Edizioni FrancoAngeli - Last issue of EDUCATIONAL REFLECTIVE PRACTICES (2/2012)

The Omnipresence of Power

Tue, 15 Oct 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Stephen Brookfield
This article explores the presence of power in efforts to teach reflectively. I critique the notion of power as flowing overwhelmingly in one direction, from teacher to taught. Power is argued to be inherently uncontrollable and to manifest itself in multiple and unpredictable ways. I argue that power dynamics are omnipresent in educational, organizational and social movement settings, and that skillful reflective practitioners therefore need to be aware of its workings. I explore one specific practice - the circle - and provide examples of three techniques that represent a critically reflective application of that practice and that address power dynamics head on.

Medical Professionalism and Reflexivity. Examples of training to the sense of "duty" in medicine

Tue, 15 Oct 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Patrizia de Mennato
This paper contains our reflection on the experience held at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Florence (Italy) in many courses in Pedagogical Disciplines for the Bachelor’s and Master’s degree that have involved more than 1000 students. I think that if the reflective habits are presented in an early stage of students’ training they can contribute to form a habit of mind that will accompany their professional biography. Therefore, we have chosen to focus on reflexivity as a primary educational strategy to enter into relationship with one’s professional task. This has prompted us to build compelling educational opportunities that ‘expose’ the students’ minds to issues/problems/contradictions that are present in their everyday experiences of practitioners and students. The reflective laboratories and their public discussion introduce to a ‘familiarity with the exercise of reflection’ through which students can learn to take themselves as subjects/objects of their knowledge and to recognize the contradictions and automatisms that appear in their professional action. These reflective modes start to training to a new idea of Medical Professionalism. This does not reduce professional action to linear sequences of activities, but have to recover also specific human qualities from professional epistemologies and responsibility

Adolescent Ambitions and Conceptions of Adult Work

Tue, 15 Oct 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Barbara Schneider
Are today's teenagers really slackers, the apathetic, baggy-pants wearing, unmotivated individuals so often portrayed by the media? In this landmark study of 7,000 adolescents two of the nation's foremost education experts provide startling news about our teenagers. Contrary to prevailing notions, today's teens are the most ambitious generation yet - more want to be college graduates and work as professionals than ever before. But because schools and parents sometimes do a poor job of directing them, many take the wrong courses, choose the wrong colleges, and enter college with unrealistic career goals. For many their dreams of success are likely to remain just that - dreams.

Action Learning e Action Oriented Research. Una ricerca sul turnover organizzativo

Tue, 15 Oct 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Claudio Melacarne
The educational research experience presented in this article has been solicited by the Confartigianato Imprese Arezzo with the aim to support the professional development of their middle management, as a consequence of an imminent generational change within the same organisation. This experience has seen the participation of a training group made of 15 subjects (managers and middle managers). Such educational path has been planned within the framework of the Action Learning methodology. The present contribution is aimed at describing the adopted methodological process and presenting some findings in terms of subjects’ professional epistemological transformations and methodological approach issues.

Stage in Educational Practice. A Reflective Experience

Tue, 15 Oct 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Pascal Perillo
This article is about a still in-progress research experience that is a part of a wider research-action context and intends to suggest a model of organization for training activities that focuses on the educational professions and are based on "reflectivity" and "transformative learning". The intention is to show the organizational structure of a still ongoing experience performed by the internshipstudents. This experience is part of a research that started in 2010 in order to explore the several dimensions and the chances to practice a reflectivity education. Considering reflection as a professional habitus, the research develops its theoretical and methodological framework on the basis of different points of references, such as Dewey’s "theory of inquiry"; Schön’s "reflective practitioner"; Mezirow’s "transformative learning". The three perspectives represent an epistemological background that can be defined as reflective and transformative epistemology of professional practices in education.

La dimensione emotiva nelle pratiche della comunità on line per le organizzazioni

Tue, 15 Oct 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Paolo Raviolo
This paper proposes a methodology for using social media tools in online community of practices, through a cross-reading with the emotional dimension which is one of the key motivation aspect in the widespread use social media. We consider the tools for shared contents construction (content publishing, interactive environments and wikis) and the tools for content negotiation (cross comments, blog, forum and whiteboard). The proposed methodology uses the communities of practice theoretical (Lave, Wenger) in relation with the approach of David Goleman to the relationship between learning and emotional dimensions: selfawareness, self-domain, motivation, empathy and social skills.

Apprendere nel gruppo di lavoro

Tue, 15 Oct 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Stefano Bonometti
This paper shows a research conducted in a health workplace with a Action Learning (Marsick) and Change laboratory (Engeström) approach. The research aims to understand the impact of the reflective practices on the learning processes and the work practices. The challenge is to plan educational setting where we can test and evaluate the outcome of the reflective practices we use often in our project to promote individual and organizational learning.

Gestione "critica" del conflitto organizzativo e costruzione del sapere condiviso

Tue, 15 Oct 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Valentina Mucciarelli
This article is about a research which aims to understand the ‘conflict practices’ in organizational and professional contexts. The analysis is focused on the processes of construction of meaning and the professional situated actions involved in the experiences with high uncertainty and dialectical setting. The research hypothesis is that conflicts can be considered as good experiences to learn by practice or by others colleagues. The research was conducted into an Italian University of the center of Italy studying some topic moments of the university life: informal group, department meeting, formal assembly. Through Engestrom, Schön and Mezirow’s theories the research underline how a conflicting experience can deveop the learning process.

Recensioni

Tue, 15 Oct 2012 8:00:00 GMT

Abstracts

Tue, 15 Oct 2012 8:00:00 GMT