Transcript Title With Picture Layout

HULL UNIVERSITY
Learning and Teaching Conference 2015
I.Pownall
C.Hookham Williams
Content
 Introduction
 Threshold concepts
 Leadership as a threshold concept
 Residential Experiences
 The residential experience as a mode for securing leadership threshold
 Example for the current HUBS final year framework
 Problems and uncertainties
Threshold Concepts
Define disciplinary boundaries
Troublesome to grasp
Are integrative and require
application
Result in a permanent shift in
understanding
Require changes in behaviour
and practice
Threshold concepts in Business,
Management and Economics
Leadership and Leadership Practice
 Proposed as a threshold concept
 Yip & Raelin (2011). Hawkins & Edwards (2013)
 Highly relevant focus for the Business School
 The study of leadership is insufficient to secure an expectation of becoming a
leader
 Cognitive understanding impacts and shapes its practice
 Transformative learning typical of threshold concepts occurs in ‘provoked’ learning environments
(Land, 2011)
 Challenging environments require learners to confront doubt and uncertainty
 Learners engaging with appropriate language and behaviour – indicative of transformative learning
(Meyer & Land, 2005)
 Leadership – foci on situational and shared leadership
 Socially situated action learning (Yip & Raelin, 2011)
Residential Experience Mode- drivers
 Non classroom based learning directly challenges ritualised learning and student
expectations (Meyer & Land, 2005)
 Residential experiences
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Are ‘provocative’
Are typical of larger change management initiatives in organisations
Build and reshape the relationships between the learner and their environment
Can service multiple module learning outcomes
Offer higher levels of permanency of learning
Help support retention of students
Support identity development of learners
Illustrate the practical and real application of skills and knowledge
Indirect benefits
Residential Experience Mode-resistors
 Financial Cost
 Resource implications
 Uncertainties:
 Yip & Raelin (2011) – focused upon postgraduate studies – threshold applicable to UG students?
 Are educators who have internalized threshold understanding able to enable learners with those
same difficulties?
 Should only nascent practitioners be employed?
 What alignment is needed between ILOs and Threshold concepts?
 What measures can be developed to locate a learner on their journey through this threshold
concept?
 Are there better modes of delivery and platforms for enabling engagement with threshold concepts
(such as residential experiences)?
Developmental Action
Mode
Learning (MBA)
Goal: Students examine
perspectives of leadership
Classroom learning (UG)
diverse Goal: Students examine
perspectives of leadership
Residential Learning (UG)
diverse Goal: Students examine
perspectives of leadership
Process: Students deploy and enact
new perspectives through class
experimentation and within their own
organisations
Process: Students deploy new
perspectives and enact through class
experimentation and within exemplar
organisations / case studies
Reflection: Integration of theory and
practice through student designed, led
and implemented project in their
workplace – followed by reflection
Reflection: Reflection and discussion
of the potential merits and
weaknesses of alternative solutions
and approaches to student identified
leadership projects
diverse
Process: Students deploy new
perspectives through experimentation
and within exemplar organisations /
case studies in challenging new
professional learning environment.
Professionalisation of language and
behaviour.
Reflection: Reflection and discussion
of the potential merits and
weaknesses of alternative solutions
and approaches to student identified
leadership projects in an immersive
and professionally enabled learning
environment
‘Current’ Proposal
 ‘Leadership’ - a common exit theme across approx.75% of final year HUBS UG
modules
 Pilot model – from HUBS @ Scarborough
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Weekend conference event
Pre departure expectations
Case Studies of leading change management in a number of organisations*
External speakers and guest consultants – comment and advise
Post event reflection
 Develop final year UG experience – across the School through C2016/2016+
* Follows from work in Strategic Management: Synoptic Assessments
References cited
Hawkins B. and Edwards, G., (2013),’Managing the monsters of
doubt: Liminality, threshold concepts and leadership learning’,
Management Learning, DOI: 10.1177/1350507613501736
Land, R.,(2011), There could be trouble ahead: using threshold
concepts as a tool of analysis, International Journal for Academic
Development , 16(2), 175-178, DOI:10.1080/1360144X.2011.568747
Meyer, J.H.F. and Land, R.,(2005),Threshold concepts and
troublesome knowledge(2):Epistemological considerations and a
conceptual framework for teaching and learning, Higher Education,
49, 323-388, DOI: 10.1007/s10734-004-6779-5
Yip J. And Raelin J.A.,(2011),Threshold concepts and modalities for
teaching leadership practice, Management Learning, 43(3), 333354.DOI 10.1177/1350507611422476