Book Review: Understanding Learners in Open and Distance Education

Abstract

Book Reviewsof the program remains the systematic development and application to school change, ideas and techniques drawn from school effectiveness and improvement, organisational learning, action learning and action research.The basic principles of the lOP include: the school as the unit of change; schools being in charge of their own development; change as a process oflearning through co-operative problem solving; both subjective and objective reality demand attention; conflicts as opportunities for understanding; effectiveness is situational; and planning and implementation are in effect one process.The external, non-directive consultant is a key player in the lOP change strategy from the point of initiation to where the school has become a selfsustaining learning organisation. The lOP consultants undertake two years of training in the theory and practice of assisting schools to recognise and develop their own resources, to improve their problem-solving capability, and to employ external expertise as they require.The lOP approach follows a pattern common to development programs based on school improvement and school effectiveness research-namely, that of auditing, acting and accounting. Initially I thought that this was going to be yet another how-to-do-it school improvement handbook. However it is distinguished by three saving features. One is the attention given to adult learning and problem solving as the central activity of school improvement. The second is the insistence given to the principle that the school should own and drive its own development. The third is the acknowledgement of the schoolspecific nature of judgements about the quality of intentionality, practice and outcomes in contrast to the use of some common arbitrary standard.The suite of principles and the basic design of this strategy for consultancybased approach to improvement are neither radical nor new which is not unexpected given the applied-theory orientation of the lOP project. The text's particular contribution lies in the guidance it provides for consultants, administrators and teachers in ways to turn the well-known and accepted principles into regular practices in schools; in short, to turn at least some of the rhetoric into reality.The book is very readable and well presented. Propositions and recommended procedures are supported by research and illustrated with examples. This is a useful text for school administrators, teachers, consultants and the general reader interested in school change. However the prospective reader needs to remember that the book is primarily practical. Although it makes use of theory and research, the authors did not set out to write a theoretical treatise on school change. Theory is applied rather than critiqued.