Playing with Film 2: Philm & Farmacy | PechaKucha Presentations

Playing with Film 2: Philm & Farmacy | PechaKucha Presentations

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The Last Post on HRD, a Reflection

The questions/topics:

1) When I felt most engaged in the learning experience and why.

2) When I felt most distanced from the learning experience and why.

3) What I learned about myself that can be applied to my life and why.

4) How I judge my best work (criteria) and why.

5) If I were to select the one single thing that represents my best work in the course at this moment, it would be .

6) Additional personal learning needs that I have identified as a result of the learning experience and how I will go about meeting them (personal learning strategies.)

At the beginning of the semester, I was new to the field of HRD--Human Resource Development. In this class, not only did I learn about HRD, but I also learned about teaching an intensive class to adults.

1)When I felt most engaged in the learning experience and why - I cannot single out one day that I didn't feel engaged in this class. Perhaps that IS what happens when three situations meet: A)the student (me) has decided to learn the subject, B)the teacher is well prepared, loves the subject—if she doesn't, she deserves an Academy Award—and makes the subject easy to digest, and C)the classmates are supportive and contribute a lot of real-life examples to what is discussed.

The class activities were perhaps the most engaging moments of this class, not just the discussion, but also the presentation of discussion results to the rest of the class. Another moment in which I believe I felt more engaged was when we had the 3-guest panel, because it looked like they were having fun and felt comfortable talking about their job.

2)When I felt most distanced from the learning experience and why – As mentioned above, I cannot mention a moment in which I didn't feel engaged. Perhaps the only time in which I felt I learned the least was while reading “The New Protean Career,” (the first chapter of Hall, D. T. (1996). The career is dead - long live the career: A relational approach to careers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ), not because the reading was bad, but because it made me uncomfortable to think that the predictions of this article are today's reality. Jobs do not last as long as they did before. This prompted in me a chain of thoughts that made me lose focus by the end of the article.

3)What I learned about myself that can be applied to my life and why – I can say that with this class, I have learned a new vocabulary, an overview of the history of Human Resource Development, and a better idea of how organizations train their employees. I believe that as a result, I will read job descriptions with a different mindset and will be able to ask better questions when I interview for a job. Also, I am seriously contemplating the idea of getting a master's degree, or at least a certificate either in Adult Education or HRD in the future.

I also learned that it is important to reflect after each class, because I wrote a few blog posts during the semester and they have helped me a great deal while writing this reflection. The reflection right after class and the reflection after the semester ends are two different brain activities, but both reflections are necessary to evaluate what we have learned in the course. At this point I feel that what I'm actually doing is a triple reflection, or a meta-reflection, which is something I have not done in many other classes.

Another point I learned about myself is that I do not completely follow ideas of theory X or Y, and that it is alright.

4)How I judge my best work (criteria) and why – The best work in a class is when the work done is original and provides new ideas to other students about a field. Since I was new to HRD, most of what I did in this class was original to me, but if something is original to me and the class, then it is worthy.

5)If I were to select the one single thing that represents my best work in the course at this moment, it would be – Perhaps my best work is the field interview. I believe that I was very lucky to be able to talk to Bob Huebner, because 1)I had to apply what I had read for class and after the interview everything that did not make sense before became clear; 2)because Mr. Huebner was very accessible and enthusiastic about his job, and 3)his answers gave me a good perspective of what a chief learning officer does. After this interview, I feel confident to be able to talk to HRD and HR professionals to learn from them. But more important, I feel that I can do this type of job in the future.

6)Additional personal learning needs that I have identified as a result of the learning experience and how I will go about meeting them (personal learning strategies.) – The first point I need to mention here is that I need to learn more about social and group learning theory. Most of my classmates knew already about this topic and I felt a little jealous. The second one point is that if I take another Adult Education class, I will keep a blog and add a post after each class, and maybe add a post after every three classes or so, to have a better perspective on what I learn.

I have taken three classes in the Adult Education Department, and this was by far the class where students participated the most and I felt more comfortable making mistakes or talking about my own experience.

Thanks, Dr. Robin Hurst, for a great class.

Schorlars and Practitioners

Class #6

For this class, we read and discussed articles that deal with the differences between scholars and practitioners. I believe that there is not that much difference between HRD and other disciplines/practices when it comes to the theory and the practice. In most cases, there are only a few individuals that can do both, practice and theorize about it, or vice versa. I think that publishing ideas and theories can be done not only using scholarly journals, but also conferences, trade magazines, and newspapers. Another way to publish is by sharing these ideas using social media.

There was a great discussion in class, but I was very, very tired.

McGregor's The Human Side of Enterprise

Class #5

For this class, we had to write a response paper on two chapters from "The Human Side of Enterprise" by Douglas McGregor (Wikepedia page). We also talked about McGregor and Weisbord--the textbook.

McGregor discusses what he calls "Theory X" and "Theory Y," which are the assumptions we have about people and work. When we follow Theory X, we assume for instance that people do not want to work because working is a punishment. This is the old style of thinking of work and workers.  I see it as a more paternalistic way. 

