Tag Archives: ideas

Schön’s concepts

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(Activity 3.7 based on Chapter 1, Blackmore (ed) (2010))

I have heard of Schön before.  Mostly in connection with his work on reflective practice and also from his work with Argyris on learning (Ramage and Shipp, 2009).  I had not really come across his work on change where he uses ideas connected with social learning.  He is included in the course as one of the ‘early’ works on social learning systems – the chapter in the book was written in 1973.

After reading the Chapter, I come away with the following understanding of Schön’s key concepts

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Ison-isms!

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I have now submitted my assignment and should be moving on from Part 2 to Part 3 of TU812, I’m quite reluctant to do so because I feel as if there is so much I haven’t got straight yet.  There was so much to get a handle on in that part of the course and I kind of fear that it is all going to fade away.

But I also want to acknowledge the fact that I am leaving the part of the course that Ray Ison has been the lead author – not just the study guide but his course text too.  I guess he is now a formal part of my Systems lineage and I want to take stock of what I ‘inherit’.  I have covered all the big stuff – like the practice dynamic, the juggler and various academic concepts – in other posts in this blog.  But there is something more I want to take with me – a few choice phrases that capture for me some of the spirit and principles of systems thinking and practice.

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Getting to know the B-ball: Being

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(Activity 2.28 based on Chapter 5, Ison (2010))

The B-ball is for Being.  Ison (2010, 58) says it

“symbolises the attributes of Being a practitioner with a particular tradition of understanding”.

To me it entails touching base with the relationship I (the practitioner) have with my framework of ideas.  Those ideas are grounded in my experiences to date – experiences that have come from my history. Continue reading →

What is practice anyway?

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My first routine use of the word “practice” was when I had piano lessons as a kid.  Practice was about repetition – playing the same pieces again and again until somehow they became easier to do.  My husband is currently studying the OU’s Beginner’s French course – there seems to be a lot of practice in that – partly the motor skills of pronunciation but again lots of repetition until it ‘goes in’.  So I suppose at its most basic level, the word “practice” is about becoming much more familiar with doing something so that it becomes a more natural part of your skill set.  I think that one of the reasons I have chosen to study Systems Practice is so that I can practice it – to keep using it so it is a much more natural part of the way I think and do. Continue reading →

Changing practice

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It’s funny how things go in circles:

– my blog on ‘Elevator pitch‘ kickstarted a thread in TU812 course cafe forum about introducing new things into an organisation.  Another student commented there about the cultural receptiveness to change.

– my blog on ‘Change‘ kickstarted a thread in Systems Place about innovation.

These two threads reminded me of something I covered in B822 Creativity, Innovation and Change. Continue reading →

A practice performance

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(TU812 SAQ 1.1)

Practice is a performance, each performance relies on a combination of four elements unique to the context:

Firstly, there is the practitioner – the individual with their mix of knowledge, experience and skills.

Secondly, the situation that the practitioner is working in.

Thirdly, the framework of ideas or theories held by the practitioner

and

Fourthly, the method used by the practitioner as they go about doing what they do.

On becoming a practitioner

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I have been reading and finding out about systems stuff for ages.  Going way back – maybe I’ll cover that one day.  Now I am part way through a postgraduate diploma in Systems Practice with the Open University.  This blog is adapted from a post I did to the student forum early in the first module….

In the beginning, we did lots of reading (interspersed with the odd ‘practice’ activity that you can get away with doing half-heartedly). The reading was interesting and I learned a lot about what systems thinking is; how it applies to strategy making; the lives and works of key historic thinkers; the importance of tools and so on.

Then the first assignment came along and told us to do systems thinking for real – or at least practice it. Continue reading →