Whole Person Learning – Bryce Taylor

These are new times for teaching and learning. The impact of Globalisation is seen everywhere; its effect felt in all aspects of our modern lives. It can be seen in the erosion of hierarchy, changing patterns of thinking and changing expectations of life. Such increasing complexity adds up to the need for new ways of learning and Whole Person Learning (WPL) is one such promising approach.

At the present time, all organisations are learning the importance of listening more carefully to what is being asked of them, just as we are all realising that we must listen more carefully to what others are asking of us. In the same way, we all need to check if we are responding to what the other is actually saying rather than what we heard them say in the past, so the need to be more responsive to changing times and the demands upon us is felt everywhere.

WPL is a radical approach to how ‘training’ and education can be approached, and enables the embrace of such changes. WPL is learning as a whole person; it is much more than becoming informed and leaving the impact of the body of knowledge to influence the learner. At the centre of the learning experience, how that learning is conceived as well as how it is undertaken, along with how it is reviewed and especially how it is assessed, all have to be congruent.