Eclectic critical conversations as a strategy for learning in professional contexts (original) (raw)
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Building Narratives of Experience to Develop Interpersonal Professional Competences
2008
Good interpersonal skills are one of the essential requirements for those engaging in helping professions, such as social work, teaching, counselling, and nursing. The helping professional should be someone who has respect for others, is insightful, compassionate, trustworthy, realistically self-confident, and self-disciplined (Strickling, 1998). The abilities to take the perspective of others, to be empathetic to their needs, feelings, and beliefs and to use moral judgement when working with them comprise just some of the necessary skills. Most professional-training programs concentrate on imparting knowledge or developing specific practical skills, but less is done to assist students in developing relevant attitudes and social competences. At best, academic courses in sociology and philosophy are offered in order to develop awareness of social and moral aspects of the students' future professions. Effective methods for nurturing and developing students' interpersonal competences need to be developed. Our paper presents a project carried out at Malmö University in Sweden, which focused on how students can make use of experiences they have outside higher education in order to develop interpersonal skills such as empathy, perspective taking, and value clarification. i Teacher education students, social work students, and university students who were mentoring children at-risk participated in small group seminars over a period of two academic terms (spring 2007 and fall 2007). Methods were developed and applied in which students developed their personal narratives while helping other students to do the same. Students came with their personal experiences that they turn into stories. Through seminar assignments and interaction with others, stories were developed into personal narratives. This activity was expected to lead to self-knowledge and the ability to interpret encounters with others in a pluralist, multicultural society (Conle, 2000).
Developing narratives as a pedagogical approach to fostering professional interpersonal competences
Studies in Educational Evaluation, 2013
The study examined a project aimed at helping students develop professional interpersonal skills. Groups of university students in social work, teacher training, and a student mentoring program for children at-risk participated in seminars where they developed narratives derived from personal experience in interaction with others. The theoretical framework for the project was inspired by the idea of ''stories to live by'' developed by Clandinin and Connelly. Data for the study were collected from questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups. Results indicated that narrative-building activities, when implemented in a structured and consistent manner, can contribute to improving empathy and perspective-taking abilities, developing self-knowledge, and enhancing communication skills. ß
You don’t have to be who you’re not': Reflections on the learner-mentor journey in a professional
2021
By the end of 2021, it is estimated that as many as five Capable New Zealand learners will have completed their professional doctoral journeys in the Doctorate of Professional Practice, which was launched in 2018 and grounded philosophically in the University of Middlesex's well-established research and development doctoral model. The Capable New Zealand re-versioning of the Middlesex University model revolves around experiential and transformative learning, is grounded in the reflective unpacking of critical incidents, and affords strategies for research messiness and the non-linearity of the process, particularly in the light of COVID-19. The Middlesex model is also for "advanced practitioners to develop their professional knowledge at doctoral level, benefiting both individuals and their organisations or professional fields" (Middlesex University London, online, 2021).
Establishing Collaborative Dialogue: The Mentor and the Apprentice
This essay shares observations and insights about principles of mentoring in the form of five individual recollections about our experiences with our mentor and dissertation advisor, Graeme Sullivan. Dialogue 1 focuses on the historical and cultural antecedents of the mentor-mentee relationship, whereas dialogue 2 highlights the rich potential of teaching and learning, and the fact that the potential to see things from new perspectives is ever present. Dialogue 3 describes the mentor-mentee relationship that deepened with the idea of intellectual rigor and play, risk and experiment, the practice of art making and the happenstance of serendipity within the context of the research act. Dialogue 4 offers examples of reflexivity in two forms, methodological and interpretive, and argues that it becomes the meta-modus operandi of the relationship among doctoral student/artist, dissertation advisor, and dissertation art practice/research. The concluding dialogue focuses on the language of possibility in mentoring, which shapes the research process and transforms both mentee and mentor. These reflections can also be seen within the spirit of an open dialogue and collaborations between us as our mentor continues to reach us, allowing us to seed the fields we have settled in and as we generate our own reincarnations.
