Rethinking your Career
Facing redundancy last year my employer at the time did the right thing, offered assistance in CV writing, job search and interviewing skills. What I really needed was the opportunity to rethink my career. The realisation was that when facing such a dramatic change what I really needed was a chance to rethink what it was I really wanted to do and contribute. Fortunately my employer responded. Since then I have met many people who are stuck in their careers and want to rethink....
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Posted: Sunday 30 May 2010
Education for all?
I got chatting to a retired person yesterday and he told me how he had got turned on to university learning in his later years after a trip to Santorini and reading Greek history. He subsequently started studying art history, medieval history, the classics etc, a course a semester. With the changes happening in our universities he said no longer feels welcome. "It is not for me, I no longer contribute to the economy". Is this what education for all is coming to!...
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Posted: Sunday 11 April 2010
Continuing Professional Development - a rethink
This last week I ran a Knowledge Cafe with 14 people drawn from a diverse range of professions, registration boards, large employers and educators. The proposition was that professional education and continuing professional development is in need of a radical rethink. To frame the discussion I identified 9 challenges...
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Posted: Saturday 27 March 2010
Reflective Practice and Peer Facilitated Learning
Over the past few weeks I have been thinking about reflective practice. It has become a mantra in professional and educational circles. Recent writing argues that there is no longer such a thing as the autonomous professional, if ever there was. Practice always occurs in a social context and involves others. Rather than reflection being an individual pursuit I would suggest it should be group based and even interdisciplinary. My experience of peer learning groups would support this....
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Posted: Sunday 21 March 2010
Social Work Reform
The UK Social Work Task Force has recently undertaken a comprehensive review of frontline social work practice and education. They made 15 recommendations in their Nov 2009 report. Last week I presented a summary of the task forces conclusions at the University of Canterbury social work alumni meeting. The findings and the proposed reforms resonated for those present and generated a lot of discussion. Attached is the 2 page summary I prepared plus some observations on social work in New Zealand....
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Posted: Saturday 27 February 2010
International interest in stakeholder engagement
I was asked to speak with a group of 16 Vice Chancellors from Yunnan Province in China. Such was the interest in the first topic- Stakeholder Engagement I ended up having a highly stimulating 2 hour lecture and discussion. This continued the next night at the banquet. They had many questions. The main issues were how to develop relationships with industry and what they called "society" and how to ensure their courses were relevant to industry when curricula was determined centrally...
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Posted: Saturday 20 February 2010
