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This chapter examines how children's cognitive, social, and linguistic abilities interact to enable them to analyze action in events and learn novel verbs. It argues that “infants not only are competent in discriminating human actions and object motion but also understand that many different agents are capable of performing the same actions by the beginning of the second year.” However, these achievements are insufficient for verb learning and extension because toddlers must become aware of the intentions of the actor. Verb learning and extension first occur based on a superficial perceptual analysis of how the action looks, followed by learning and extension based more on what the actor intends to do.

This chapter presents a participatory action research approach, which is used in the Salford Refugee and Asylum Seeker Participatory Action Research (RAPAR) project. It discusses the origins of the project and its initial stages. The chapter shows how the project volunteers were developed, the author's experiences while working on the project, and the lessons that were learned while the study was being conducted.

The Learning Cube is a simple diagnostic tool that can be used to analyze and evaluate training programs. It comprises three dimensions: (1) abstraction-concreteness; (2) direction-autonomy; (3) individual-interactive. The Learning Cube is presented in outline, with a description of its dimensions and their meanings. Action learning, which encourages the learner and the trainer to share responsibility for developing a suitable learning strategy, is characterized by a combination of concreteness, autonomy, and interaction. This was the philosophy of the China-EEC Management Program (CEMP) initiated in 1984, which contrasted with traditional Chinese views of knowledge transfer. The CEMP situation is assessed in terms of the Learning Cube, and suggestions for reconciling action learning with traditional Chinese values and skills are presented.

Through a case study of a courageous effort to deconstruct the old system of local government and challenge it with a structure based on resident self-governance through neighbourhood committees, this chapter illustrates the main principles and themes of whole systems development as they emerge from practice; shows that all whole systems development activities are a process of action learning; and develops a number of other themes and principles through the emerging story of Gladwell – working via ‘widening circles of inclusivity’ within multiple, overlapping systems, using action learning in the whole systems context, creating the space for leadership via ‘holding frameworks’ and ‘middle-ground frameworks’. The story that emerges is more an account of learning than a cause–effect change intervention.

The cingulate cortex is involved in action-outcome learning. The concept is that posterior cingulate cortex action-related information received from the parietal cortex is brought together in the cingulate cortex with the anterior cingulate cortex reward outcome-related information received from the orbitofrontal cortex, and via the midcingulate cortex the result of action-outcome learning can influence premotor areas. In addition, the posterior cingulate cortex has major connectivity with the parahippocampal cortex, which in turn projects spatial information to the entorhinal cortex and thereby into the hippocampal episodic memory system. The posterior cingulate cortex thus provides a route for spatial including visuo-spatial information to reach the hippocampus, where it can be combined with object and reward-related information to form episodic memories.

Although in most cases this is an impossible aspiration, the key issue in designing whole systems development processes is to develop ways in which the actors can see, understand, and think through their ways of working together on issues that cross organisational and community boundaries. This chapter examines the ways in which groups – both large and small – can meet differently to enable the principles of whole systems development to be practised; explores the leadership, design, and logistics of big events as one key mechanism for meeting differently; discusses the consultancy support needed to assist these ways of working; encourages one to reflect and learn from personal experiences of meeting differently; and explores the notion of ‘everyone in the room together’ as a metaphor for meeting differently as practised particularly through processes of action learning.

In whole systems terms, follow-through is inextricably linked with the challenge of implementation, of getting things done and generating change in the long term. This chapter introduces and develops the idea of change architecture; develops the links between change architectures, the Five Keys, and the other important principles for leading change; reiterates and develops the role and purpose of action learning within whole systems processes; emphasises the continuing importance of creating ‘memories of the future’ through scenario building and wider inclusion; and connects to the last two chapters on the newer forms of organising and working towards local solutions with wider whole systems. Sustaining real long-term change seems notoriously difficult. Despite the fine rhetoric from the world of Management (and MMV), change efforts often amount to little more than restructurings, single events, disconnected initiatives, and bouts of episodic ‘sheep-dip’-type training programmes.

The medial orbitofrontal cortex projects reward-related information to the pregenual cingulate cortex, and the lateral orbitofrontal cortex projects punishment and non-reward information to the supracallosal anterior cingulate cortex. These projections provide the reward outcome information needed for action-outcome goal value dependent instrumental learning by the cingulate cortex. The orbitofrontal cortex also projects reward-related information to the striatum for stimulus-response habit learning. Via the striatal route, and further in part via the habenula, the orbitofrontal cortex provides information about rewards and non-rewards that reached the brainstem dopamine neurons, some of which respond to positive reward prediction error, and the serotonin (5HT) neurons. The orbitofrontal cortex is therefore perhaps the key brain region involved in reward processing in the brain. The orbitofrontal cortex also has projections that can influence autonomic function, in part via the insula.

In this chapter, the extent to which actions and perceptions depend on each other is explored particularly for the visual system. Viewing the world through a mirror or a lens that displaces or inverts images provides examples of our ability to learn new sensorimotor consistencies. The use of sensory prostheses that replace one sensory modality with another, for example, visual by tactile stimuli or vestibular by tactile stimuli, provides examples of the capacity of our brains to learn about new sensorimotor relationships, often with surprising rapidity, even in an adult.

This book underscores two deep-seated convictions about teaching. The first abandons the idea that learning simply amounts to filling students’ blank minds with missing supplies of theories, perspectives, statistics, and research reports. The second accepts the ideas that personal presence is the sine qua non of both professional practice and professional education. Learning necessarily involves action and interaction. You, your students, and the context produced by your exchange is crucial. The single most important catalyst in this matrix is you—your self. Your personhood affects this exchange in a most significant way. Flowing from this overarching conviction are yet other intermingled building blocks of professional education. Among these are that professional education needs to be learner-focused, not content-centered; it needs to be active, collaborative, emotionally tinged, and tailored to students’ styles. In addition, professional education rests upon certain fundamental beliefs: learning accrues from facilitation; content and its conveyance should mesh; knowledge mastery is but one aspect of learning; thinking and feeling are inseparable; and effective teaching emanates from questioning, responding, and, most important of all, listening. The chief vehicle for advancing professional education is initiating and sustaining a solid and positive relationship. Within a relational milieu, students feel free to examine assumptions, test values, share mistakes, experiment with alternative theories, try out new behaviors, and ultimately make strides toward professional development as self-aware, disciplined practitioners. Teaching involves more than delivery. It stimulates discovery, elicits wonder. Your role mandates your understanding of how students learn and work, and your ability to enable them to draw upon your wisdom and talent as well as the resources you make available. It requires your finding out what they need to know and generating ways to convey it. Your challenge is to make your art so powerful that it appeals at the same time to the intellectual as well as to the emotional lives of students in a visceral way.