Thanks Norah
If this is an area that interests you, you may be interested in the work
of our CETL
Cetl.open.ac.uk/pbpl
Best regards
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:
MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Jones Norah
(AcademicOffice)
Sent: 23 November 2005 12:59
To:
MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: Towards a practice focussed pedagogy
Totally agree with your analysis Mark. The area of tacit knowledge is
important to recognize as is the issue of context.
Best wishes
Norah
Professor Norah Jones
Head of Campus Blended Learning
Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching University of Glamorgan
CF37 1DL
Tel 01443 654094
email
njones2@glam.ac.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:
MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of M.P.Fenton-OCreevy
Sent: 22 November 2005 17:15
To:
MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: Towards a practice focussed pedagogy
Jack,
Some thoughts on what we might mean by a practice focused pedagogy.
First, such an approach accepts that while academic knowledge may be
particularly well codified (especially through research), there is much
practice knowledge which it does not capture. The less well codified
nature of practice knowledge can lead to it being discounted or
undervalued. Much of this knowledge may be resistant to codification
because it is highly context dependent. I would argue that for the
development of genuine expertise in any area of professional practice
academic theory is insufficient. Medical education has, for example,
long recognised the necessity of developing clinical judgement through
practice and practice-like elements of the curriculum. The scientific
components of the curriculum are a necessary scaffolding, but much of
the real learning happens when faced with real patients. In my own
research on traders (http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-926948-3) we found
that while traders had formal academic study on financial economics and
the theory of markets, this only served as a foundation for the real
learning about effective training, which took the form of an
apprenticeship process learning by sitting alongside experienced
traders. In this process they moved from a set of formal theories about
'how the world works' (finance theory) to acquiring and developing a set
of much more provisional and tacit ideas about how to 'work the world'
which relied on ideas about exceptions and variations to the general
rules and which were much more located in the specific contexts in which
they worked.
The Dreyfus brothers provide an interesting take on this in their 2005
article on the nature of expertise. They argue that theory driven
behaviour is a characteristic of novice behaviour not of expert
behaviour. When asked about what they do experts often fall back on
describing theories and recipes they learnt in college or in their
professional training. However when observed they often seem to be doing
something rather different. What Dreyfus and Dreyfus suggest is that
what characterises the expert over the novice is not better command of
theory but access to a tremendous range of situational discriminations.
They are able to identify a wide range of different kinds of situations
and appropriately nuanced responses to them. Further, when faced with
novel situations their response often draws on the ability to make
comparisons to other kinds of situations and adjust appropriately.
Second, we need to step back and reflect for a while on the nature of
management theories and frameworks which we teach. In order to codify
knowledge at a sufficient level of abstraction that it can apply across
a wide range of situations, inevitably we oversimplify, remove important
contingencies and context. Thus before any such abstract kowledge can be
deployed successfully it needs to go through a process of translation
into a specific context. Such translation can be very problematic.
To give one example: Marketing academics argue that market segmentation
leads to more efficient allocation of resources and better targeting of
customer offerings, with consequent business performance improvements.
Yet despite 50 years of published segmentation research, businesses
still have problems applying the segmentation concept in practice.
Managers complain that the literature offers insufficient guidance on
segmentation implementation in real business situations.
Another example:
In finance texts the standard prescription for project financial
appraisal is the Net Present Value model. Finance academics can 'prove'
to you that this is the ideal approach. Yet lots of firms use payback
periods. Some former collegues of mine did some research on this and
concluded that this was not because a lack of understanding of the NPV
model (many of their interviewees understood how to do this). However,
many managers (especially in SMEs) emphasised the importance of cashflow
to firm survival and explained that payback period places great emphasis
of early cashflows and compensates to some extent for a tendency to
underestimate future risks.
So my argument goes as follows:
If we are to train managers, theory is not enough, they need learning
experiences which expose them to a variety of practice settings and they
need to develop the skills of critically translating theories and
frameworks into practice. What might such frameworks look like? Well if
you are teaching students (as I do) who are already practicing managers
you have a head start. The challenge is to create learning structures
which engage them in effective learning about the different practice of
manageemt in each other's organisations and provide opportunities to
particularise theory to their own organisations as well as theorising
about their own practice. Much of this may amount to some combination of
action learning, structured reflection and structured conversations with
other mangagers. Theoretical frameworks are not absent, but they become
a scaffolding for the learning rather than the object of the learning.
