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Intellectual Capital
The things that people know form the basis of a company’s intellectual capital. It is essential that companies have systems and processes for capturing and fostering this valuable resource.

5th Discipline
In his book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge details his model of a “learning organization,” which he defines as “an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future.” A learning organization excels at both adaptive learning–also known as survival learning–and generative learning.

Technology in the Classroom
How can technology be used effectively in the classroom? What sort of curriculum can be employed to help teachers make their students learn difficult subjects? How can you engage a student? Review one approach for using technology to teach history.

Fulfilling the Promise
Recent legislation allocated billions of dollars for bringing the nation’s primary and secondary schools on line, creating a pipeline between the classroom and a vast world of knowledge and communication. Learn more about the e-rate by exploring the following links:

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Intellectual Capital

Intellectual Capital is one of the hottest topics talked about in today’s Knowledge Management field. In fact, FastCompany magazine proclaims it one of management’s fastest growing trends. But just what does Knowledge Management mean? How can you and your company can capitalize on what your employees already know?

First, you need an appropriate environment, one in which people are free to dialogue and experiment. Second, employees must be supported by the appropriate technology. Tom Stewart, on page 114 of Intellectual Capital, suggests three areas that justify investing in the construction of knowledge databases. They are:

Corporate yellow pages that track where the knowledge within a company resides

A best practices system that captures lessons learned

Competitive intelligence

 

Check Out These Additional Resources

Assess how your company is managing its Intellectual Capital.

Touraj Nasseri suggests that Intellectual Capital is a company’s most important strategic resource for competing and winning. He gives a practical definition and discusses some ways to apply it.

Balance sheets unfortunately do not account for Intellectual Capital. This Fortune article offers an excellent primer on the topic.

The Learning Organization Dialogue often covers topics related to Intellectual Capital. It’s a great place to chat with experts on this subject.

What Is Knowledge Management?–Brint provides an excellent overview of Knowledge Management and contains an enormous repository of articles on the topic. Though slightly technical, it’s a good introduction. Plus, it lists some excellent resources at the end.

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The 5th Discipline

OVERVIEW
In his book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge details his model of a “learning organization,” which he defines as “an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future.” A learning organization excels at both adaptive learning–also known as survival learning–and generative learning.

THE TOOL
Senge’s learning organization model consists of the following five disciplines:

  1. Systems thinking–Senge attests that we must look at the patterns that connect the larger system. Systems thinkers cure headaches by removing the cause, rather than simply ingesting aspirin. They pay careful attention to how different tasks and functions interact. Systems thinkers believe that by examining these patterns of interplay, we can better pinpoint the important issues.
  2. Personal mastery–Senge stresses the significance of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, focusing our energies, developing patience, and seeing reality objectively.
  3. Shared vision–Senge defines this discipline as the “picture of the future.” A shared vision is intuitive and instinctive; it’s not something that’s learned by rote. A shared vision is also a collective experience–it’s the cumulative total of each participant’s personal vision.
  4. Team learning–Senge’s fourth discipline states that any group’s collective IQ will always be much higher than an individual’s IQ. The only way to begin building group IQ is to open the channels of communication within the group and start talking to one another.
  5. Mental models–Senge defines mental models as the deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, and even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world. Since how we act is based on our impressions of our surrounding environment, it’s imperative that we recognize and re-evaluate our mental models and preconceived assumptions.

Senge’s five components of a learning organization are all interrelated. Personal mastery, shared vision, team learning, and mental models make up the foundation of the organization. And systems thinking is the cement that holds it all together. In order for the learning organization to work, each of the five disciplines must be developed simultaneously and integrated with one another.

Applying Senge’s model to the typical corporate mission of “increasing shareholder value” is insightful. The Fifth Discipline calls this vision shortsighted, since it does not consider what leads up to the increase in shareholder value. The typical corporate mission limits the organization’s thinking to only one aspect of a problem. As an example, Senge states that a more “enlightened” corporate mission would include customer service and treatment of employees in its focus.

Senge further delineates his model of a learning organization through his 11 Laws of the Fifth Discipline:

  1. Today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions.
  2. The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back.
  3. Behavior grows better before it grows worse.
  4. The easy way out usually leads back in.
  5. The cure can be worse than the disease.
  6. Faster is slower.
  7. Cause and effect are not closely related in time and space.
  8. Small changes can produce big results–but the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious.
  9. You can have your cake and eat it too–but not all at once.
  10. Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants.
  11. There is no blame.

SUMMARY
The Fifth Discipline is a tough book to get through–many people start it, but few finish. If you manage to make it to the end, you will gain ideas you can apply over and over again. It will probably take at least two readings for all the material covered to sink in. While the Senge doesn’t present any quick fixes, he provides new language and tools that can help turn your organization into a learning organization.

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Resources – Lakota

Rather than using technology as a tool to instruct directly, teachers can use it as a tool to facilitate conversation. This conversation should allow for more personal student experiences that allow them to draw upon a wider base of experiences. This works particularly well when exploring multiple interpretations of a historical event. The Lakota Teaching Project contains a representative curriculum. This curriculum can easily be adapted to teaching other lessons of history, particularly those involving culture. The structure of a simple curriculum for this might be:

  1. Provide students an overview of a simple web authoring tool such as Microsoft’s FrontPage
  2. Segment the history topic into modules. (The modules on the Lakota site are indicated at the bottom of their homepage).
  3. For each module, create activities for students that allow them to explore their understanding of your topic area. For example, students might explore the impact that war has had on their family to understand the impact of war on a community.
  4. Students should contribute to a web page that reflects their view of the specific activity. This can be thought of the equivalent of an enhanced ‘electronic journal.’
  5. Once several sites have begun, teachers should encourage students to review the work of others, within their class and outside of it, and discuss the differences in the various projects.
  6. In-class projects should focus on exploring the differences between the students. Students should be encouraged to publish paper and interpretations to their sites.
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