Research has shown that when students are learning to reflect, their reflection is mainly descriptive. The literature describes a variety of ways to help students start reflective thinking and writing, however there are fewer suggestions for supporting them to progress from descriptive to analytical levels of reflection. This small-scale action research study examines the use of a structured selfassessment tool to deepen reflection. Data are drawn from a group of student teachers who kept reflective journals during an initial teacher training programme over one academic year. They used the tool, which provided a framework of questions about their reflective process, to assess and develop their reflective writing. In this article we discuss the effectiveness of the approach and how it promoted deeper reflection. The results indicate that the change seemed to happen through four mechanisms: revisiting reflections, using structure, taking responsibility and metacognition.
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AbstractOrganisational learning practice within the public sector is relatively under researched. This paper draws on case study data from a local authority committed to the creation of a``learning organisation'' culture; data generated through the evaluation of two programmes implemented as part of this strategic objective. The article contends that tensions between the need to deliver specific improvements in the organisation and the desire to encourage creative innovation led to an uncertainty surrounding the most appropriate model of learning to pursue the broader goal. Both programmes exposed tensions between opportunities for individual growth and traditional values which constrained that growth beyond the individual. The article concludes that for organisational learning in the public sector to be effective it must be collective, processual and above all cognisant of organisational power patterns.
Spaces in organisations are increasingly recognised as socially constructed places, where organisational power is experienced and signalled in multiple ways. One such ambiguously vocal space is the boardroom, where aesthetic knowledge, material culture, and organisational practice combine to frame a space which creates power through its history, its artefacts, and its organisational use. This paper uses Harvey's (1989) framework of material spatial practices, representations, and spaces of representation to examine how the organisational practices used in boardrooms and more particularly the aesthetic objects within the rooms, work to create co-constructed places of power and oppression. The players in this oppression are not only those with coercive and material power in the organisation, but also the silent material players of the artefacts: portraits and tables, carpets, and other pictures. The nature of the power network thus created is seen to be ambiguous, working to shape the identity and practices of those who supposedly sit comfortably and legitimately in the space as well as those who are excluded.
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