Emergent Learning Community Project
Marilyn Darling leads the focus on impact and field outreach, new content creation and monthly community calls, and co-leads fundraising efforts.
Marilyn originated the idea of Emergent Learning and developed a set of practices and principles to support it through over 20 years of working in the for-profit and then nonprofit sectors. These practices and principles have been enriched since 2013 by a growing community of EL practitioners — a community she helps to support. Marilyn helps train and certify practitioners. She writes about and conducts occasional research into the application of EL principles and practices and its impact in the social sector. The results of her first research project, studying the After Action Review as it is used by its originators and most advanced practitioners in the Mojave desert, was published as “Learning in the Thick of It,” Harvard Business Review, July/Aug 2005. Marilyn was a founding member of the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL).