Field Manual for a Learning Historian

Link to an important MIT Sloan School of Management Working Paper by the learning historian pioneer’s group at the Center for Organizational Learning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT-COL and Reflection Learning Associates, Inc.

It explains in depth how to conduct a learning history: a structured qualitative method for capturing experiences, multiple viewpoints and reflective insights about significant change processes. It covers the theory and practice of learning histories, including planning, interviewing, writing, analysis, validation and dissemination of narratives that document what happened and why people learned what they did from it.

The method has been drawn on and adapted by researchers and practitioners in TIPC to create transformative innovation learning histories that help us document and reflect on real‑world cases of transformation, especially where innovation interacts with social and policy change. The histories go beyond traditional case studies by capturing multiple perspectives, critical moments, dilemmas and insights about systemic change.