Be the Voice of the Irritated Edge!
In his recent (2009) book Designing the Smart Organization author Roland Deiser primarily focuses on learning in the corporate environment. In fact, one of his starting points is the claim that traditional models of education (such as those that happen in classrooms) are too limited in both scope and definition. He overstates his case a bit—he seems to be working with a slightly aged straw man at times, and not looking at the numerous educational initiatives focusing on team work, new technologies, applications in the world, etc.—but his book is still quite useful in several ways.
First, it looks at how education can be reconceived to address numerous arenas that are indeed too often shorted, such as ethical action and incorporating learning into corporate growth and strategies. These are useful, and the attempts made by institutions as different as the U. S. Army and Novartis to learn in more functional ways are exciting in themselves. For the most part, however, they aren’t directly applicable to the work of adjunct faculty (though they are to those who hire and manage them); we are too loosely connected to our institutions, too far from the strategic core, and work with a population
Short URL: http://www.adjunctnation.com/?p=2340
“Learning requires the right kind of irritation;” I like that reflection. I agree that it’s important for instructors to be writers. I bet such contributions to the fieldare more respected by universities. You can be accused of uppity-ness or questioning the glass ceiling because of a desire to write. I’ve added a couple of things to Wikipedia.