Experiential Learning

 

Andragogy in Industry

PIDP 3100

David Weymer #000421861

Vancouver Community College

In Adult Learning: Linking Theory and Practice Meriam and Bierema (2014) state that “tests and grades are anathema to andragogy, which assumes adults are capable of self-evaluating their own learning” (pp. 57-58).

Objective

Logging has always been a high hazard business. For years there were varying degrees of effort put into making things safer, but to a large degree there was an accepted culture that it was a dangerous business and however careful you were, some bad things were going to happen. Accidents were accepted to some extent as inevitable.

In 2005 there were 43 deaths in the forest industry which was horrible for those of us in the industry, but it also created a huge public outcry to stop the slaughter in the woods. The government more or less told the industry leaders, fix this or we’ll shut you down. The pressure was on to figure out how to do things better, and rightly so.

Industry formed the BC Forest Safety Council to get the job done. It was decided that they should put the focus where there were the biggest gains to be made.

Fallers, the guys that cut down the trees with power saws, had the most hazardous job, and the worst accident record, so they were first on the radar.

Due to this, timber falling in BC has gone through a major revolution in the past 13 years.

Prior to 2005, while certainly surrounded by WorkSafeBC regulations pertaining to how falling was done and requirements for employers to ensure adequate training and supervision, there was not a lot of standardization and clarity as to how falling should be done. This was with some justification as fallers were working in the wild where there were huge variations in the difficulties they encountered, and no two situations were ever the same.

It was decided that some standardization should be imposed through a standardized training system for new fallers, and a certification system be put in place to ensure all existing fallers where qualified up to a predetermined standard.

Consequently, bounded by what were considered best practices by those regulating the industry, a document was drawn up to quantify how timber falling would be done in the future in BC. There have been lumps and bumps amidst considerable push back throughout the implementation, but in general, it’s proven to be a reasonably good document given what it’s tried to encompass.

This has left us with the challenge of ensuring that the training of new fallers is done well, and that those that have been assessed as qualified to do the job safely, are in fact doing it safely.

With that in mind, we can now reflect on the pros and cons of instructor led training that involves tests and grades, versus learner led, experiential, reflective learning with primarily self- evaluation as the measuring stick.

Reflective

I have been heavily involved with the implementation of this new system over the intervening years and have struggled with determining the best way to do it.

Much of the reading I have done would indicate that the chosen method of learning should be matched to the learner. I would argue that it also, and in some cases more importantly, be matched to the material being taught.

I have heard it said that we need experience to avoid making mistakes, but we need to make mistakes to get experience. A challenge with our industry is that making a mistake could quite possibly get a person killed. (This kind of negates any benefits of acquiring the experience, on a personal level at least. Historically, the industry has developed great learning opportunities from fatalities, but more on that later.)

In light of this, the idea of learner led experiential learning would, on the surface, seem a poor model for much of our industry. On the other hand, it has been my experience that, while it’s easy to hand people ideas, their buy in is so much deeper if they come up with the ideas themselves.

Interpretive

So what sort of a blend of teaching and evaluation methods should we be using?

Methods for managing crews can be largely broken into two groups. Managing by rules and regulations and managing by relationships. Managing learners can be viewed through a similar lens, and in both cases a mix of the two is usually the best bet. Due to the hazardous nature of what we train to, a strong layer of rules and regulations is required to keep people safe, but it needs to be tempered with a relationship management style that will allow learners the time and space to think, discuss, and reflect on what they are experiencing and how that works with what the instructor has told them. Merriam and Bierema (2014) say “the connection between adult learning and life experience is so basic that it is difficult to think of any learning that occurs isolated from experience” (p. 115).

The initial training to be a faller starts out with a minimum of 30 days of 1 on 1 with a faller who is also a trained trainer. It starts out as very directed and controlled learning, but a good trainer should fairly quickly begin letting the trainee plan some of the next moves, even to the point of making mistakes if this can be done safely. The trainer should also guide the trainee to some self-reflection of his plan before and/or after it is implemented. Self-evaluation, too, leads to better buy in, as well as better retention.

Eventually these new fallers will be eased into the falling crew to gradually work more and more on their own, but the training goes on – forever, ideally. I see managing a crew as being a mix of supervising and instructing. This facilitates getting things done the way they need to be done and at the same time provides opportunities for constant self-improvement of the workers themselves — often with discussion and reflection about experiences as individuals and as a group. Most people want to keep learning, and a good supervisor or instructor can help make that easier and more effective.

Decisional

            Managing by rules and regulations requires close supervision. Because of the hazard zone created around where fallers are falling trees, they are required to work with no one else within two tree lengths of them most of the time. While they are periodically checked on for compliance with rules and regulations, they need to be comfortable and competent with self-monitoring themselves to a large extent, as it is not a scenario that lends itself to close supervision on a daily let alone a continual basis. I believe this works best with a management style weighted more heavily toward a relationship model, allowing fallers to use reflections on lessons from their past experience to help safely meet the supervisor’s goals and priorities in a cooperative manner.

There are some hard and fast rules and regulations that need to be followed to fall timber safely. They have been written in the wake of investigations into the fatalities and injuries mentioned above. New fallers need to be trained well in understanding their intent, and the history and the reasoning behind them; furthermore, all fallers need to be tested and graded to assure they know them. Most importantly, the rules and regulations need to be followed. As the industry saying goes, they are written in blood.

In the end, though, good decisions are made through open and free reflection on past experience, which acknowledges what went right, what went wrong, and the acceptance of responsibility, without fault being attached.  This experience can come from training, from stories of others’ experiences, or from the learner’s own hands on experience. Meriam and Bierema (2014, pp. 44-45) cite Lindeman’s identification of the importance of the learner’s experience as being “the resource of highest value in adult education” and “the adult learner’s living text book” (Lindeman, 1926/1961, pp. 9-10).

This course and this reflection have brought home to me how important it can be to train for and encourage this type of learning and decision making.

Effective and meaningful instruction, learning, and supervision are very close to my heart. I have lost a number of good friends to this industry. On December 13^th, 2005 the forty-third fatality of the year was a young faller on the falling crew I was supervising.        

References

Merriam, S. B., & Bierema, L. L. (2014). Adult Learning: Linking Theory and Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.