New Course, New Posts, New Tag

Okay, so I am taking a break from the Management course at the moment. The level and commitment to the course i proving too great for me preently. I've fallen badly behind too. So, onwards, ever onwards...

I am starting a new course this week, about Eye Witness Identifications and Psychology. I will continue using this blog for the new course, a it too relates to Psychology and Perception. I will tag stuff for the new course with the label 'Eye Witness Course'. If I do complete any more tasks here from the Management course I will tag those entries with 'Management Course'.

Taking a Breather to Reflect

I am finding this course quite hard at the moment. I'm not currently managing anyone and I am not terribly used to using social media, so I am seriously questioning how appropriate the course is for me at the present time.

I am also not particularly liking the format of the lessons or the guy who features in the videos. No offence intended, but he is a non-descript 'grey man'. Grey hair, grey suit, grey voice with a touch of condescension.

The resources for the course are pretty good, but it's easy to miss things, hence my previous comment about not missing out on anything that's pink. They have used pink to denote active links and additional information.

The students on the course seem rather more with it than I found them on other courses so far. Given how many people sign up for these courses I am questioning how we are going to be put into groups for the group work. Or are we meant to create our own groups?

Overall, not impressed with this course so far. The lessons are too numerous and the time commitment is too great for me, it's stopping me from enjoying it. The main difference I have noticed between this course and ones I enjoyed previously is that there has so far been very little opportunity for discovery learning. It's been very tutor led and a bit over-laboured overall, with a smirking, self-satisfied addiction to terminologious self-indulgence.

Managing People, End of Week One

Think about what we’ve looked at this week and the nature of the course. What are your personal objectives?

They might be particular learning objectives that you want to master. They might simply be about keeping up with the schedule. Record these in your journal. We will come back to them at the end of the course.

My personal objectives include:

• Learning to work in groups online, grasping the basics of the technologies and the social dynamics of doing so.
• Improving my understanding of management and its aims, methods, ethics and values. 

The learning objectives which matter most to me are: 

• Construct an account of what effectiveness means for you and your organisation.
• Identify factors that may contribute to a good quality of working life.
• Explain the nature of the stress transaction and scrutinise stress management interventions.
• Identify what motivates you and develop personal strategies to help you through difficult patches.
• Describe how the line manager supports the deployment of human resources.
• Debate the value of fit and flexibility in resource planning and reflect on the potential contribution of a diverse workforce.

Managers often have to teach their staff. With this in mind consider:

Can you think of possible challenges that could arise?

• People may not want to learn what you are trying to teach. 
• People may see what you are trying to teach as 'not my job'.
• People may feel you are trying to 'teach your grandmother to suck eggs'.
• People may feel they know more about something than you do; and they might.
• Lack of resources for teaching purposes.
• Lack of time for teaching and learning to be able to occur.
• Lack of support from 'the higher-ups'.
• Anxiety amongst learners that they may be 'found lacking'; fear of exposure of weak academic skills or shaky job skills.
• Lack of confidence or areas of weakness regarding communication skills.
• Feeling 'put upon' for having been asked to teach people stuff.
• Showing up your own lack of knowledge or skills in an area.
• Balancing the roles of teacher and manager, which may be at odds with each other.

• How can you use the material considered thus far to help you overcome these challenges?
• Valuing experience.
• Activating past learning before introducing new learning.
• Recognising and valuing 'differences'.
• Matching teaching style to learning style 
• Matching content to learning needs and using sequencing.
• Employing sound learning theory and applying it well.

Topics that are coming up that I am looking forward to:

• Organisational Behaviour
• Personality Theory
• Motivational Theory
• Taking Theory into Practise

Other topics are:

• Matching People and Jobs
• The Art and Science of Management
• Exemplifying Good Practise

1. Was there anything in the previous three videos that helped you to see your experiences of managing people in a new light?

2. Did the videos suggest anything you can do to help prepare yourself to be a more effective learner on the course?

3. Can you see how we are using the Kolb learning cycle?

The three previous videos were:

• How Adults Learn
• The Kolb Cycle
• Cognitive Apprenticeship Model

Concepts and Practises which interested me were the later steps of the Cognitive Apprenticeship Model Methods  -- Articulation, Reflection, Exploration -- and the Sociology considerations of the model.

The latter steps were missing from some of the training I experienced in the past. There was no checking that learning had taken place. The same steps were missing in some of the training I have delivered in the past. I consider this the 'Monkey see, monkey do' effect. It marries well with some of the theories of CAT too, of how we become the people we are.

The first video had a lot of good advice in it about making one's own learning more effective, especially making use of the interactive aspects of this course and exploiting co-operation and competition opportunities. in group working.

I think I need to look at other explanations of the Kolb Cycle. I have covered it in previous learning experiences and it was better explained than in this instance. 

Managing People. Week 1, Parts 12 and 13

This is again a page of my Learning Journal for the Managing People Course.

Something important I have learnt this week, about FutureLearn is:

ALWAYS CLICK ON THE PINK

Kolb Cycle

"The Kolb cycle of learning includes factors of ‘active experimentation’, ‘concrete experience’, ‘reflective observation’ and ‘abstract conceptualisation’." 

 I'm currently engaged in some Cognitive Analytic Therapy and I can see a relationship between some of the ideas and processes in that and in the Kolb cycle.

