Dear All
Some thoughts.
The most damaging approach to management education and learning is the
oscillation and bifurcation between different pedagogical modes. There
is no finite knowledge or one best way to manage or learn. The old adage
'practice without theory is empty and theory without practice is blind'
should be our guide. The question is whether we are engaged in
education or training.
Too often programmes such as MBAs, MAs in management or executive
programmes are slated for being too skill orientated or based on too
much contextual learning (case method) or too theoretical. These are
the symptoms - the cause can usually be traced back to the underpinning
philosophy (or absence) in the design and teaching of the programme,
the mindset of the programme directors or the dominant logic of the
teachers or the institution. In an increasingly uncertain,
unpredictable and volatile environment within which managers have to
manage their organizations it is incumbent on us to help develop
managers to be astute, critical and skilful; to be able to be aware of a
range of possible choices from which to make decisions in the context
which they find themselves when they return to the workplace. It is up
to us to provide challenging learning environments where the students
question taken for granted assumptions and ways of working and where
there is reflection and interaction with their own experiences and with
their peers to accelerate the learning process. This requires us to
consider how we mix the conceptual, contextual, personal and
professional development to stretch the students and how we use the full
range of teaching modes to develop a dynamic learning environment.
Roulla
Roulla Hagen
Durham Business School
University of Durham
Mill Hill Lane
Durham City
DH1 3LB
Tel: 44 (0) 191 334 5393
Fax: 44 (0) 191 334 5201
Email:
s.r.hagen@durham.ac.uk
www.dur.ac.uk/dbs
-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:
MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of M.P.Fenton-OCreevy
Sent: 23 November 2005 13:57
To:
MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: Towards a practice focussed pedagogy of theory
Chris,
I absolutely agree that you need both. An important feature of practice
learning is that what you learn can easily be wrong. Academic programmes
need strategies for subjecting participants understandings to challenge.
As I have written elsewhere:-
"Personal cognitive schema are often robust and participants are able to
employ a range of strategies to preserve existing world views: 'of
course that is all very well in theory but in the real world ...';
'whoever wrote that obviously doesn't understand healthcare/ the oil
business/ retailing/...' and so on.
On a full-time face-to-face teaching program with a relatively young
group of participants there is an initial process of de-skilling as
participants find themselves in a novel environment. This provides a
window of opportunity to challenge fixed views and assumptions. However,
with a program cohort typically in their mid-thirties, with a
significant level of management experience and actively engaged in the
practice of management, existing assumptions and understandings are
often difficult to disturb. This does, though, happen more readily in
peer-to-peer relationships. In the learning episode described above,
some of the most profound learning happens in the on-line conference as
participants encounter each other's very different understandings of
performance and how it is managed in their different cultures, sectors
and organizations. "
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: Management Education and Development Discussion
[mailto:
MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Chris Barlow
Sent: 23 November 2005 11:57
To:
MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: Towards a practice focussed pedagogy of theory
My students validate learned theory with their experience, internalize
it, often reorganizing their own understanding of their experience.
Some theories are far more useful for management practice than others.
Learning practice from practice can miss this leverage.
Reflected practice helps, but student generated theories can be even
less powerful than research oriented theories.
--
Christopher M. Barlow, PhD
The Co-Creativity Institute
551 Roosevelt Road #112
Glen Ellyn, Illinois 60137
Voice: (630) 221-9456
mailto://
barlow@cocreativity.com
http://www.cocreativity.com