1. Organizing Reflection
Dr Mary Hartog
National Teaching Fellow
Middlesex University Business School

2. A Critical Pedagogy
Situated in an organisation context – learning as a social process
More than the learning of individuals
One way of organising learning for change

3. Vince (2002)
The Organizing of Reflection is informed by three characteristics:
Questioning assumptions & making visible power relations
Facilitating a ‘container’ for managing anxieties
Contributing to democracy

4. Challenges for this kind of Adult Learning
The organisation milieu itself- management rhetoric
Management is not a neutral activity, it affects people’s lives
Political and emotional sphere of organisation life
Holding a space in which different perspectives can be seen & heard
Neutrality- aligned to everyone & know one at the same time
The personal process of the educator

5. The Case Scenario
A work based learning programme in leadership development
60 middle - senior managers
Client: local authority, children & families service, public sector cuts, service change & redundancies
Consulting partner who provides workshops
University provides action learning sets & a post grad WBL qualification

6. The learning Relationship
Facilitation: holding a space for learning
Content & process, experience, real live issues
Confidentiality: trust
Peer learning, questioning assumptions, support & challenge
Really listening: Connected knowing & connected teaching (Belenky et al 1986)
Returning the knower to the known (ibid)

7. The Assessment Challenge
Thee assignment: RAL, Plan, Project
Experiential learning: self reflection at the center of the work, the problem of subjectivity
Journey to voice
The role of visual representation & metaphor in learning
Evidence
Kim’s (1999) hierarchy : the narrative, the literature & the critique

8. Why Now?
Adult education has been part of our work in Business Schools & universities for some time
History of professional education
Difference is in the pedagogy
Complex: self directed learning, being as well as doing
Rise of work based learning in HE
Learning in work & professional practice has a greater focus on practice improvement - development
Rise in working with organisations, cohort, learning as a social process, political & emotional, navigating complexity
EI more explicitly on the agenda of management learning
Current context of changes facing organisations & public sector, looking for skills, even the CBI telling managers to ‘skill up’ & get an MBA

9. What Next
Need to place tutor facilitation, education & development on the HE learning agenda
Understanding the context & challenges presented in adult & management learning
Specifically how to hold a space for learning & work effectively with the political & emotional components of experiential learning
Tutor development, self reflection, reflexivity, a discipline of self reflective practice, & coaching of reflecting teams