Ramsey Musallam: 3 rules to spark learning

A fellow learner, Jason Hiscocks, directed us to this video on YouTube. This is a very short version of what is said:

1.  Curiosity Comes First
Questions are windows to instruction. As a teacher, be a cultivator of curiosity. 

2. Embrace the Mess 
Learning is messy. The scientific method boils down to 'trial and error', and should be integral to what we do.

3.  Practise Reflection
Seek to revise what we do for the better, improve on your practise.. One day what we do will save lives.



The Cognitive Apprenticeship Model

This learning model may be helpful when teaching and guiding people. It highlights aspects such as the content, modelling, coaching and scaffolding.

The building blocks are: Content, Methods, Sequencing and Sociology.

Content
The details of what we need to learn.

Methods
1. Modelling
Instructor demonstrates.

2. Coaching 
Apprentice does the work themselves, with help

3. Scaffolding 
Gradually the support is withdrawn.

4. Articulation 
Learner puts learning into words and express that. What have they learned

5. Reflection
What does it mean in context? 

6. Exploration
What else might be needed?


Sequencing
Easy to Hard
General to Specific

Sociology
Situated Learning - Activating Schema, Contextualizing
Culture of Expert Practice - Striving to do your best, keeping good company with other experts.
Exploit Co-operation
Exploit Competition


Perspective Transformation is one of the goals of the course.

Managing People. Week 1. Part 8

Okay, journal entry:

"As a manager, your job is not so much about doing things, but more about getting things done. You are there to ensure that the organisation can achieve its objectives; be they philanthropic, service based or profit-based."

So, leading on from that, I notice it is crucial, essential, to know the organisations objectives. I can see how one of the groups I have been in failed at this base level. The volunteer employees all have differing opinions as to what the objectives of the organisation are, and it is not clear from the documents establishing the organisation what those are. A terrible consequence of this is that the group is almost impossible for anyone to manage.

"You will do this by controlling and coordinating the use of the resources available to the organisation. One of the key resources that needs to be deployed is labour (people’s ability to do work). Labour, however, is very different to all other resources used by organisations as it is delivered by people.

"People are not just an economic commodity but have feelings, values and anxieties. They can think, make decisions and be creative." 

This statement is particularly poignant to me, having suffered under a management regime that failed to acknowledge the human factor. I think it is increasingly common for managers and their bosses to treat their workforce as units of resource rather than people. My cynicism causes me to ask whether there is any real movement towards managing people differently to managing paper bags and delivery trucks. This course suggests that understanding people is key to managing them, but how manipulative do we then get with that knowledge? Hence the title of this blog. . . .

"This course is about engaging people so that we can better realise innate potential."

I have only twice been subjected to management which allowed me to 'realise my innate potential'. I wish to thank my managers from those jobs (Museum Development Manager and Department of Art and Design Head), Alan and Steve respectively, for that. 

Managing People, Week 1, Part 3

Optimising Learning

One of the lessons this week was talking about Activating Schema

Basically this theory says that being reminded of prior knowledge is essential for the compension and assimilation of new knowledge, or in other words 'experience counts'.



(Yet to be completed)

Managing People, Week 1, Part 2

Think about a recent occasion where you feel you learnt a lot about the way people behave at work. . . Describe the situation and what happened. What was it about the experience that made it such an effective learning process?

I work in a number of voluntary organisations. 

One place I work at either 

a) has no appointed task leaders; Instead it has been left to a 'natural selection' process 

or 

b) has task leaders who were appointed because they were the only candidates, no-one else stepped forward

Option A lead to people who were bullies stepping into the leadership roles and pushing others around, under the guises of 'organising' and 'teaching'. One consequence was that people who had huge potential but maybe less experience and confidence felt disenfranchised, and cosequently disengaged and left the organisation.

Option B lead to the organisation being hijacked and de-railed. The people who were 'appointed' hadn't been made to outline their 'vision' and cinsequently the appointed individuals' personal agendas replaced the organisation's original aims and objectives. 


There will always be people who want to lead and people who want to follow. Unfortunately this is not always the same as who should lead and who would make good leaders.




I came to this through Reflecting on things.

Managing People, Week 1, Part 1

This blog is my online Learning Journal, initially associated with the Open University course "Managing People: Engaging Your Workforce".

First thing I have learned on this course is how to use some previously unfamiliar forms of social media

I've also learnt about 'Breakout Dicussions':

MeetUps, and specifically FutureLearn MeetUps.

I also gained notes on using a variety of Social Networks and discovered NeatChat.

These are all new learning, not previously touched upon in other FutureLearn courses I  have done.


Issues in Managing People:

• relating to individuals
• relating to team working
• relating to organisational procedures
• relating to the operating environment

People are not just an economic commodity but have feelings, values and anxieties. They can think, make decisions and be creative . . . People have a huge capacity to amaze, to learn, to be highly productive, to show loyalty, commitment and go the extra mile, to inspire others . . . 

Some environments and some ways of supporting people at work are more engaging than others, and are more likely to allow people to realise their full potential.

My initial response is that there is a serious tension between the aim of 'Getting Things Done' and the idyll of helping people reach their full potential. I also suspect the former takes precedence in the minds of most managers.