In their entirety, the various knowledge structures and meaning relationships we construct in the course of our lives make us feel at home in our subjective world-experience.
Learning a new skill - e.g. communicating in a foreign language, using a new tool, or implementing a new system - is really an effort in upgrading and extending our mental home. And just like our home shouldn't only be a complex architectural structure, but a place to live in, newly acquired knowledge must be fit for practical use.
In fact, our minds will unceremoniously deconstruct any knowledge that is unfit for use. The real point of language learning, for instance, is not to be able to remember and describe a large number of words and structures, but to be able to express oneself in communication, and understand the points others are making - interacting successfully in a new context. If there is no practical challenge, newly learned words and structures are quickly forgotten.
At AGCProjects, we build learning scenariors that are oriented at authenticity and achieving real-life competency, and we help our clients develop assessment strategies based on real-life competency.