Extreme Learning Systems: Enabling the Vision

There's magic in the Web.

—Shakespeare, Othello, 1604

Learning ex Machina: The Web

With the advent of the Web, and what are currently called learning management systems, the architecture of continuous learning systems is slowly being put into place. For the first time in history, the vision of double loop learning—with its continually spinning feedback loops to both individual and organization—can become a reality. Such systems provide trainers with reporting tools, which can give a history and instant snapshot of the effectiveness of training initiatives. Learning management systems are to performance what the instant replay is to professional sports—providing instant feedback to support both accountability and accuracy in the training profession. This, coupled with high speed, globally accessible knowledge bases, and delivery networks, means we are entering an era of "extreme learning." But infrastructure, we must always remind ourselves, is not enough. If organizations are going to put the vision into practice, they will have to master content management, learning strategy, and strategic implementation as well—all within a systems context.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

—John Muir, 1869

Fastpaths

1903	Frederick Taylor: Shop Management. Speaks to the systems side of manufacturing, and prescribes the chunking of system operations into component sub-processes for task analysis and performance improvement efforts. Taylor anticipates Deming's TQM in the 1980s as well as Michael Hammer's process reengineering in the 1990s.
1912	Alexander Bogdanov's pioneering Tektology ("the structure of systems") appears in Russia, defining organizational form as "the totality of connections among systemic elements." Initiates the field of living or open systems design (how living organisms learn), which Bertalanffy (1950) will pursue.
1933	George Humphrey: The Nature of Learning in its Relation to the Living System. Humphrey applied early systems theory to psychology. Influenced by Einstein's relativity theory and the search for a unified field theory, Humphrey suggests that psychological experience equates to a four-dimensional space-time continuum in which learning depends more on the time dimension, while perception rests on the spatial dimension.
1936	Arthur Lovejoy: The Great Chain of Being, the classic study of systems thinking from Plato through Aquinas to the Romantics.
1947	W. Ross Ashby: "Principles of the Self-Organizing Dynamic System" appears in the Journal of General Psychology. Anticipates his book (see 1952).
1948	Norbert Wiener: Cybernetics: Or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Along with Ashby's book (1952), one of the two founding texts of modern systems thinking.
1950	Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901–1972): "Theory of Open Systems in Physics and Biology" in Science magazine. Bertalanffy, a transplanted Austrian biologist who had been influenced by the Viennese Gestalt school of psychology (a "systems" view of psychology) and had already published in German in the 1920s, becomes a leader in the field of "open" living systems. Such "living" or "organic" systems (stemming from the thought of Aristotle and Goethe) were opposed to the architectural "machine" systems of Wiener (1948) and Ashby (1952), which were "closed" systems. These two opposing types of systems thinking would continue at odds down through the latter half of the twentieth century, as witnessed by MIT's Senge (captive to the machines systems vision of Forrester) versus Capra and Wheatley (promoting the organic view of organizations). In the twenty-first century, the two theories are now coalescing.
1952	W. Ross Ashby: Design for a Brain. British theorist, initiates "machine" view of systems, which will culminate in Forrester's and MIT's view of systems. Ashby, along with Wiener, develops the notion of feedback and of single and double-loop learning (the latter including learning about learning). Together with Wiener (1948) Ashby is one of the two founders of modern systems thinking. In 1956 he publishes An Introduction to Cybernetics.
1954	International Society for the System Sciences is founded (ISSS). Its motto is a definition of system: "Elements working together as a whole." See www.ISSS.org
1961	Jay Forrester, MIT professor of machine systems theory, publishes Industrial Dynamics.
1962	Robert Gagne edits anthology Psychological Principles in System Development, which includes key chapter by Meredith Crawford on systems thinking in instructional design— including her proto-outline of an ADDIE model for instructional design (developed during the 1950s by the U.S. military). The method would be popularized in 1975 in a series of white papers.
1962	Thomas Kuhn: Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Its key concept of paradigm (mental model), with its example of the revolutionary shift in thinking from Aristotle to Newton, is directly related to systems thinking. (See Paradigm)
1965	Charles Kepner and Benjamin Tregoe: The Rational Manager: A Systematic Approach to Problem Solving and Decision Making. Classic performance improvement model built on problem solving.
1968	Ludwig von Bertalanffy: General Systems Theory (a collection of essays from the 1930s onwards). Bertalanffy's "general" systems theory equates to "open" or "living" systems theory.
1972	George Klir (ed.): Trends in General Systems Theory. Papers on the development of systems thinking across several disciplines.
1972	Paul Friesen: Designing Instruction: A Systems Approach Using Programmed Instruction. Well-written summary of PI system.
1972	Gregory Bateson: Steps to an Ecology of Mind, early precursor to learning systems theory. Formulates a theory of deutero-learning or "learning how to learn," which is very close to Ashby's earlier double-loop learning theory (1952): While the individual learns, the organization learns HOW to learn.
1973	William Gray and Nicholas Rizzo (eds.): Unity Through Diversity: A Festschrift for Ludwig von Bertalanffy.
1973	Fred Emery and Eric Trist: Toward a Social Ecology. Since the 1950s these two British experts, building on Bertalanffy's work on open systems, had been propounding a practical dynamic systems view of organizational development. Stressed the socio-technical side of organizational design as opposed to scientific Taylorism (see Fastpaths 1987, Weisbord).
1974	Donald Schon and Chris Argyris: Theory in Practice. Formulate theory of double loop learning with application to organizations, based on the theories of Wiener and Ashby.
1975	ADDIE is born, the system employed by instructional designers. Instructional Systems Design (ISD) is officially launched as a model by Florida State University (and simultaneously by the U.S. military)
1978	Robert Lilienfeld: The Rise of Systems Theory. Good summary of movement.
1978	James Miller: Living Systems. Exhaustive study of the topic (of organic, open systems).
1978	Walter Dick and Lou Carey: The Systematic Design of Instruction. Still an important textbook in the field.
1979	Douglas Hofstadter: Goedel, Escher, Bach. Focuses on the feedback loops in systems.
1985	Robert Tannenbaum et al.: Human Systems Development: New Perspectives on People and Organizations.
1987	Marvin Weisbord: Productive Workplaces.
1988	Robert Wright: Three Scientists and their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information. (See Knowledge Management.)
1990	Charles Handy: The Age of Unreason (on the learning organization).
1990	Peter Senge: The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization.
1990	Richard Pascale: Managing on the Edge: How the Smartest Companies Use Conflict to Stay Ahead. Chapter on "the two faces of learning" distinguishes little "l" learning (maximization) from Big "L" Learning (metamization).
1991	George Richardson: Feedback Thought in Social Science and Systems Theory. A superb study of systems thinking across multiple disciplines.
1992	William Rothwell and H. Kazanas: Mastering the Instructional Design Process: A Systematic Approach. Excellent summary of instructional design processes and theories. One of the best.
1992	Margaret Wheatley: Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World. An "organic" systems view of organizations.
1996	Chris Argyris and Donald Schon. Organizational Learning II.
1996	Fritjof Capra: The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems. Good summary of the history of organic systems thinking (as well as of Ashby and Wiener's machine systems models).
1998	Stephen Haines: Systems Thinking and Learning. A good summary of living systems theory as applied to organizations.

"Living systems" and "machine systems" are two major models of systems thinking.

My mother, whose views on education were remarkably strict, brought me up to be extremely short-sighted; it is part of her system.

—Heroine in Oscar Wilde's
The Importance of Being Earnest, 1895