What if your students are not practitioners? Well they may have been
before being a student. In fact I would argue that no one should study
an MBA until they have a few years experience of management. You may
though be teaching undergraduates with no exposure to the world of work
and organisations. What can be done? Case studies and simulations may
have a role, but it is important to remember that often they are
designed to strip out much of the complexity and messiness of the real
world; and it may be that what distinguishes an excellent manager from a
mediocre one is their ability to deal with complexity and messiness. So
while simple cases and simulations may help concretize some important
learning points you may want to set up some rather more complex and
messy ones as students progress. I know some collegues have experimented
with service learning approaches. I think this could be quite an
exciting way forward in some cases. In other countries and sectors it is
common to have industrial placements as part of the learning package. I
think this can potentially be very valuable, but I suspect that in many
cases the integration between the placement and the academic learning is
very poor
So - I think I have probably said enough for now, but I hope that I have
stimulated some thought even if only about where you disagree with me
Mark
Dreyfus, H. and Dreyfus, S. (2005) Expertise in real world contexts,
Organization Studies, 26(5), 779-792.
Prof. Mark Fenton-O'Creevy
Director, Centre for Practice Based Professional Learning & Professor of
Organisational Behaviour Open University Walton Hall Milton Keynes MK7
6AA United Kingdom
e-mail:
m.p.fenton-ocreevy@open.ac.uk
(DL) +44 (0)1908-655804
Fax: +44 (0)1908-655898
Web : oubs.open.ac.uk
-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:
MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Jack Ring
Sent: 21 November 2005 17:12
To:
MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: Towards a practice focussed pedagogy
Mark, Ruth, others,
I cannot discern from these posts and Mark's web site whether this topic
includes learning about actual practices or includes engaging in actual
practices (e.g. a realistic laboratory session) as a means of learning?
Sorry for my lack of acuity. Could you please clarify? Would engaging
students in the Action Learning protocol be an example of fostering
practiced-focused pedagogy?
cheers,
Jack Ring
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ruth H. Axelrod" <
raxelrod@GWU.EDU>
To: <
MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2005 9:19 AM
Subject: Re: Towards a practice focussed pedagogy
> Mark,
>
> I'd be very interested in talking with you about this. It is
something
> that I am passionate about--combining the academic perspective with
> discussions and assignments that are aimed at practical applications.
My
> students tell me that my courses are some of the few that are
"designed
> for employed adult learners."
>
> Ruth
>
> Ruth H. Axelrod
> The George Washington University
>
> M.P.Fenton-OCreevy wrote:
>> Colleagues,
>> I am planning to put forward a proposal to the Academy of Management
>> conference MED track for a symposium on "Towards a Practice Focussed
>> Pedegogy".
>> My starting point is that if we are to treat the task of educating
>> managers rather than simply reproducing people in our own image as
>> management academics, then we need to find different ways of
creating
>> learning experiences and curricula which are better suited to this
task.
>> The challenge for management educators is to pay attention to both
>> practice relevance and to providing appropriate challenge to program
>> participants' perceptions of the 'real world'.
>>
>> The route to achieving this combination of relevance and challenge
may be
>> to see management education as a process of designing learning
>> environments and experiences, not as a process of transmitting a body
of
>> knowledge. This perspective may also suggest that program
participants'
>> previous, current and shared experiences are a rich resource for
learning
>> and that rich learning often comes out of the collision between
different
>> experiences or 'real worlds,'; between different perspectives,
theories
>> and practices.
>>
>> However, such an approach confronts us with some significant
challenges.
>> I am interested to discover if there is interest in joining me in a
>> symposium which expores those challenges.
>> Mark Fenton-O'Creevy
>>
>> Prof. Mark Fenton-O'Creevy
>> Director, Programmes and Curriculum, Open University Business School
>> Director, Open University Centre for Practice Based Professional
Learning
>> (http://cetl.open.ac.uk/pbpl/)
>> Walton Hall
>> Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
>> United Kingdom
>>
>> e-mail:
m.p.fenton-ocreevy@open.ac.uk
>> (DL) +44 (0)1908-655804
>> Fax: +44 (0)1908-655898
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>