Action LearningPub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/14767333.2022.2033022
C. Sharp, Joette Thomas, R. Brown
{"title":"Because how we talk matters: using action inquiry to nurture a coaching culture","authors":"C. Sharp, Joette Thomas, R. Brown","doi":"10.1080/14767333.2022.2033022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767333.2022.2033022","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This account explores the experience of an action inquiry approach to develop a coaching culture within a public service organisation. We position action inquiry as a fresh interpretation of action learning that draws on a variety of roots and traditions and focuses on the nurturing of the collective capacity to lead through everyday interactions. Working with an initial core group of staff, we expanded our reach through an iterative process to intentionally bring more people into the work. We show how we adapted our original plans to respond to the COVID pandemic, the use of stories to propel inquiry and playback insights into the inquiry process, how we deepened inquiry in some settings and how ultimately being online was an opportunity to connect people across a system that we had not anticipated. We share insights into the commissioning process and of the importance of internal sponsorship. It concludes with a striking, participant-led call to approach scaling differently by supporting the co-creation of local implementation strategies and sponsor confidence in the case to use this approach in more circumstances, where participants in action inquiry explore, rather than assume, what the organisation and its staff need.","PeriodicalId":44898,"journal":{"name":"Action Learning","volume":"19 1","pages":"68 - 80"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42463316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Action LearningPub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/14767333.2022.2033029
J. Robertson, Steyn Heckroodt
{"title":"The stakeholders in action learning: aiding individual transformative learning","authors":"J. Robertson, Steyn Heckroodt","doi":"10.1080/14767333.2022.2033029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767333.2022.2033029","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This account of practice discusses how we have implemented an emerging action learning framework in the form of guiding questions that are relevant to key stakeholders: the client organisation (sponsoring organisation), the management development company, the participants and the Learning Process Facilitator (LPF) to aid participants in their individual transformative learning. The guiding questions are based on an emerging action learning framework devised by the primary author as part of her PhD research and applied to an action learning component in our Management Development Programmes (MDPs). A condensed version of this action learning framework was published in Action Learning: Research and Practice by Robertson, Terblanche, and Le Sueur [2021. “An Emerging Action Learning Framework to Foster Individual Transformative Learning During Management Development Programmes.” Action Learning: Research and Practice 18 (2): 102–120]. In this account of practice we share the emerging action learning framework, the guiding questions for the key stakeholders and our reflection on the application of the questions.","PeriodicalId":44898,"journal":{"name":"Action Learning","volume":"19 1","pages":"81 - 88"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42494533","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Action LearningPub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/14767333.2022.2033030
Bing Wu Berberich
{"title":"An account of practice on facilitated co-constructed action learning: a reflection of the executive education programme delivery","authors":"Bing Wu Berberich","doi":"10.1080/14767333.2022.2033030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767333.2022.2033030","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper introduces a facilitated co-constructed action learning approach with a narrative account of the author’s own learning on designing and delivering an executive education programme. Action learning has double inference in this context as the author developed and improved teaching design and delivery through action learning. He also revised the design of delivery of action learning to learners through critical self-reflection. The author states that university teaching faculty plays a crucial role in facilitating learners’ development and application of reflective practice. Reflective practice underlines the ability of critical thinking, which is considered the highest level of thinking [Dewey (1910). How We Think. Boston: D.C.Heath]. Consequently, the effectiveness of reflective practice unlikely happens unless individuals have achieved this level of thinking. Reflecting on the teaching experience, the author highlights two elements that potentially contribute to the effective outcomes of higher education learning and teaching: teaching faculty competence in mastering the application of action learning approaching in university learning and teaching design.","PeriodicalId":44898,"journal":{"name":"Action Learning","volume":"19 1","pages":"89 - 98"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48223643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Action LearningPub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/14767333.2022.2033020
Cheryl Brook
{"title":"What’s the use of action learning?","authors":"Cheryl Brook","doi":"10.1080/14767333.2022.2033020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767333.2022.2033020","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44898,"journal":{"name":"Action Learning","volume":"19 1","pages":"1 - 2"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44081071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Action LearningPub Date : 2021-12-31DOI: 10.1080/14767333.2021.2018288
J. Gold, M. Pedler
{"title":"Bridging research to practice via action learning","authors":"J. Gold, M. Pedler","doi":"10.1080/14767333.2021.2018288","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767333.2021.2018288","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT There is concern that management and business research favours rigour and theory over relevance and practice. There are pressures from funding councils for researchers to show more impact. The paper shows how the bridge between the academic world and the world of practice can be served by action learning. Consideration is given to the difficulties that sustain the disconnection of business and management research before recent ideas on theories of knowledge translation are presented. Using the example of an article published for an academic journal relating to futures and foresight in organisations, the paper shows how action learning provides a vehicle to complete the process of application. Two examples of the introduction of Futures and Foresight Learning are presented, including how impact was made during the Covid 19 pandemic.","PeriodicalId":44898,"journal":{"name":"Action Learning","volume":"19 1","pages":"3 - 18"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47598193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Action LearningPub Date : 2021-12-28DOI: 10.1080/14767333.2021.2020723