Seeing Shadows in New Light: A Procatalepsis on Narrative Inquiry as Professional Development
New Horizons in Education, 2007
Background: Cole and Knowles (2000) suggest that making sense of experiences and understanding personal-professional connections are the essence of professional development. These researchers posit that through personal life-history exploration, teachers make known implicit theories, values, and beliefs that underpin teaching and being a teacher. The teacher identities one aligns self to, and creates through experience, influences how one approaches teaching. Ayers (1988) believes educators hold a particular responsibility for self-awareness, clarity, and integrity because they are in powerful positions to witness, influence, and shepherd the choices of others. Aims: This paper supports the research practice of narrative inquiry to catalyze re-conceptualist curriculum perspectives – a thinking about not only the official curriculum, but also the hidden curriculum, which includes thinking deeply about epistemological and socio-cultural perspectives in relation to teaching. The paper aims to challenge conformist teacher identities and suggests that narrative inquiry, as an artful means to seek personal teacher identity, leads to profound professional development and deeper engagement with the curriculum. Suggestions: The author supports and provides examples of the practice of narrative inquiry within a teaching praxis based on 1) a dynamic curriculum of currere following the work of Pinar and Grumet (1976), Irwin (2003, 2004), and Daignault (1989, 1992); and 2)a pedagogy of parallax by Sameshima (2007a). Conclusion: The practice of writing inquiry to better understand self-in-relation and to develop an embodied, renewed, committed, and authentic engagement with the curriculum enables teachers to ford stronger connections between students and curriculum, students and teacher, and teacher with curriculum. These connections have the potential to increase student achievement and decrease teacher attrition rates.
Cambridge Journal of Education, 2009
This paper explores the nature of a critical friendship between two education advisers within a nationwide New Zealand Ministry of Education (MOE, 2006-2008) research and development project. Over 18 months the relationship developed through evolving phases. This paper identifies and discusses the factors, circumstances, conditions and analytical tools that contributed to these changes; reviews appropriate literature; and responds to five questions that develop further understandings and insights into critical friendship. Findings from this government initiative (extracted from field notes, transcribed conversations and interviews) provide evidence to inform a model for the developmental phases of critical friendship that has international application within educational professional development.
Mentor and mentoring: Negotiating relationships
Mentoring in higher education is a vital component of the professional development of young academics. Mentoring relationships is special in the sense that it is a collaborative partnership in which both parties work towards common goals in terms of professional and personal development. An action research approach is followed since we consider it the most appropriate research design when it comes to professional development. In this article two sets of data are presented, namely a quantitative set on the learning style preference of all participants and a qualitative set consisting of narratives and discussed against the backdrop of literature. The narrative of Pam, an individual I as first author mentored for a period of time, is offered as well as my own experiences while being mentored by Jane and Pieter and mentoring Pam. The main themes that seem to permeate the narratives are those of trust, openness to professional learning, communication, negotiation and equal partnerships as they all reflect within the mirror of our own thinking preferences. The new concept of whole brain mentoring is constructed since we implemented mentoring in tandem with the principles of whole brain learning. Keywords: Mentoring, whole brain learning, learning styles, professional development of academic staff, professional learning, action research, narratives
Particulars of Practice: A Collaborative Self-study of Mentoring Practicum-based Seminars
The Canadian journal for the scholarship of teaching and learning, 2022
This paper documents research regarding the roles, practices, and identities of three faculty members who mentor teacher candidates during practicums. Using a collaborative self-study (Hamilton, 1995), the authors examine the implications of implementing "particulars of practice seminars" (POPS) where practice issues are surfaced by candidates and examined collaboratively through focused conversation. The POPS are designed to develop candidates' authority of experience (Munby & Russell, 1994) and foster candidates' agency in professional learning yet these aims are highly dependent upon the faculty mentors' practices and how these seminars are conceived and enacted. Using reflections, email threads, and meetings, this self-study focuses on the authors' conceptions of their practice, identities, and roles as faculty mentors participating in the POPS and introduces "braiding" as a metaphor to illustrate the weaving together of multiple data sources. Results include assertions regarding programmatic recommendations, faculty development, and methodological approaches used in self-study research. Cet article documente la recherche portant sur les rôles, les pratiques et les identités de trois membres du corps enseignant qui encadrent des candidats et des candidates à l'enseignement durant les stages. À l'aide d'une auto-étude collaborative (Hamilton, 1955), les auteurs examinent les implications de la mise en oeuvre de « séminaires portant sur les détails de la pratique » quand des questions de pratique sont mises en lumière par les candidats et les candidates et sont examinées en collaboration par le biais de conversations ciblées. Les séminaires portant sur les détails de la pratique sont conçus pour développer l'autorité d'expérience (Munby & Russell, 1994) des candidats et des candidates et pour favoriser la participation des candidats et des candidates à l'apprentissage professionnel, toutefois ces objectifs dépendent grandement des pratiques des professeurs et des professeures mentors ainsi que de la manière dont ces séminaires sont conçus et mis en oeuvre. À l'aide de réflexions, de fils de courriels et de réunions, cette auto-étude se concentre sur les conceptions des auteurs de leur pratique, de leur identité et de leur rôle en tant que professeurs mentors qui participent à des séminaires portant sur les détails de la pratique et elle présente le « tressage » en tant que métaphore pour illustrer le tissage de diverses sources de données. Parmi les résultats, citons les assertions concernant les recommandations programmatiques, le développement des professeurs et des professeures et les approches méthodologiques utilisées dans la recherche par auto-étude.