Portfolios: Portraits of Our Professional Lives

This article aims to explore how occupational therapists might demonstrate their continuing competence to practise in the light of new regulatory requirements. The capacity of therapists to fulfil their obligations depends on a number of factors, including their ability to reflect on practice in a critical way, their commitment to learning and their desire for personal and professional growth.

Portfolio development is likely to be the means by which therapists demonstrate their efforts to remain competent. Portfolios will become the canvas on which personal, professional and career initiatives are displayed as evidence of continuing professional development. A review of the literature supports an exploration of these various themes.

Narrative

This article reviews one current concept of experiential learning, using the work of David Kolb as an exemplar of this genre of learning theory. Working from a relational or social constructionist perspective, the article suggests that there are three problematic assumptions within current experiential learning cycles. First, there is a realist treatment of world and events. Second, a distinct and independent individual is assumed to be able to experience, know and act on this real world. Third, cognition, be it in the form of knowledge, interpretation or perception, is treated as the unproblematic precursor to action. In contrast to these assumptions relational premises invite multiple narratives to replace ‘concrete experience’, social rather than individual action and coordination with others in contrast with adaptation to a real world. These alternative premises form the basis of an alternative, narrative reflective cycle that is argued to offer practical reflective ‘tools’ that would be of benefit, even if the reflector did not share the author’s relational constructionist assumptions.

The Organization in Balance

Two complementary processes that are important in learning within organizations, namely reflection and intuition, are analysed. This includes the introduction of a phase model for reflection. Intuition is examined using concepts borrowed from transpersonal psychology. Within this context, the work of Maslow is discussed and related to Wilber’s ideas about the higher stages of human consciousness. Our society places considerable emphasis on rationality and efficiency, which means that reflection often receives more attention than intuition. Both are important, however, and the author argues that in the end it is a question of integrating the reflective and intuitive processes. A concrete method useful for supporting that process is described.

Public Reflection as the Basis of Learning

It is through public reflection that we may create a collective identity as a community of inquiry. But how does public reflection differ from introspection, and how does it contribute to self and organizational learning? In this article, the author uncovers the many traditions which constitute the process of critical reflective practice, as may be practiced as part of a project-based learning experience. After defining the concept, the article illustrates why reflection is fundamental to learning and how it can be brought out in the company of trusted others through dialogue. The article goes on to illuminate the relationships between public reflection and the common good, experience, and time, as well as to characterize the skills associated with reflective practice.

Intergenerational Learning

This article challenges the normative vocabulary of organizational learning that emphasizes the unilateral transfer of knowledge from experts to less experienced personnel for effective organizational learning. It draws on research into learning in the UK television industry. Concepts such as `expert', `wisdom', and `knowledge worker' imply that experienced workers are more knowledgeable and, thus, more valuable to learning than the novice. However, this assumption may be fundamentally flawed. In practice, such language and its associated power structures may impede upward and horizontal learning to the detriment of organizational learning. Giving primacy to the expert ignores the rapidly shifting definition of who the knowledge-rich are in times of discontinuous change; deters reciprocal intergenerational learning between those who have different hierarchical positions and experience levels associated with varying levels of knowledgeability; and excludes certain categories of workers from the organizational learning process. This article suggests that the egalitarian approach to organizational learning advocated by some theorists requires the development of a more inclusive learning vocabulary.

Method or Madness

This article reviews the research method of phenomenology and its use in understanding human experience. This is conceptualized in the context of a research study performed with nine participants and their experience of finding their “calling.” Their experiences are used as the medium through which Husserl's method is explored. Questions and concerns about this alternative and nontraditional approach to creating and understanding new social knowledge are considered. Reflexivity and the researcher's psychological integrity in application of the method are explored.

Contrary Prescriptions: Recognizing Good Practice Tensions in Management

This paper is concerned with rethinking the notion of ‘good management practice’. It explicates a way of framing management theory in terms of tensions between apparently contradictory pieces of good practice advice. The relevance of this, as a practical conceptualization that could usefully inform managers about the kinds of considerations they might take account of in both their day to day and longer term management thinking, is explored. The emerging theoretical framework is elaborated in terms of some characteristics of, and language about, tensions together with possible levels of use of the concept to inform practice. It is suggested that the use of the approach necessarily implies a view of the user as a reflective practitioner.

Work Worth Doing

What is the meaning of our work? How do we find the work that is ours, work that is worth doing for us as individuals? This study attempted to answer these questions in understanding the experience of discovering one’s calling. It was undertaken with a group of professionals who work in areas serving the natural environment and used phenomenology to penetrate and apprehend the six themes of their experience. This article helps understand the meaning of their calling in its experiential components and offers support for its relevance in organizational life. Pseudonyms have been employed in this writing.

Macro practice teaching and curriculum development from an evidence-based perspective

This article contributes to the discourse around evidence-based practice (EBP) as an organizing principle and guiding framework for macro-practice education as it has developed in the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. In examining the first five years of implementing evidence-based education at the macro level, some lessons learned are provided. This learning has opened the door for continuing the dialogue on surmounting the challenges around training macro social workers in evidence-based practices. The overarching challenge in integrating EBP into the curriculum lies in the complexity of the multi-dimensional conceptualization of evidence.