This is Theory X:

1.The average human being has an inherent dislike of work and will avoid it if he can.
2. Because of this human characteristic of dislike ofwork, most people must be coerced, controlled, directed, threatened with punishment to get them to put forth adequate effort toward the achievement of organizational objectives.
3. The average human being prefers to be directed, wishes to avoid responsibility, has relatively little ambition, wants security above all.

While Theory Y refers to the assumption that people can be developed. Basically, McGregor is following Maslow and his ideas of self-actualization.  This is Theory Y:

1. The expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play or rest. The average human being does not inherently dislike work. Depending upon controllable conditions, work may be a source of satisfaction (and will be voluntarily performed) or a source of punishment (and will be avoided if possible).
2. External control and the threat of punishment are not the only means for bringing about effort toward organizational objectives. Man will exercise self-direction and self-control in the service of objectives to which he is committed.
3. Commitment to objectives is a function ofthe rewards associated with their achievement.' The most significant ofsuch rewards, e.g., the satisfaction ofego and self-actualization needs, can be direct products of effort directed toward organizational objectives.
4.The average human being learns, under proper conditions, not only to accept but to seek responsibility. Avoidance of responsibility, lack ofambition, and emphasis on security are generally consequences ofexperience, not inherent human characteristics .

5.The capacity to exercise a relatively high degree o/imagination, ingenuity, and creativity in the solution 0/organizational problems is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population.
6.Under the conditions of modern industrial life, the intellectual potentialities o/the average human being are only partially utilized.

 Reference: McGregor, D. (2006). The Human Side of Enterprise. (Annotated Edition). New York: McGraw-Hill.

When I read McGregor, I thought that I was kind of crazy because I felt that in some cases I was more Theory X than Y. Weisbord comments that most of us have some Theory X and some Theory Y inside. In the same way each one of us has inside a good and a bad person, we all have some Theory X and some Y inside. It is not a bad idea to accept that we have two faces like Janus, the two-faced Roman god.

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In this class, we also had a three guests who talked to us about HRD. It was great to hear them. 

Kurt Lewin and Groups

Class #4

In this class we talked about Kurt Lewin, who was one of the most important social psychologists and created a lot of terms and concepts that are part of the lexicon now. For example: group dynamics, running meetings, the idea of providing feedback when doing group research, action research, the "unfreeze, move, and refreeze" model of research. In my opinion, his ability to create a visual (a drawing) to develop a theory of what was going on with the groups he was observing was one of the best techniques and pieces of information on Kurt Lewin. Drawing allows us to observe, think, summarize, symbolize, and isolate problems. It also let us think (or dream?) of solutions for those problems. Since Lewin was the grandfather of the flip chart, I believe drawing and charts should describe Lewin more accurate than just group dynamics, for example.

 One point the class didn't mention--at least, I don't remember--is the fact that Kurt Lewin had a very strong idea of family. First, when he refused to teach in Germany during the Nazi regime, he argued that he would not teach where his children were not welcomed. Second, in at least one of the drawings he sees the groups as two families: the husband's family and the wife's family. When we work, our co-workers become our family (this idea has been mentioned several times in class). I believe I like more Kurt Lewin's ideas and contributions to the social sciences than Frederick Taylor's contributions.

We also formed groups and chose topics for the group presentations we well have at the end of the semester. It was fun! And I suspect that the process was part of the Kurt Lewin's contributions.

HRD: Taylor and Ford

HRD Class #3 Taylor, Ford, and the Scientific Management

After reading about 70 pages on scientific management and Taylor, discussing Taylor's contributions and legacy, we watched two videos on Henry Ford and Frederick Taylor.
Here is one of them: 




Ford and Taylor in the 1920s part one

Taylor helped Ford to speed up production of automobiles. He broke the process of building a car into smaller process, then timed each small process. I believe these two men are very important to understand the American culture of the 20th century, but they're also key on understanding businesses in general.
When we were watching this video, I was thinking about how the workers were able to work with their hands, go back home to rest, and then go back to work the next day. I believe that I would like to have a similar job: do all my work at the office, go back home and don't think about it. In the video, some workers mentioned that they loved the job. I don't know if I would say the same. Basically, they were working like the machines they operated. I would have probably lasted only a year, two the most in a similar job. What I like about my current job as a Spanish instructor is that every day is different. Even if I had taught the same lesson a hundred times, the students and the outcome may be different each semester and in every class.

We also did presentations. They were very good. It looks like everybody found excellent, interesting materials to discuss in class.

Reflection

HRD Class #2 of the semester: 29 - June - 2012

There is something very clear to me in the readings for this class: reflection was part of some of the articles. I see the author reflecting on the name of this practice and field of research as well as the identity of Human Resource Development. I believe it is important to reflect on the history and identity of your own practice, because this also tells me of the character needed to become part of this community, or at least understand it.

We had to discuss the following in groups: some recent HRD trends. I love how my group agreed with me on the issue of reflection. Perhaps we spent too much time talking about the tone of the articles, more perhaps than the time we spent deciding what our answer was going to be.

The photo that I have included here is of one of the buildings we were able to see from the corner where our team was discussing the articles we read. I believe that getting out of the classroom and being able to see buildings, windows, the sky, etc., break the rhythm of the class in a good way. After these discussion outside of the classroom, I have more energy to keep going.

I have to say that after listening to my classmate who is also a librarian, I now would like to work for her.