Learning is a Recursive, Self-Reflexive System Process (Individual Level)
Quote: "Interestingly systems thinkers, developmental psychologists and Dewey concur (though using somewhat different vocabulary) that learning occurs because of disequilibrium. Piaget, for example, mentions assimilation and accommodation as constant tidal process which influence individual becoming. One process tends to map one's expectations onto the environment until the environment no longer does 'the right thing'...even if corrected (via what some call 'negative feedback'). This mapping onto the environment is called assimilation."
Comment:The learning process sometimes defies definition...and attempts to describe learning as a system miss it's "other than" nature. Most everything that we do is an enactment of what we know/believe to be true. Learning is the process where this understanding is challenged/altered. As a result, to clearly define learning requires an understanding that it is "other than" every other activity we engage in. Learning is a shaping of who we are to become, based on reflection and understanding of who we are now...and how new information fits into that scheme - virtually impossible to systemize the outcomes (i.e. learning...), though it is possible to describe (structure?) the process. The author describes it well: "It's a constant , recurring, process, in the general sense, but its products vary. The new product becomes the basis for the new assimilative behavior only to be evolved once again at the next disiquilibrium. It's a recursive, self-reflexive process."