Timing: Allow 180 minutes for this activity
Part 1
Think about your own experiences of learning, whether on this programme or at any other time. Have you ever personally experienced resistance to course content or approach, or to the teachers and facilitators? Based on this experience, note down your answers to the following questions:
- a.What were the circumstances of this resistance? Can you associate it with a particular type of course, a particular delivery method, or a particular style of teaching?
- b.What does your resistance reveal about your taken-for-granted assumptions about learning, including the role of the student and the role of the teacher?
- c.Write down the various ways in which resistance manifests for you: are these all private manifestations (i.e. thoughts and feelings), or are there external signals that might reveal your resistance to others?
- d.Do your experiences map onto the classification proposed by Prasad and Prasad (1998), or are there other ways in which resistance within a learning context can manifest for you?
- e.Are there any ways in which your experience of resistance makes sense as a challenge to identity?
Part 2
Read ‘Resistance and struggle in leadership development’ (Carroll and Nicholson, 2014), which is also available in your printed Reader. Write down your reactions to the learning approach discussed in this paper. Refer back to the three levels of resistance management diagram (Figure 4.8), and critically evaluate Carroll and Nicholson’s approach as an example of level 3.
Part 3
When you have completed your personal reflections and the reading, go to the TGF where your tutor will have started a thread for this activity. Be prepared to share some of your own reflections on resistance, and to discuss how they might be used constructively when planning and designing learning and talent development programmes for others. You will also be prompted for your reactions to the Carroll and Nicholson (2014) paper, including whether you empathised with any of the learner resistance being reported, and whether you agreed with the facilitators’ responses to it.
This TGF encourages you to use your reflections on your own experiences as a ‘tool’ for designing HRD interventions for others.
Your tutor will provide feedback for this activity in the TGF.