C. Connolly, T. Cosgrove
{"title":"An action learning approach to mathematics learning in the light of the cognitional theory of Bernard Lonergan","authors":"C. Connolly, T. Cosgrove","doi":"10.1080/14767333.2021.2020723","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767333.2021.2020723","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The educational benefits of challenge- or problem-based approaches to learning are now well established. Action Research (AR) and Action Learning (AL) together provide educators with an ethic, a research methodology and a pedagogical strategy for harnessing and developing the motive power of purposeful activity for reflective enquiry in teaching and learning. However it is argued here that AR and AL implementation demands a sophisticated epistemological awareness on the part of the teacher-researcher. This paper suggests that the cognitional theory of Bernard Lonergan comprises a powerful resource particularly suited to underpin, inform and orient the practice of AL applied to the teaching of mathematics through practical problem solving. In this paper, aspects of Lonergan’s thought are outlined and brought to bear on the development of an AL approach for teaching mathematics and its applications through collaborative practical problem solving. Lonergan’s thought, as well as offering a theoretical framework of great clarity, when brought to bear on the development and implementation of AL strategies, has the potential to guide researchers, teachers and students in the design and implementation of such strategies and worth incorporating in practice. Also most beneficial for students as they negotiate the complex and dynamic epistemological territory that characterises AL.","PeriodicalId":44898,"journal":{"name":"Action Learning","volume":"19 1","pages":"33 - 48"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49631131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Action LearningPub Date : 2021-11-10DOI: 10.1080/14767333.2021.2002681
Na Li, Qian Wang, Jiajun Liu, V. Marsick
{"title":"Improving interdisciplinary online course design through action learning: a chinese case study","authors":"Na Li, Qian Wang, Jiajun Liu, V. Marsick","doi":"10.1080/14767333.2021.2002681","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767333.2021.2002681","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This case study draws a specific link to the practice of action learning (AL) in China. We organized ourselves into an AL set and used Revans’ AL, as interpreted by Marquardt (2004), to create a post-teaching dialog to examine the experience gained from delivering an interdisciplinary course online—a novice situation—in a Chinese transnational university. AL’s questioning insight occurred after conducting an evidence-based evaluation of online teaching in an interdisciplinary higher education course that used Debattista’s (2018) online teaching effectiveness rubric. The rubric offered rich ‘programed knowledge’ that triggered our question-based inquiry. We conclude that our AL approach is valuable for teacher professional development and offers our rationale for why this particular AL practice would be suitable for the Confucian culture, teaching of interdisciplinary courses, and in novice situations. By conducting AL, we identified a list of key findings, such as proactive communication among teachers in an interdisciplinary course, was vital when teaching to a large group of students. We offer recommendations to improve interdisciplinary online course design and delivery in the future based on reflections from the AL. Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are presented at the end of this paper.","PeriodicalId":44898,"journal":{"name":"Action Learning","volume":"19 1","pages":"49 - 64"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42798862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Action LearningPub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/14767333.2021.1986910
Farooq Mughal
{"title":"Action learning – a political affair","authors":"Farooq Mughal","doi":"10.1080/14767333.2021.1986910","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/14767333.2021.1986910","url":null,"abstract":"This essay is based on the text of a presentation given to the Action Learning Symposium hosted by Liverpool John Moores University and Action Learning: Research and Practice and held on 14 April 2021. Action learning (AL) has seen great success in the West as it provides a way of developing emotionally, intellectually, and socially in which individuals work collectively (in groups) by reflecting over the taken-for-granted assumptions to solve real-world problems. While reflection is a key tenet of AL as it provides a way to question those assumptions, less attention has been given to when it’s undertaken collectively, or ‘in public’, in non-Western cultural contexts. An outline of a theory of reflective practice that teases out its psychological and political impact is noticeable in the works of Raelin (2001), Reynolds (1999), and Reynolds and Vince (2004) but empirical studies in the global South which examine its implications are largely scarce. I wish to advance this dialogue by focusing on AL’s reflective practice from a collective perspective, as a political act, in a nonWestern context, which perhaps demands a deeper understanding of how reflection exposes and reinforces deep-seated power relations. It is my aim to question the assumptions underpinning not only AL’s reflective power but also my own practice in failing to understand the localized production of experience in a given socio-political, cultural and historical context. In so doing, I argue for enriching AL, including critical AL (CAL), in considering the local positioning of those involved in the AL process, to enhance their agency in negotiating power relations which continuously shape AL group, or set, interactions. This essay draws on an empirical case of using AL on the Pakistani MBA (see Mughal 2016, 2021; Mughal, Gatrell, and Stead 2018 for more details), as an example to problematize the act of public reflection from an embodied perspective, to unearth the politics of reflective practice and the primacy of individual positionality during the learning process.","PeriodicalId":44898,"journal":{"name":"Action Learning","volume":"18 1","pages":"200 - 210"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44768247","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}