when and how each piece of knowledge or skill is required by the enterprise.

Enterprise Schema

The enterprise schema is expected to contain a number of knowledge and skill constituents which become associated in the service of the integrated goal. These include verbal labels, connected-discourse forms of verbal information, intellectual skills, and cognitive strategies. Depending upon the enterprise, motor skills, and attitudes may also be involved.

There are different kinds of enterprise schemas, just as there are different kinds of application forms. Each such schema contains slots to be filled by the details of any specific enterprise. There appear to be several categories of integrative goals that are useful to distinguish as different kinds of enterprise schemas. Three varieties of enterprise and their associated enterprise schemas are described, designated by their goals as denoting, manifesting, and discovering.

Denoting An entity (thing, place, event) or class of entities may be denoted by giving its name, the class to which it belongs, and the function it serves. The denoting communication may also include identification of the parts of the entity, their locations, and functions. As an example, a hawser is denoted as a large rope (its class) for towing or moving a ship (its function). Denoting may also proceed to indicate parts, such as the hawser bend (used for connecting two hawsers) and a hawser clamp (a device for gripping a hawser). Entities other than objects may be denoted, such as persons, places, or events. Examples might be the U. S. Attorney General, the city of St. Louis, the 1988 baseball World Series. An enterprise of this sort is a part of many human occupations such as teaching, explaining, orienting, counseling, and giving directions.
Manifesting Actions involving entities as actors or objects may be arranged in a series of steps leading to a particular result. Such a series is called a process, and it is this that is the object of a manifesting enterprise. Learners must gain knowledge of the steps in the process. A manifesting enterprise consists of making a process evident to other people (e.g., students, co-workers) by indicating its stages and their sequence. Manifesting a process implies going beyond employing a simple verbal communication; it may require the use of pictures or props, as is commonly done in a demonstration. An example of manifesting a process occurs when a student can indicate the stages in the life cycle of an insect and can show how these stages vary under different environmental conditions.
Discovering The enterprise of discovering reveals (to observers) a previously unknown novel entity or process. Often, entities and the procedures for manipulating them are inventions. One of the most creative types of enterprise involves the capability to design or discover a novel entity or procedure. For example, to remove tight covers from jars, a learner might discover the design of an object that grips the cover tightly, making possible its unscrewing from the jar. Alternatively, a learner might discover a procedure that would cause the cover to loosen its grip on the jar by metal expansion. As another example, having knowledge of control mechanisms in mechanical systems, a learner may discover a hypothesis about biological control mechanisms which trigger phases of the life cycle of insects.

Enterprise Scenario in learning transfer

Verbal information in the form of an enterprise scenario is typically a prominent part of an enterprise schema. It is this declarative knowledge that relates particular singular objectives that compose the expected behavior to the purposive activity that is the enterprise. The enterprise scenario “tells” the learners that the concept they are identifying, or the procedure they are following, is actually an essential part of a purposeful enterprise. For example, an enterprise scenario may remind students of arithmetic that they are going to encounter future situations requiring them to perform mental subtraction in order to verify the change from a purchase made with a paper-money bill of fixed value. Or, an enterprise scenario may help a student of physics to bring to mind the relation between the practice of electric heating and the cost of electric power. The enterprise schema is likely to be a factor of considerable prominence in the mediation of transfer of learning from one task to another, or from a learning task to a later performance. As contrasted with factors pertaining to the quality of learning content such as amount and variety of practice, the enterprise frame is a metacognitive feature.
The implication it carries for instructional design is to ensure transfer from training to the job, provision must be made for learner acquisition of an enterprise schema in addition to the specific knowledges and skills that the performance requires. The enterprise scenario of this schema is one that relates each component of knowledge and skill to the goal, and thus to the enterprise that embodies this goal.

References

1. Robert M. Gagné and M. David Merrill, Integrative goals for instructional design, Educational Technology Research and Development: Vol.38, no1, pp. 23–30
2. Partricia L.Smith&Tillman J.Ragan, Instructuinal Design 3rd edition, Wiley ISBN 978-0-471-39353-5 Search this book on .
3. Water Dick&Lou Carey&James O.Carey, The Systemetic Design of Instruction 7th addutuib, Pearson ISBN 978-0-205-58556-4 Search this book on .

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