I love learning and I love professional development (PD) opportunities. PD is an important part of any career path, but more importantly, it catalyses lifelong learning. Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I seek, make sense and share my PD.
Personal knowledge management (PKM) is a critical part of learning and PD, so I’ve decided to explore PKM, with Harold Jarche’s (2014) seek, sense and share framework.
Here’s my PKM routine:
| PKM | Critical Thinking Process | Tools and Strategies |
| Seek | Observe, study & read |
|
| Sense | Challenge, evaluate, reflect and review |
|
| Share | Participate |
|
I find the seek, sense and share framework a clear way of highlighting the three stages of PKM: finding and filtering information (seeking); reflecting and digesting the information (sensing); and finally sharing our insights with others (sharing). Since, I am someone who learns better via analogies and metaphors, I was attracted to the way von Holzen (2015) describes the seek, sense and share framework. She states that:
- Seeking is like fishing. Depending on the weaving of the nature or the lures we use, we make our catches more accidental or more strategic (I like this analogy as it highlights the role technology plays in information retrieval)
- Sensing is like cooking. We combine idea, connect the dots, add new thinking, challenge old patterns and create meaning
- Sharing is inviting guests to the table for a joint meal. Sharing is a celebration of ideas, stories and information
(von Holzen, 2015).
My own PKM routine is rather subconscious. Like Jarche (2014), I seek most information and insights via “human filters.” However, I’ve also been unconsciously adding tools into my repertoire.
Sensing is a big part of my PKM routine. I mostly do this by writing. I’m a crazy writer. I write about everything…just to make sense of it, whether it be via blogs, fictional stories, poetry, journaling or articles of scholarship. Writing challenges my views and perceptions, which I believe is a core of the sensing element.
Recently, I watched Jim Carrey’s documentary “I needed colour,” in which Jim uses art to make sense of the world.
It really resonated me, especially when Jim states;
“Something inside you is always telling a story. I believe every single thing that you see and hear is talking to you… The bottom line with all of this, whether its performance, or its art or its sculpture, is love. We want to show ourselves and have that be accepted,” (Carrey, 2017).
Although, I’ve taken a more artistic minded approach on this blog post, Jim’s words correlate with my PKM. The line: “every single thing that you see and hear is talking to you” corresponds back to the way we find and filter through information and stories by seeking; in Jim’s case art is the way he makes sense of everything (in my case it’s through writing) and then ultimately “we want to show ourselves” and our passions, insights and stories by sharing it with the world.
Whenever we undertake professional development, we should be seeking and sensing, but most importantly, we should be sharing what we learn with others.
I feel like I do a lot of seeking and sensing but not enough sharing (although I am trying to get back into a blogging routine).
So, I want to know how do you or your organisation seek, sense and share when it comes to PD?
References
Carrey, J. (2017). I needed colour. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upg2XiZ8Dmc&feature=share
Jarche, H. (2014). What is your PKM routine? Retrieved from http://jarche.com/2014/03/what-is-your-pkm-routine/
Von Holzen, N. (2015). Twitter and Co – my personal learning habits. Retrieved from, https://learning-moments.net/2015/05/29/my-personal-learning-habits/
Images: Sourced from Pixabay and within the Public Domain
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