ABSTRACT
One of the primary reasons people don’t always integrate learning is that they fail to complete units of work. Instead, the compulsion to rush on to the next task without paying sufficient attention to reflection takes over. Teaching people how to complete units of work plays an important role in the process of efficient meaning-making and banking of experience. The value of the unit of work is that it provides a notional boundary around open issues and themes, in contrast to the familiar scenario where new issues are raised but nothing is given enough attention to achieve resolution and closure. The unit of work concept developed by members of the Cleveland Gestalt Institute was devised to show a process of opening (beginning), dialoguing (middle), and ending (closing out) on themes and issues before moving on to the next – thus making the process more effective, functional, and satisfying.
